KevB

They pretty much sum up everything I don't want in a bass.

It's a reissue, from Fender's Chinese factory. Telecaster modern player. Picked it up second hand from basschat a couple of years ago after two separate people approached me about potential blues rock oriented projects. Neither came to fruition and as my 'main' band uses drop tuning (I use my USA P and J basses for that) I thought I'd use this one in the blues rock trio so I could avoid detuning and retuning basses all the time for gigs and rehearsals. Here's a demo of the reissue at GAK :

First outing with band#2. In other circumstances I'd call it a side project but the 'main' band isnt gigging that much either so they are probably on even footing gig wise. A bit of background, I didnt audition for this I was asked by a mate who i was in a jam session house band with if I'd be interested in doing some biker gigs as a vehical for the drummer that was with the Mick Rutherford Band (East Mids blues rock trio) to be able to keep some of MRB's original material alive whilst also doing mainly a covers set. I agreed and we've knocked up a couple of hours worth of material in the last few months. Tbh musically the drummer is the weak link and I think he knows it but he has the contacts for the biker gigs so we have to keep working with him to get it as good as we can but it will always be a bit of a compromise. Weve got some small biker club gigs sorted as a test so first one was last night. Considering the weather it wasnt badly attended and they seemed a decent crowd. We did about an hour first set (including a MRB original which wed only played twice in rehearsal) and another 50 min or so to finish at midnight (curfew). Neither me or main vocalist were in great shape recovering from bad colds but thought we made a decent fist of it and some positive feedback after the show. Going back in June but have another gig elsewhere next month. Very slimmed down rig using just a 250W TC combo (bought from our own seashell) and bass attack tone pedal plus a fishman fission to thicken the sound during gtr solos. All through PA and apparently it sounded good FOH. Using my chinese telecaster with double humbuckers for time being on these gigs to get some thick low end for stuff like ZZ Top numbers.

Of course having gone through all this he will be in touch shortly telling you that you are not quite what he's looking for so he's letting you all go.

How about that wah/mutron combo Squire got for On The Silent Wings of Freedom.

No time to read other posts so might be going against the trend here but it sounds like you were taken on as an insurance policy so my considered view would be to say f*ck em and move on.

Of course Dunnery eventually became part of Plants backing band himself later on after IB had folded so they must have struck up some rapport.

First gig since back end of December and only managed one rehearsal between that and last night. It was always going to be rough round the edges and only second gig with new lad on drums who cocked a couple of songs up. I wasnt blameless either but what was memorable was that halfway through the encore my bass rig decided to go suicidal. I'm not sure how it happened. I have a gramma pad, the 2x10 sits on that (as it has largest footprint) then the TE 1x15 combo on top of that and then I end up with the Roland JV unit for the midi pedals sat on top of that. For the first time ever somehow the 2x10 managed to work its way off the front of the gramma pad and tipped forward, taking the TE combo and JV unit into my thighs and lower back. No cables or power leads came out so it all kept working, except now my 2x10 is face down on the stage and the combo is somewhere awkward being propped up by me backing into it whilst still playing. The drummers dad was there and he got the TE combo at least facing the right way round. I missed so few notes that the rest of the band were blissfully unaware what was going on. I guess doing a certain amount of gigging means you dont panic easily. Everything kept working and we even did a 2nd encore with it littering the stage behind me, dont think the punters noticed at all. No damage as far as I could see when packing away, its oldschool heavy gear and built to last.

Very polished, as others have said its clear the amount of work that has been put in. I would think on the strength of the showreel you should be getting some offers from the summer festivals that stage trib acts (Glastonbudget etc). I think as a start that's where I'd be trying to market the act initially.

It Bites supporting Robert Plant, mid 80s. Plant had formed a new backing band and I think were just a bit under rehearsed. IB were sublime, first time I'd really taken notice of them.

I guess if we are including Stillwater from Almost Famous then we should give a nod to Steel Dragon from 'Rock Star'. Lineup not too shabby either, including Pilsson, Bonham and Wylde.

I had one for a while and it was a very well made instrument but the version I had could not be switched from active to passive and I eventually came round to thinking that active's werent really my thing. I sold it to a bc'er and ironically ended up buying a passive P from him a couple of years later. I don't recall it not sounding like a P when the J (actually it was more of a 'doubleJ', more like a musicman PU) was turned down.

I also have a bit of a soft spot for Soronprfbs from the film Frank.

OK, it was a lame Scooby Doo ripoff but...

Give it a shot but be prepared to say no if it doesnt sound or feel right. I've turned down a band in the past after just one rehearsal because I thought it wouldnt work for me with the particular players and their rehearsal approach even though I'd done about 2 weeks learning stuff in advance.

Not sure tbh. I don't think there are many of the type I'm referring to. There are the mcmillen type, Roland, Moog Taurus and I think Nord still make some sort of midi pedals too. here was a weird thing called the footar around at one time but that was slightly different arrangement.

tbh I probably spend more time just chatting to folks or listening to someone's presentation than any actual playing myself so there's always something to go along for, as long as your travelling time isnt silly I'd say pop along to one just for the social aspect.

I have a 12 step and some Roland PK-5 pedals but the PK-5's are pretty much retired now, the 12 step is much more versatile. Because I started out with the old school pedals I've never got into running midi via a laptop, I bought a used Roland JV1080 years ago that someone had rack mounted into a box to make it more durable on the road. They had also installed some of the vintage keyboard soundcards and an orchestral one in the expansion slots so it came with a pretty good range of usable sounds and I'm still using that. They no doubt have something now that will give the same array of patches from a box the size of a packet of fags but I'm still hauling the JV unit around. To use an external module like that you need the little blue box from macmillen which acts as a link between pedals and sound module and also supplies power to the pedals. I think if you have all your patches on a laptop then that would power the pedals as well and the cabling becomes much neater.

Last rehearsal we started working up Dont Fear The Reaper. For a song so universally known in rock circles it rarely seems to feature in pub rock band sets (maybe itll die a death and we'll end up dropping it?). Unfortunately I've had to take on bvox/joint lead vox as well as bass and trying to slip in occasional organ bits in a couple of places via the midi pedals so getting the coordination of it all is provong a bit tricky, however we made progress so will perservere. Wont be ready for next gig but hopefully the one after that if we get another couple of rehearsals in.

I used to feel a bit embarassed going to bass meetings and hearing folks doing stuff I couldnt but then accepted that I've always just learned what I needed to do to play the songs in bands I wanted to do. I can listen to a bit of jazz funk or other music employing a lot of slapping/popping but it soon bores me, hence never had any thought of looking at joining a band doing that material and as a result never bothered learning those techniques. I'm not into bass playing for abitrarily learning technical stuff, its a conduit for me to get out and entertain folks whilst having some connection with the type of music i like (mostly).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Acord I was none the wiser tbh.

Time and the obsession with pigeonholing and classifying genres and subgenres so that advertiser's can get an idea what their target groups are. None of the bands now called classic rock were called that when they started out obviously.

Prog's like Royston Vasey Bilbo, you never leave... Actually I have heard a few Howe imitators in modern prog (check out some Magenta) but I get where you are coming from, he was a huge influence on so many players that it's bound to have filtered through in some bands. Plenty of prog out there with non squire musings on the low end though.

I'm probably biased on this one but, bless him, Trev never gets a look in as the focus of attention here

Styx were playing a gig a few nights ago and Larry Gowan did a nice little tribute :