peety

[quote name='bassbloke' post='624962' date='Oct 13 2009, 01:54 PM']The idea of rehearsing once a month seems odd to me, especially if you want to sound polished. However, if everyone does their homework and goes through the material dilligently at home, it's certainly possible. Also, any decent guitarist should be able to nail that lot in a couple of weeks. However, you can't expect to rehearse to a sufficient standard if you're going to stick doggedly to your one rehearsal a month and, sorry to be blunt, but you're going to limit your appeal to potential new members in doing so. I would try and reach a compromise with your guitarist. If he screws up the gig, it'll make your band look terrible. However, it's a small world, so he would come out of the experience smelling of roses either. If he won't agree to rehearsing with you at least once before the gigs, I would concentrate on finding a replacement and accept that you'll have to rehearse more.[/quote] Sorry i appear to have misled you we gig on average once a month not rehearse we tend to rehearse every other week and we have the core of a set that we have been playing for a long time and most rehearsal time is spent on new material. however i take your point but the whole idea of the meeting was to increase both gigs and rehearsals while you are right a new guitarist especially an experienced one would probably be familiar with a lot of the material we do, we have approx 50: songs the difficulty may be finding the right person so compromise looks like the way forward.

[quote name='cheddatom' post='624955' date='Oct 13 2009, 01:46 PM']It's not unreasonable, but I would personally be uncomfortable. He's obviously not the bloke you thought he was, why do you want to play with him again? Obviously it's not just for the money else you'd have more gigs.[/quote] These are my thoughts exactly however we have comitted to these gigs and at the moment trying to find a suitable replacement would be difficult and the other band members would prefer to use him and feel as a matter of principle he should honour his committments.

As a band we have been together for 5 years playing approximately once a month because that is what has suited us due to work/other committments, we are a covers band that plays mainly functions and private parties. Anyway about 2 weeks ago our lead guitarist contacted us all about committing to playing more often say 30-40 gigs per year and actively sourcing more work,at the moment we rely on word of mouth and local contacts which has always suited us. Anyway we had a band meeting which went really well and everyone bought into the idea of more gigs, i had sourced and spoken to a couple of agents and had looked into the feasibilty of wedding fairs hence my post on here, at no time during the meeting did our guitarist mention in anyway that he was unhappy, we spent 3 hours going through rates, areas diary all ready to send to the agencies at the end of the meeting we had a quick discussion about material and that went ok no dissention. So full steam ahead methinks. Imagine my suprise when on sunday we get an e mail saying that he has decided to stand down and that for the last month he has been rehearsing with a blues band and has decided to put all his efforts into this. He then informed us that he had instigated the meeting to help decide his future and that our song suggestions would leave him embarrassed, just for info the new songs suggested were a full on beatles medley, blondie medley, a couple of U2 songs, stand by me, poker face and a couple more. What is even more pathetic is that he has done this by e mail and not had the bottle after 5 years to tell us to our faces and discuss his concerns. We have no gigs from now to december due to other committments however we have 3 works christmas parties and a birthday in december and he seems to think that giving us 2 months notice gives us time to find a new guitarist and bed him in, and thinks this should absolve him from his responsibility, we have told him he should honour all existing committments until we find a replacement which he has grudgingly agreed to do however has refused to rehearse with us till december. Is it unreasonable of us to expect him to honour these committments including rehearsal until we find a replacement, i quite understand if he feels he needs to take a new direction, but why waste all our time and not have the courtesy to be honest with us before the meeting. The annoying thing about him is he wants the gigs and the money as he is the one who wanted to increase prices but does not want to compromise on song selection or his percieved credibility. Anyway that's it oh and by the way anyone know a good lead guitarist in the North west . cheers steve

[quote name='BassBunny' post='618847' date='Oct 6 2009, 06:05 PM']Hi Steve, If the Newspaper is anything to do with the Messenger Group, let me know...... We got well stitched up by them. Booked for a Wedding Fayre at Lancs County Cricket Club and it is the biggest one of the year for them. We were told it would be a sell-out as far as stands go and would be packed. Man Utd then moved a home game to the same day and it was really poorly attended. We booked a 12' stand as we wanted to play during the event, but we ended up with as much room as needed. We covered our costs with a couple of bookings but in way of compensation we were promised the attendance details of that event and 3 others that the messenger held. We had to fight for them and only got 2, but fortunately my Wife used to work in Advertising and she got us 50% of the fee back. OK rant over, now a bit of info on what we did do. In no particular order. 1) A full publicity pack of who you are, sample set list, photo's, testimonials etc. These were properly presented in a folder with business card on the front. 2) DVD, particularly if you are not playing. Wedding Couples like to see what they are getting as well as hearing what you sound like. 3) A contact sheet where you can store all the info you need, Names, Addresses, Where the event is, Date of Wedding etc of anyone who makes an enquiry. 4) If you intend playing, have someone who can talk to anyone who may want answers to questions whilst you are playing. 5) Make sure you negotiate for the list of couples who attended and contact any that didn't speak to you on the day. 6) find out if there is any competition. We made sure we were the only band at the event although there was an agency, (who we also work for) and a solo singer. 7) Find time to talk to other exhibitors. You may be able to arrange for them to put your name forward, and vice versa, if they are providing a service for a particular wedding. There's probaly more and i will update if I think of anything important.[/quote] thanks for the info that is really useful, not sure what the newspaper group is includes wigan /lancashire evening post wigan reporter will find out and let you know. Some great tips there for the day. I asked about other bands and there aren't any attending the ones we are considering at the moment however there is a duo and a solo singer performing and an agent who is also a DJ and handles all the work for the JJB stadium . i think based on what i can see it is defimitely worth trying one out all this info is really good though and has given me some more food for thought cheers steve

[quote name='yorks5stringer' post='618732' date='Oct 6 2009, 04:19 PM']Choose your venue and date carefully, we booked at one with a cowboy and it was baking hot inside( and out) and the last day of the premiership (Super Sunday) No-one turned up, we got no bookings and we played for free (cost us £45).......[/quote] Thanks for the info that's quite interesting to know This is with the local newspaper group that covers Wigan, Preston area and are all held at decent venues, there is one this weekend so i may go along to just suss it out before we decide whether to book for the one at the end of October. cheers steve

[quote name='crez5150' post='618672' date='Oct 6 2009, 03:35 PM']We exhibit at The National Wedding Show every year......... It gets us about 50% of our bookings for the year..... So it's worth it. But... A bobby basic stand plus a single power point is going to cost you about £2.5k. Then you have all of your marketing material, staffing, hotel costs etc..... not cheap.[/quote] Thanks for that at the moment we are looking at local stuff only have been quoted £115 + vat for a 6ft stand and we get all our promotional stuff done cheaply as one of our band members works for a printers so i'm thinking it's worth a punt.

Because of work and other commitments as a band we have previously been happy playing a limited number of gigs maybe 20 a year quite a large %age of which are weddings and have always managed to do this by word of mouth recommendations etc,. However we have now decided we would like to gig more and as our preferrd gigs are weddings we have along with agencies been looking at wedding fairs as a way of generating more bookings, just wondering how many of you attend these and if you find them useful and or worthwhile as there seem to quite a few going on at the moment and the cost doesn't seem massiely prohibitive. Also would be interested to know what you take as promo, dvd's, cd's cards posters, website info i know it's a fairly general question but would be grateful of any advice or experiences of them thanks steve

I bought so joe osborn flats from direct from lakland and i didn't get charged any duty or handling. cheers steve

yes mainly functions as we are a 7 piece, although did the cherries earlier this year just before it changed hands gave us a chance to play some stuff we don't always get the chance to do at the weddings etc. what are your band called ? do you gig locally any upcoming gigs if so i'll pop along for a watch mate cheers steve

live in Highfield so not too far away from you, i guess having been dragged out of retirement you're gigging what sort of stuff do you do pubs, functions ? cheers steve

Hi Les welcome from another Wiganer whereabouts in our great metropolis are you ? cheers steve

[quote name='ashevans09' post='494719' date='May 21 2009, 10:22 PM']Can't go wrong with a gator IMHO...[/quote] +1 got same amp in a 4u gator with tuner and wireless unit.

9 i've got the same amp love it

[quote name='simon1964' post='471308' date='Apr 24 2009, 09:40 AM']If you like Stereophonics, Local Boy in the Photograph always goes down well in our set, and is good fun. And we've just added Pretty Vacant - dead simple, and brilliant to play at the end of a set![/quote] +1 for both these we play them great fun and definite winners

It must be in the genes of lead guitarists to be awkaward ! ours has decided the way forward is to do a couple of our own songs despite the fact that we are a functions band, this is after saying he hasn't time to learn new material at the moment he has found time to write a song and wants us to learn it. familiar story there if he doesn't like the songs we select he has selective memory loss or just refuses to play them, while he is very talented i find this highly irritating and feel like we are being held to ransom. so you have my utmost sympathy the issue of song selection is always tricky but made even more so when you have one person who is generally obstructive.