BigRedX

You know this site counts as social media don't you?

I never take my phone to gigs where I'm in the audience. I'd be worried that it would get lost/stolen/broken and therefore it just gets in the way of me having a good time. For gigs where I'm playing it spends most of it's time in my bag in the dressing room buried under a pile of equipment cases. I keep meaning to take some photos of the stage setup for the more impressive gigs but most of the time I'm too caught up in the moment of the gig to remember.

One band I'm in tend to be very selective about what they post while the other is putting stuff up on Facebook almost every day. Some of it isn't as "professional" as I would like (that's the graphic designer in me coming out) but as a result of all this posting my "newer" band are getting lots of great gigs and increased interest in our current single, so it must be working. My personal Facebook page is a mixture of publicity for my bands' gigs and recordings, mixed in with random stuff my girlfriend tags me in. I rarely post anything personal, and if I do it is almost all music orientated. As a result (mostly after I'd posted up a pretty professional looking music video for one of my bands) I have had a few people from my past ask me if I'm now a full time musician! It was a little disappointing to have to tell them otherwise.

As others have said the more prep work you can do yourself, the more "cost effective" it will be. If you're hoping to give someone a body with the existing finish still on (I assume it's just the body otherwise it's going to get very expensive) and get it back with a new colour then you are looking at something that will be fairly time consuming and therefore costly. Removing the old finish especially a poly one is hard work and you'll be charged accordingly.

Excellent stuff! I see from Bandcamp there's going to be a limited edition CD. Do you have a release date yet?

It's rather good isn't it?

Hurtsfall are playing Saturday 16th September at the Gothic Gathering at The Victoria Biker's Pub in Coalville. The stage times have changed slightly since the final line-up was announced. The new Saturday schedule is: DJ - 1:30 ish 11.00 finish - AUGER - 9:55 -10:35 - SHE MADE ME DO IT 9:10 -9:55 - CHAOS BLEAK 8:20 9.05 - THE GLASS HOUSE MUSEUM 8:00 - 8:20 stage break 7:20 - 8:00 - HURTSFALL 6:30 - 7:15 - SIOUXIE SUICIDE 5:50 - 6:25 - MARYS HIDDEN LIGHT 5:00 - 5:45 - WEST WICKHAMS 4:00 - 5:00 a very Gothic Burlesque party DJ 3:00 - 4:00

Just a quick reminder that Hurtsfall are playing tomorrow at the Gothic Gathering at The Victoria Biker's Pub in Coalville. The stage times have changed slightly since the final line-up was announced. The new Saturday schedule is: DJ - 1:30 ish 11.00 finish - AUGER - 9:55 -10:35 - SHE MADE ME DO IT 9:10 -9:55 - CHAOS BLEAK 8:20 9.05 - THE GLASS HOUSE MUSEUM 8:00 - 8:20 stage break 7:20 - 8:00 - HURTSFALL 6:30 - 7:15 - SIOUXIE SUICIDE 5:50 - 6:25 - MARYS HIDDEN LIGHT 5:00 - 5:45 - WEST WICKHAMS 4:00 - 5:00 a very Gothic Burlesque party DJ 3:00 - 4:00

It is. Although you might be able to get away with making the live room of a venue a huge Faraday cage.

I also suppose it depends on what sorts of gigs you go to. It's almost 10 years since I was last at an all-seated gig and IMO the requirement to sit seriously killed the "vibe" and it would take a VERY special band to convince me to go to another seated gig any time soon. I suppose I'm lucky in that the majority of bands I want to see right now are on the same gigging circuit as the two bands I play in, and it will only be a matter of time before we're on the same bill and I'll get to see them for free. And other than the previously mentioned seated gig and can't remember last time I paid more than £15 to see a band, and most of the time it's a lot less.

This. Absolutely this! All of it.

Maybe if you've had a couple of million selling albums, then you can afford to try lay down the law about how your audience should behave... I realise perfectly well that at the majority of gigs I play, my band are probably not the one most people have come primarily to see, and therefore it is unrealistic for me to expect them to shut up and attentively watch/dance (as appropriate for the music I'm playing). I'll settle for them not leaving while we are on and hopefully by the end of our set we'll have made some new fans. Also at the sorts of gigs I do anyone with their phone out is just as likely to be taking photos and/or video which will be posted on social media, hopefully with a few kind words about how much they enjoyed the band, as they are to be scrolling through Facebook. Many of the live shots I post in the "How was your gig last night?" thread are courtesy of someone in our audience who happened to think the band worth worth photographing and then posting and tagging. I'm not complaining.

To me that seems like a lot of bands. In the 50 years I have been playing I've been in about 20 and that includes a few who never made it out of the rehearsal room. Plus a musical project that existed for less than 2 weeks during which time we wrote and recorded two instrumental dance tracks that we put out on a limited edition 10" white label single. The others all played at least a handful of gigs and well over half have recorded and released music for public consumption. Some of those releases were even organised and paid for by people who were not in the band. I suppose it helps that most bands I've been in were either instigated by me, or I have been responsible for composing at least half of the musical output. Also I have enough "front" to be able to get up on stage or in the recording studio playing guitar and synthesiser even though I'm not particularly good at it. I'm pretty ordinary bass player too. Like yourself I can't get into playing songs I wouldn't normally listen to for pleasure, but that doesn't seem to have ever been a problem when it came to finding bands or musicians to play with. I've been in bands with people who were my friends before we started playing in a band together and bands with "randoms" who I have met through ads in music shops, record stores and on the internet, and maybe I've been lucky but maybe also I've been sufficiently selective when it comes to choosing people to make music with. For me the least satisfying music project I have done was the dad rock covers band. It should have been great - the music I grew up with and one of the guitarists was a very good friend of mine which is how I came to know about them and had seen them play several times before I joined. Maybe I had too high expectations, or maybe it was unfortunate that my stint with the band coincided with also being in The Terrortones who were more artistically satisfying, more fun, did more gigs and made more money for seemingly a lot less effort. Maybe I've just been lucky. I'd like to think that mostly I've made my own luck.

Maybe you've just been in the wrong bands? For me over the last 20 years the band I've been in that has had the poorest audience reaction was the dad rock covers band, who should in theory have had the audience eating out of our hands. In practice for the most part all the originals bands I've been in have gone down better. The last two gigs I've done, there have been people down the front dancing from the first song and even singing along! That's all to music I've written. Maybe there are some people who don't like it. Who cares? There's plenty of people who do, and they are the ones that count. You can't please everyone and you'd be stupid to try and do so. That way leads to madness. Embrace the good, ignore the crap and get on with entertaining those who want to be entertained.

No bootlegs (that I am aware of). One of my songs was covered by the band that eventually become 13 Candles. I also had a request via GarageBand.com for the chords to a song we had on there as someone wanted to do a cover. After sending scans of the various convoluted shaped the guitarist used I never heard anything more.

Are there any other shapes available other than the vaguely J-shaped acrylic basses that have been posted recently?

In the "Sliding Doors" universe where my band got signed rather than Wham! after our single (minor) hit the next time you would have seen me would have been in the Identity Parade on Never Mind The Buzzcocks...

IME having just about any kind of job (or a family for that matter) is almost totally incompatible with being in a band that has any hopes of success. If you can't drop everything to do that last minute gig then you put the band at a disadvantage compared with all those are prepared to make these "sacrifices". Perhaps there will be time for a family once you are established as a musician. You also need to be one of the band's songwriters or at least have negotiated a share of the songwriting royalties in order to still have some money coming in after the band is over. The only time I have been able to put in something approaching the time and effort that is required to be more than just a weekend warrior, was in the 80s when I was unemployed, and more recently now I am self-employed and can be more flexible about how I allocate my time.

Like the P-Bass and the Ampeg stack, SM58s are popular because they were good for what they did at a time when there was relatively little competition.

I get recognised quite a bit, but that's partly because I seem to be quite distinctive looking and partly because I've been gigging for almost 45 years now. Most of the time it's more of a "I know you from somewhere" and then I have to list all the bands I've been in before they recognise a name they know. However I did get specifically recognised as a Terrortone when I was at the HIM/Fields Of The Nephilim gig in London about 10 years ago.

Thanks! In Isolation have a London gig in December. Nothing down south for Hurtsfall at the moment, because as we all know it's "Goth Up North".

These are easily achievable if your are prepared to spend the appropriate time and effort required and maybe throw a bit of money at it. Apart from the billboard thing I've managed all of them. However, from recent experience unless you are supporting someone well-known a tour with mid-week dates is pretty pointless these days. All but the biggest bands tend to concentrate on weekend gigs with the occasional Thursday or Sunday for the right venue or event. My last "tour" (earlier this year) was 7 gigs over three consecutive weekends (including one Thursday).

Making a living out of music is hard work just like any other job. It appears there are still too many people who thinks it's like the lyrics to "Money For Nothing".

I'm in a band. That's reason enough for me.