casapete

Looks like an interesting Motown evening on BBC2 tonight, starting with Lamont Dozier at 9pm, followed by ‘When Motown came to Britain’ at 10pm and then Marvin Gaye ‘Live in Montreux’ at 11pm.

A few years back I broke my shoulder quite badly, and couldn’t play bass guitar for a while. (A worrying time for me as I play for a living and my partner was struggling with her job too.) My band at the time allowed me to play our gigs for about a 3 month period using a Roland keyboard (which I purchased on here) for bass duties and could manage with my good arm/hand. As I also couldn’t drive it was quite a nice change, being able to enjoy the hospitality on gigs and all without a bass round my neck, strangely liberating. Then gradually moved on to a light short scale bass for a while before getting back to my Stingray, and being sober again!

Tonight on Sky Arts they are showing some great Roy Orbison stuff, including ‘A Black and White Night’ which is sublime. Starts at 7pm.

I’ve played Fenders for over 40 years, and they remain my favourite electric basses. Ibanez stuff rarely appeals to me for some reason - probably due to their aesthetics as I’m sure they make fine instruments. Quite like the retro Talman electrics, but can’t see me deviating from Fender. However! I really love my little Ibanez short scale acoustic electric. It’s the PNB14E model, and is a superb little bass, especially for the price. I tend to use it for most of my acoustic duo stuff now, which puts my big old Washburn AB20 out to grass for the foreseeable I think.

Just in from my monthly acoustic duo gig at a pub in West Hull. Due to illness we couldn’t do our November gig, so this was our first one for a while. It was absolutely slinging it down when I was going out, and thought the lousy weather would impact upon the number of punters. Got there at 7.30pm to find the room full, with booked tables and some people willing to stand all night too. Am guessing that a lot of folk just wanted to get out after a couple of days of family stuff over Christmas. The evening is based on requests, and we’ve never had so many. Managed most of them, although despite trying to get my head around ‘Ghost Town’ in the car on my way there, thankfully nobody actually requested it. Plenty of other good song requests though, including an older lady who loves Toto, so we attempted ‘Africa’ for her and she didn’t leave so think we got away with it. Had a couple of enquiries for private gigs during the evening too, so all in all a good night. Next one is on Friday at a nice pub just outside Sheffield, so if it goes pretty much like tonight we’ll be well happy.

Nowt in or out this year - first for a long while. Must try harder. (Largely down to recovering from a drop in earnings due to Covid methinks.) 🙁

In my acoustic duo we use it for all the parts, be it lyrics and / or chord sheets etc. As a lot of the gigs we do are based on audience requests - we have a lot of stuff on there, I reckon in the 1000’s. We can usually remember the song’s formats, but the lyrics are usually where we need help so have an iPad each and use a pedal to scroll through them both simultaneously. ( We keep the iPads fairly low down so as not to be obtrusive, and nobody has ever complained. Works really well!)

I have a Rumble 100 too, and absolutely love it. As you say though, loud drummers are just a bit too much for it, but I’m guessing the 200 or definitely the 500 versions would do the job.

I’m in Scarborough at a hotel, as part of a 4 piece band. Not the same one we’ve done for the last few years, so will be good to have a change of venue and audience. Arrive 7.30pm, finish around 12.30am then hopefully home by 2am. Always worked NYE for many years with no problems, and means I can watch Hootenanny the next day - I’m one of the few people on here who actually enjoy it. Happy New Year everyone! 😊

I should have said that we use it for set lists and also parts/words for hundreds of songs. With my main band I find that a paper set list is best for me - these days written using a black Sharpie and with the keys on each song, as some days I can’t remember them to save my life.

We use forScore with no problems in my acoustic duo.

I’ve been good this year, so Santa can bring me that stunning red 66 Precision please.

The Specials IOW gig was on before the Police doc. I think it’s also being shown on Boxing Day, but at 4.35 A.M. !!

Reminds me of a keyboard player I know who used to play for strict tempo dance classes. Tired of being admonished by the participants, he introduced a waltz and asked - ''How do want this one then, too fast or too slow?'' 😅

PM sent.

And that is just one of the reasons I dislike ‘silent stages’ / bands using IEM’s !

Reasons I prefer a Precision - They sound just ‘right’ in most group environments. They rarely get interference from the split coil pickup. The body shape means they are easy to put on a stand. Simplicity is a large part of their appeal - one vol / one tone control. Still one of the coolest basses ever. Reasons I have a Jazz - Slimmer neck gives an alternative / at times easier feel for some gigs. Two pickups allow for more variety of sounds if required. Reasons I use a Precision Lyte PJ for my main gigs - Weight, or rather the lack of it. Variety of sound - although with the blend control set flat the P pickup generally dominates the mix, it’s nice to add a bit of J pickup occasionally for some songs where a bit of ‘honk’ is needed.

But what a marvellous wall of sound it is, my favourite of all the main festive tunes despite it having a kids choir going on towards the end. Saw Roy Wood do it live a few years ago with his rock n roll band and he made it sound just as fresh as when he first recorded it.

We found doing one in each set did the trick. ( Usually did 2x60 min sets.) Rest of our stuff was well known mix of tunes so people would be dancing most of the time.

When I was in a function band, we’d trot out the Wizzard and Slade offerings at all our Christmas bookings. As most of them were corporate parties I’m pretty sure we’d not have got rebooked for the following year if we didn’t do something festive. Left it to the DJ to do any more if they wanted them - we sadly never attempted ‘Fairytale of NY’ due to not having a female vocalist, although I’m sure it can be got round.

Yup, me too. After being nearly a lifelong fan of Bruce Springsteen, I’m disgusted with tickets for his UK dates next year being sold via Ticketmaster using their ‘Dynamic pricing’ system. He’s getting flak from fans in other countries too, but as long as the faithful don’t mind paying upwards of £500 a ticket then it will no doubt continue. Sheer madness. Good on Paul Heaton and Jackie Abbot who pegged the prices on their tour dates to £35, and Peter Kay who I believe is doing something similar.

Totally agree regarding seeing bands in smaller more local venues rather than massive stadiums (stadia?!) you have to travel a long way to. But what really brasses me off is that the ticket price doesn’t reflect this - you would think that playing to say 10,000 people at a time the price would be less than to the people in 5 x 2000 seater venues spread out over the country. I know I’d feel more inclined to pay more for the smaller gigs than getting ripped off in a large gig where you can be miles from the stage and have to watch the gig on big screens to see anything. So long as people are prepared to see their idols in this environment then crazy ticket prices will remain. I refuse to buy into this now, and am disgusted by the way some bands treat their fans. (Apologies, my grumpy old man hat is now off too.) 😁

Interesting article in the ipaper yesterday by Grace Causden all about money earned from writing and/or recording Christmas tunes. Mariah Carey has reportedly earned more than £60m from ‘All I want for Christmas is you’ since it’s release in 1994, more than £2m a year. Other honourable mentions - Slade’s ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ - about £1m royalties a year Pogues hit with Kirsty McColl ‘Fairytale of New York’ - circa £400,000 a year Bing Crosby, ‘White Christmas’ - £328,000 a year Wham! ‘Last Christmas’ £300,000 a year Sir Paul McCartney - ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ £260,000 a year Jona Lewie ‘Stop the cavalry’ - £120,000 a year East 17 ‘Stay another day’ - £97,000 Time to get writing that everlasting Xmas belter eh?

My least favourite Christmas song, and video 😆 In my old band we often used to do Wizzard’s ‘I wish it could be Christmas every day’ and always enjoyed playing it. Great song for drunken folk to dance to as well.

Pretty handy on most American cars too.