HengistPod

Current band is set up the same way as most bands I've been in have been - totally democratic (at least on the surface - let's ignore past closet-narcissist guitarists for now ). Songs get thrown into the whatsapp group, most are ignored. Any that everyone is happy with gets given a go at the next rehearsal. Some of those are obvious keepers, some we agree to go off and try again next time when we've learned our parts better, some are quietly forgotten about. (Sometimes we'll all agree on something and it gets quietly forgotten about after we all go off to listen to our parts and realise the realities. ) We don't play songs we don't enjoy playing - we don't intend to whore ourselves out with all the lowest common denomiinator material so many others already do - and so there are basic rules. No Bon Jovi, no Oasis, no Nirvana, no Bryan Adams, no Enter Sandman, Sex On Fire, Don't Stop Believing, Dakota etc. Every other band does that stuff and good luck to them. If anyone says "I really don't fancy that" to anything it gets dropped without question and that's the end of it. As a cover band, there are plenty more tunes out there. On this principle, and over the last year, we've moulded a set that we're all happy with and that we think will offer local venues something slightly different whilst avoiding being too niche. Just working on a couple of reserve tunes now and the show will be on the road with gigs waiting. About bloody time, too.

Last band I was in that I left (to go and do a PhD), they got another guy in who completely changed the way the band sounded. Nice bloke, but a guitarist really - as was obvious in his playing style. Not more notes, not higher up the neck, just a lack of understanding of what the bass is there to do. We'd been doing quite well, playing all over the north of Scotland from Ullapool to Tobermory to Dundee, regularly 2-3 gigs a weekend. They folded within a few months.

I recall Mr Perry Farrell, he of Jane's Addiction, getting his lad out at the Astoria in London around the time of their 2nd album. It wasn't an impressive weapon, leaving one wondering who exactly he thought would be impressed. I had a drummer once - about 1992 - who was fond of showing everyone his bottom, particularly in venues that needed a bit of encouragement. British Legions and the like, you understand. This in the days when drummers were the sort of chaps who thought this kind of behaviour was actually quite polite, whilst having no idea what a paradiddle was. Someone even thought to capture such a moment on camera ...

I'm currently in a similar space to the OP ... I put an awful lot of effort into the last band I was in (photos, videos, designed logos, made the backdrop by hand, thanking gigs on FB, creating and sending out posters, buying lights and PA, and investing in new gear for myself) only to be kicked out on the say-so of one little strumpet who pulled all our gigs at her pub because I had a disagreement with her (non-band, and not in the context of the band at all). The guys sided with the ratbag landlady rather than telling her to stick her (half fee) gigs. This shocked me somewhat, having thought that they were among my best and most trusty mates- and I've kind of lost faith in the whole thing now. But I do have a couple of guys who've asked me to contribute to originals, so we'll see how that goes. Not retired entirely just yet ... but I can't see me getting involved in the local covers band scene again.

I use an AKG system, with the receiver on top of my cabinet. I only use a compressor pedal, effects-wise, so that's up there too. Transmitter lives on my strap, with the battery cover consisting of gaffer tape. Usually the battery doesn't fall out.

Not quite ... if the buyer is returning because he's decided he doesn't want it then he has to pay postage. He has to submit a "return request" first, which you can refuse. If, however, he is a little poo who has decided he doesn't want it but claims falsely that it's "faulty" or "not as described", then the seller has to pay for - and arrange - return shipping. You can offer alternatives like a partial refund to get a set-up done but, if the buyer is insistent, you have no option but to accept and pay for the return.

Makes absolutely no difference. I sold a headless retrovibe bass to a guy on fleabay who was absolutely delighted that he'd won it. Sent it off, he received it, next thing he's opened an eBay dispute case saying it had sharp edges on the frets - so wasn't as described, and he'd cut his hand playing it. He wanted a refund. I argued for a bit, but after taking advice I just had to suck it up - plus I had to pay for the return shipping. I assumed in my innocence that it's got damaged in transit. As you may have guessed, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the bass when I got it back - the frets were dressed perfectly with not a sharp edge in sight. It was in perfect condition. The guy had just changed his mind when he got his hands on it. Moral = eBay will ALWAYS side with the buyer in such cases. You just need to have the brass neck required to tell bare-faced lies when you decide you don't want something you've bought after all.

I got in trouble for speaking to a girly I recognised dancing a couple of gigs ago, between songs. There was much frowning. It was literally a four sentence quick "hi, how you doing?" exchange, which I thought was good punter engagement - but I felt uncomfortable for the rest of the gig and clocked every glance shared between the other guys. I thought to myself, "this may not last much longer ...".

Guy from Gojira? Not a patch on classic-era Pete Way, though probably - OK, undoubtedly - got far less drugs in him. Most of these metal bands project an image of being a bit cross about something, which I don't find much fun. I like my rock stars cooked the traditional way - drunk, stoned, grinning, and still managing to play well.

2.5 hours once a week, which slips if we have a good run of gigs. Productive rehearsal is one where we iron out the drummer's mental block on a song part, or one where he's actually listened to a new tune all the way through (usually as background music while he's cooking his tea), that the rest of have learned.

I'm 53, move around a damn sight more than the singer, and do nothing to maintain fitness other than playing football with the bairn of an evening and playing a bit to keep finger and forearm strength up. Having said that, I've adjusted my working conditions rather than myself - Markbass gear is a *lot* easier to move around than Trace Elliot (especially if you go for the super-lazy option of sticking wheels on one of the cabinets ... getting my entire rig in now is a one-person, one-trip job instead of two people twice. Stairs allowing. I'll generally get through at least two pints of iced water in an 1.25 hour set. Beer is right out nowadays, though sipping from a pint of Coke helps with energy levels. Our drummer plays with a fleece jacket on and sweats like a racehorse - says it's an integral part of his weight-control regime - then invariably heads straight to the kebab shop after a gig.

Funnily enough, I was standing there thinking "I've seen more people on a Marillion album cover than this ..." That guy was Russian, was visiting Peterhead on business, and spent a long time drunkenly telling me in a very thick accent about bootleg records in Russia in the 1970s, and how rock music had been seen as "verrry bad". I could make out words like "KGB", "prison", and "my friend disappeared" accompanied by loud peals of laughter.

This was the view from the stage when we started on Friday night. Me: "Where are all the people?" Bouncer: "It's Friday. Nobody comes out on Friday. It's always like this. We may get 2 or 3 later." We actually ended up with 7 people - who danced and enjoyed themselves - so that was a bonus. Sometimes you have to wonder why places book bands on guaranteed no-turnout nights, though.

Just caught this ... currently gigging a Classic Pro (because my Gibson got knocked off its stand recently and needs a set-up now). The CP is a worthy stand-in, if slightly chunkier and heavier. Personally, and unlike anyone else in the world apparently, I like the 3-point bridge. Maybe it's just what I've got used to. And I've swapped the pickups on both of the aforesaid out for those Chinese chrome ones. I like them - word on the street is that they approach the "old" T-bird sound. I was on the point of getting a Vintage Pro, but recently spotted a white 1992 Gibson for sale. Been on the lookout for one of those for years, and I managed to get a damn good price on this one. So the VP goes back on the "wanted" list for now ... :) All things being equal, the white Gibby gets next weekend's gig.

The original song was reasonably splendid, being a good - if slightly hammy - study in light and shade. The lassie on the left on the GN Show did a fair job of murdering it, though, with a series of uninvited yelps and howls. In the roughly-contemporaneous words of Vic'n'Bob ... they wouldn't let it lie.

End of the second page and no mention of Stryper yet? I saw them at Santa Monica Civic Audiorium back in 1987 and narrowly missed catching a bible. But, for Christian rock you canna beat King's X. Their deity is strongly in evidence if you listen with a churchy ear - but he keeps his head down, allowing heathens like myself to enjoy the music too.

Randy Rhoads. I'd just picked up the Crazy Train single second hand a week before and it had never left my turntable as I listened in wonder to this fab new (to me) guitarist ripping it up. I'd been up to the 2nd hand record shop and picked up Blizzard of Ozz - I clearly remember getting home from school and one of my mates telling me "It's just been on the news - Ozzy Osbourne was killed in a plane crash!". Of course, it wasn't Ozzy, but Randy.

Although I don't have access to a warship, I've often been known to smuggle an AC/DC-influenced bassline into parts of any song that I don't know that well.

Sad to lose Paul, who was more a part of UFO's classic sound than most people realise. Many of those rhythm parts that you assume are Schenker, and perfectly fitting keyboard lines. One of my fave moments on Strangers is in "This Kids", where Paul finishes his keyboard solo and Schenker starts the guitar solo ... there's a wee gap for a couple of beats where you can visualise Paul stepping away from the keyboard before he starts playing rhythm guitar. His band introductions are memorable on "One Night At Budokan", too, notably missing himself out. Personally, I'm quite surprised that Pete Way managed to outlive any of the other guys, and I'm still not fully convinced he'll get it together enough to actually go on the advertised tour this autumn ... RIP Kipper.

Well, it all turned out swimmingly. Skizofrenik played a decent punky set, and I had a good long chat with Henry Cluney - who was very amiable and happy to yap about any old muck. The young lad bass player from Skizofrenik was determined to show me his ancient Peavey bass amp that he'd recently picked up for £60, and which had reached about 200degC by the end of their set. Good sounding old bus of a thing, though. I did recommend that he took a backup amp out on tour with him. xSLF got up and blasted through pretty much the Hanx album, with a couple of more obscure tunes thrown in for good measure. "My granny wears old boots", for example. Good banter, and sounded great, though personally I think they should get a singer on board - Henry isn't quite the man for the job. Could do with speeding up a couple of tunes a little, too, to the sort of tempo of aforesaid Hanx. Being an SLF fan of old, I had a whale of a time. Henry name-checked our band a couple of times, and thanked us for them hijacking our gig. So, we were an hour late getting on, but the crowd were nicely warmed up and we had a tremendous gig. And then we had another good one in Aberdeen on Saturday night, at a venue we've not played before. Best weekend for a while.

This isn't "last night's gig" yet, but it will be tomorrow. We've had a gig booked in Fraserburgh for a while for tonight, looking forward to it, always a good one. Yesterday, it happened that xSLF (Henry Cluney, Jim Reilly) had their gig pulled in Aberdeen, something about issues with the promoter. Their support band Skizofrenik includes the son of the landlord of our gig tonight. So he's invited both bands to come up and play in the pub instead. We've been told that our gig will go ahead as planned, 10pm start. First band on at 1945, xSLF after them, us going on at 10pm til closing time. We are a fairly standard pub rock covers band. Looking at Skizofrenik's youtube stuff, they seem to be followed by skins. The SLF lads will have their own punters (usually including me, it has to be said). I sense "one for the book" coming up ...

We have a young lad singing, and he's still fairly static (have to keep kicking the ground around him to stop the roots taking hold), so it's up to me and the guitarist to move around, gurn/point at folk, and generally grab their attention by getting up front pulling shapes and nonsense like that.

Here's one of Tim's cab covers from speaker.graphics, which I recently had made. Got it installed late last week and had it out for the weekend's gigs. Very handy for getting the band name seen in places where it's awkward or impractical to put up the backdrop. Commented on favourably by all and sundry, too. The design incorporates the 4x10 speakers, so it's all printed on the vinyl mesh (i.e. those aren't the real speakers you can see, just a picture of them). Installation was pretty straightforward with a bit of double sided tape, and the grille screws, which on the MB cab have flat heads. A little bit of non-flatness around the screws, which it would be very hard to avoid. Otherwise, thoroughly recommended for £35 all in. I'll send Tim some pics once we get into a venue where I can get better ones. :)

I just use Songsterr ... and of course I never just screenshot their stuff page by page, paste into a Word document and print out.

The "feel-good" factor in here is getting a bit high, so here's what happened at our gig last week. We've played at this pub in Buckie before and had a very good night, so we thought we'd be on for a bit of fun this time. There was a small voice in the back of my head that reminded me that one good gig in a venue doesn't necessarily mean the next one will be too, but I forcibly ignored it and remained optimistic. We got there in plenty time, set up efficiently, I put up my newly wireless DMX-ed lights, made sure everything was working, berated the singer for never buying his own bloody gaffer tape, and we sat down for a minute. Turns out the bar manager was offshore, and the barmaid in charge came over with a query of "What sort of music do you guys play?". "Well, rocky kind of stuff mostly." Her reaction of "Oh, FFS, and I made sure I was working tonight - I should've taken the night off!" didn't bode well. Sensing forthcoming nit-picking, we started bang on time and proceeded through the usual set list of Stereophonics, Ultravox, Gary Moore and so on. This pub is set up so that the band is in a separate section from the bar, a couple of steps lower with a bannister separating, and with the band facing a wall rather than into the body of the kirk. So our singer was standing at 90 degrees to the rest of us in attempt to engage. From the corner of my eye I noticed said barmaid with her fingers in her ears and, sure enough, after half a dozen songs we were asked to turn down. Which we did, a little bit. Finished the first set. Deathly silence. A few seconds later, loud thumping dance music through the house system. Started the second set. A couple of geezers came over to watch and listen, and we thought we detected the odd clap on finishing a tune. An aged couple, at least in their 80s, came in. She proceeded to laugh, smile and dance enthusiastically while her husband glowered and made a show of poking his fingers down his auditory canals. The bar is licenced until 1am, which is when we stopped playing the last time . About 12.15am, a party of girls came in and approached the bar. I watched the barmaid shake her head and point to the clock, and they left again. At about 12.25, when we finished a song, she came up to us and told us "Just stop now, that's enough". To be fair, she was back within a few minutes with the full fee. As soon as that was done, the dance music went back on the jukebox. We took the money, packed up and went home without saying goodbye. Singer was a bit dis-heartened because he's a youngster who's never experienced that sort of gig before. Other than that, it's started off our "well, we won't be going back there" list.