Mark Dyer

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1439018531' post='2839375'] Prog fills quite a few slots in my collection so 'best ever' is just too big a task for me to seriously consider. I'll chuck in a slightly contentious one as it even divides the band's fans: [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_Topographic_Oceans"]Tales From Topographic Oceans[/url] Wildly over ambitious, double album containing just four pieces of music covering quite abstract mystical quasi religious bases, Not for the faint hearted. [/quote] I always remember a review of the album at the time in the NME (I think) it went thus: [b]Tales From Topographic Oceans - Yes[/b] [b]No.[/b] Still makes me laugh.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1413278775' post='2576539'] Your not 100% safe though, what if Andy McCluskey from orchestral manoeuvres in the dark was next on and his Jack socket failed? He plays left handed basses right handed and upside down! [/quote] He does what!? I wanna hear the story behind that one?

My tip would be to start with the man who (allegedly) started it all, Larry Graham. There's also no harm in listening to Mark King himself, if you ignore all the flashy stuff he plays on a track, there's a wealth of basic slap techniques in the Level 42 back catalogue. And as others have said here, start slow and build up that right hand technique. It doesn't have to be 'neat' btw, Les Claypool and Doug Wimbish are testament to that.

This is going back some years but the band I was in at the time got a support with The Beyond, who were getting a lot of attention with their debut album. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the inevitable happened and my bass died, active circuit went bust as I remember and I didn't have a spare that night. The Beyond's bass player wasn't interested in lending me a bass, can't say as I blame him he had some v nice Modulus guitars if I remember correctly and Ampeg mega rig. So, we ended our set after two and half songs and to top it all a journo from Metal Hammer was there that night, said he was impressed with what he had heard but needed more than three songs to write a review. The rest of the band were well pissed off with me, can't say as I blame them either and I felt like a complete dick for not bringing backup. I learnt a lesson that night and have never gigged without a spare bass since. If a gig is important enough, you bring a spare. NO EXCUSES!

[quote name='mxm' timestamp='1407141467' post='2517599'] Bass Direct usually has a few quality new and used left handed basses in stock at any given time. [/quote] Yep, Mark is pretty good at keeping lefties in stock, notably Sandberg, Clover and enough 2nd hand 4 & 5 string basses to make a trip to Warwick worthwhile.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1409700066' post='2542509'] I also loved saturday mornings in my local record shop and deciding what to buy that week. Most of my vinyl singles are from 1970 when I had a paper round and would buy one single each week after I got paid on saturday and I would spend the whole week waiting for the new charts to come out and listen to the radio to decide what that single would be. 7/6d they were . . . . or 37.5p in today's currency. But I soon moved up to buying LPs instead of singles and can still remember the absolute thrill of listening to Tubular Bells through headphones in the record shop and thinking it was like nothing else I'd ever heard, which pulled me away from chart singles and into the world of prog rock. Wonderful times! But I did all those things because they were the [u]only[/u] way to access music in those days. I didn't go to record shops for nostalgia - that's a product of getting 40 years older! - I went to find and listen to music. Kids today won't miss those experiences because they have their own ones to build up and become nostalgic about when they are older . Besides, they have more music at their fingertips than any generation in the history of mankind, so why would they want to make such a backward step and limit themselves to a few trays of discs in a record shop? Nostalgia ain't what it used to be [/quote] Haven't posted here for a while, been very busy, but this is a subject I have a lot of interest in. When you mention 'kids' what age group are you referring to? I ask, because the age group (has the largest disposable income) that purchases most CDs and vinyl is around 30-35, or certainly was the last time I looked into the stats. But that isn't the 10-16 year old age group that I would refer to as 'kids'. So why would any record shop be trying to appeal, in the main, to this age demographic? Next time you walk into an HMV store, if you're lucky enough to still have one, ask yourself this; Is this store appealing to me as a 36 year old person or a 11 year old kid?

Liverpool for us, we should all wear some kinda BC badge.

[quote name='PauBass' timestamp='1403511785' post='2483272'] We have different opinions then I find Set List Maker very easy to use, it might not be the most appealing interface but it's OK, in my opinion that is. I've had no trouble importing anything so far and using it live it's a joy. Create your setlist, click perform and away you go. You can jump to the next song manually, automatically when the song finishes or use one of those Bluetooth pedals to change pages. I have mine set up so when in perform mode, I have the list of songs for that gig, I click on the song once and it opens the score, when the song finishes, it closes the score and I'm back on the list of songs. Although the list of songs runs as it will be performed, I like to go back to the song list in case the singer decides to call a different song. I use mine for 3 different bands, and it's proven to be a very handy app. [/quote] Oh I'm not disagreeing with you mate, if you like it and are happy using it that's cool, I just wanted to give the flip side to the review. I will persevere with it no doubt, as I've paid for it and got my database in place now. There's no doubt it does the job, but it could be a whole lot nicer user experience. I might sound a bit picky about it but my day job is designing UIs amongst other things so I feel justified in criticising the usability somewhat. I have some beautiful designed audio Apps on the iPad, where the interface is a joy to use, Setlist Maker isn't one of em' And the worst is yet to come, I need to teach the vocalist how to use it at some point, wish me luck...

iRig, with the HD adaptor for decent audio quality, couldn't live without it now.

Hot n' Sweaty.

[quote name='BILL POSTERS' timestamp='1403352088' post='2482027'] Wilko & Daltry. OK but not as good as I had hoped it would be. [/quote] Yep, I felt the same, oh well. Currently listening to: Are We There - Sharon Van Etten

I purchased Set List Maker not long ago, thought I'd share my thoughts on the App. Unlike PauBass, I don't rate the App highly, here's why: Overall the App feels clunky and dated, it hasn't really moved on much I suspect and embraced what's happening in user interfaces these days. It relies on lots of drop down menus and fiddly data screens, which is fine on a desktop with a mouse but doesn't feel very nice on an iPad. Finding what you want can quickly become frustrating, screens are too many clicks away from where you are, nothing really flows. Then try navigating on the fly in the middle of a gig and it's not pretty. I've found the import options are hit and miss, for example, if you import your setlist as a Playlist from iTunes it omits some of the data fields, the lyrics being one of them! Extremely annoying when you've spent hours copy & pasting them in! Importing spreadsheets/CSVs also proved haphazard with data not appearing how it should, and then you get into the problem of trying to delete the damn thing. Key functionality in an App should be obvious to the user, not buried deep in screen hierarchy. And that brings me onto the Help function. Basically it takes you to a very outdated looking web page that immediately looks like a chore to read through. All the info is there but it's a bit like the App, hard to find what you're looking for. Setting up a set list is also frustrating, it should be easy and obvious how to split sets into two or three, it's not. And for an App that's called Set List Maker it should be!

Or you could go wireless?

We have an improvised intro piece that we work on for sound checks, it sometimes incorporates bits of other songs, soundtracks, whatever we've worked out. It starts with the guitarist walking on stage, plugging in and starting a chugging riff. The drummer walks on next, gets behind the kit and starts a beat. Bass player comes on next, starts laying down some low end. Finally the vocalist strolls on and starts yelling. Rock n' roll ensues...

We have 2-3 variations on a set depending on the venue, if we know that a particular pub/club has a rock audience then that's the kind of set we play. But more often than not pubs tend to have a mixed audience, so we drop in stuff like a U2, Train, The Feeling or INXS song, enough of that stuff to keep everybody happy basically. Although, it never ceases to amaze when people are up and enjoying say 'Drops of Jupiter' then stay up for 'Killing in the Name of' How you play the songs can also get you noticed, living in Merseyside we often get requests for Beatles songs but we're not interested in doing straight renditions so, we approached a song like 'Day Tripper' from the starting point of 'what would it sound like if say Muse had written it'? Ok, that makes it sound a lot better than it is, lol, but you get the point. People often come up to us when we arrive at venues and say "oh, you're that band who plays Enter Sandman a weird way" they probably don't remember the band name but they remember the way we play the songs. If you're playing similar venues I think you may need to adopt the same policy. As people have said here, getting your foot in the door of the popular venues can be hard. If the venue is fully booked for the year with established bands, a good way to get a gig at these places is to offer yourselves as a cancellation band, it has worked successfully for us a number of times and then lead to repeat bookings, but you must be available at short notice when the venue call.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think Napalm Death came after Venom. Discharge could well be one of the first to use that kind of vocal style but they were more a punk outfit than rock. But I do remember listening to Discharge's 'Why' EP at the same I came across Venom's first release, way back in my sixth form days. Crikey I'm showing me age...

There's some quality compositions to decide between, go make the effort folks! I only wish I could write stuff as good, come to think of it, I wish I could just write stuff!

Absolutely I would, it would only be available LH though. Oops, wrong thread...

After receiving a PM from Tom Spaulding I double checked the strings and bridge again this morning, I now know why the E string doesn't fit. The bass (LH) has been fitted with a RH bridge, so the E string doesn't fit in what is the G string slot. To say I'm annoyed right now is an understatement, in process of talking to Mark at Bass Direct, I fear the worst...

We just create an iCal event for our gigs, then the four of us subscribe to it and it gets automatically updated when I add any new dates or cancelations, works across platforms too, everything you need on your mobile phone or tablet, easy.

The biggest problem I have with weddings is not the money but trying to convince the couple that it would be a bad idea to hire us. What usually happens is they see us in a pub one night, enjoy the gig and then approach us with the "We think you'd perfect for our wedding" line. I try and convince them that it would be a bad idea but they usually insist, saying they don't want a typical 'wedding' band or DJ and that all of their friends like rock music, and it's their wedding and they can do what they want. Come the big day the 20 or so friends of the bride and groom are outnumbered by 80 odd relatives etc who hate us. No amount of extra cash has ever made the evening bearable. There was one memorable occasion though, I didn't know the groom personally but he was Scottish, anyway the first song was Nothing Else Matters by Metallica and we started it with the stage curtains drawn and they slowly opened up (the bride and groom didn't know we were going to be playing) it went down well. For the second set the best man said to do the same with the curtain routine, I said it maybe wouldn't have the same effect, but he insisted. I think we started with a U2 song, as the curtains parted we were greeted with a line of 20 blokes, all in kilts, facing us, they proceeded to lift the front of their kilts up and perform the can-can for the entire song. It's an image in my head that will probably never go away.

[quote name='waynepunkdude' timestamp='1401310603' post='2462414'] TWO GRAND FOR A SPECTOR?!?!?! [/quote] Well, just shy of £2000 but may as well have been. I got fed up of waiting for the right one to come onto the S/H market so I took the plunge and purchased new, sometimes us Lefties don't have a choice!

Yep, I think the pliers/vice route will be the one I go down. Not convinced about the Black and Decker solution on a £2000 bass geoffbyrne