peteb

Remember, these days there are lots of lightweight options for amplification for bass players. Personally, I'm not convinced that some of these options are as good as the gear we used a few years ago, but if it allows you to carry on gigging as you get a bit older then that's great.

I think that as you get older, you have to be careful that you don't talk yourself out of the game. I'm currently playing with three guys who are in their seventies (in two bands) and they all have different attitudes. There is the keys player in the tribute band (70), who has been a pro all of his life, who thinks of himself as semi-retired but still carting his full touring rig around and still quite busy/ making money. The keys player (75) in the blues band will take any gig in a variety of genres, but just carries round one keyboard and a laptop. The issue really is with the singer in the blues band (71) who has started to lose confidence in himself. He hasn't got the voice that he used to have, and the days of him belting out Child In Time are long gone (he used to be in a really good Deep Purple tribute), but he can still handle Freddie King numbers with the best of them. But he is starting to get overly nervous about gigs. For the sort of band you are doing, I wouldn't think that age is a big thing, as long as you still keep the same belief in your abilities as a player, even if you have to start thinking about things like the gear you use, etc where before you wouldn't need to.

Unfortunately, loyalty is generally not rewarded in music / bands, just as it isn't in the wider employment world. When I look back to my twenties, I think that I was way too loyal in certain situations, just as some of the guys I played with were. A couple of them could have gone onto bigger and better things if they had made the move. When you look at (for example) Ozzy's guitar players / band members, how many of them were in other bands when they got the call for the big gig? The answer is all of them. I think that usually, bands are accepting of guys moving onto a higher profile gig. What annoys them are when people are unreliable, or if they leave a project for no good reason or for something that they should have been aware of when they joined the band!

When it comes down to it, you have to do what you need to do. However, it's pretty likely that the band are going to be (quite understandably ) p*ssed off and it won't do your reputation for reliability any good.

You don't know the half of it! I'm guessing that you never played northern working men's clubs in the 80s or 90s!

As I said in my post above, I don't find that to be the case. There are parts of the north that are far more miserable! Probably why @BigRedX's goth bands do so well there! 🙂

From personal experience, it depends on where in the north you play. If you go to the north east or up into Scotland, you know you are going to get a great audience. But you wouldn't necessarily say the same for gigs in, say, Yorkshire. We play quite a lot gigs in the south east, which always have good sized and appreciative crowds. There is always a positive vibe, they react and sing along in all the right places. Of course, they're not quite on the same level with the north east, but more fun than most other places in the north.

Hi Mick. You have mentioned in the past that you want to start getting bigger and better gigs for your band. The thing is that to do this, things like having decent stage patter and getting a bit of a look together are non-negotiable! You have to be able to be able to do it. A few years ago, I did a few months of deps for a R&B type band with a decent following, while their bass player underwent treatment for cancer (thankfully, he's still playing and seems to be doing well). Now this band were not great, but they were all nice guys, had a good inter-band friendship and loved what they did. All of this came across to the audience and many loved them, far beyond their actual ability as a band. They also had a singer who was a good frontman, hardly Dave Lee Roth in looks or his stage act, but was funny and engaging with a crowd. They also had a lead guitar player who was sort of OK, but nothing special. However, they constantly namechecked him and talked him up as if he was Eric Clapton! A lot of punters bought into this and thought he was a great player, where other musos would just roll their eyes. I know for a fact that a number of promoters used to book them for festivals, despite not really wanting to, just because of the demand from the audience. These things just need sorting out if you want to play better gigs. It's not really that hard to do, but the whole band needs to buy into it. If they really don't want to, then perhaps you need to start thinking about playing with someone else.

Of course, a lot of this is BS! I love a good P bass, I've got two and it is undoubtedly a classic bass sound. But other good bass sounds are available, it's just the fashion for the past however many years has been for a P bass. In the 80s and 90s, it was all about active basses and everyone was playing a Spector or a Warwick or whatever!

Things have changed now. Tommy Tedesco was part of the generation that created the reference sounds that today's producers want to recreate. These days, a producer might ask a guitarist to get the sound Tommy got when he made a guitar sound like a mandolin! Similarly, the producer wants a P bass sound on the recording, because that's what he thinks a bass sounds like. They don't care if you want to play your favourite bass, they want something like the bass used on sessions from the 60 / 70s, which may well have featured Tommy Tedesco on guitar!

To be fair, I'm not too sure what the thread is about and I'm not convinced that the OP is either! People talk about how they are busy 'doing sessions', but there is very little paid session work about. The old days of people being called to go into a recording studio to play on albums, demos, jingles and film scores has pretty much disappeared and the work that is around seems to be dominated by a handful of very experienced guys in London. I do know a few guys who still regularly do sessions, even if it isn't normally their main source of income these days. They all have their own (pretty sophisticated) home studios and virtually all of the work they do is online. They are all knocking on a bit, varying degrees of eccentricity, great players and tend to have a bit of a reach / name in certain genres. There isn't a lot of work for bass players and even less for drummers (their parts tend to be programmed). I also know guys who have studios and make a living producing library music. Again, they may occasionally call in a singer or guitar player, but they tend to cover most of the parts themselves.

Being able to play is a given. If you're not a top player, it doesn't matter what basses you've got, you're not going to get the top gigs. However, many producers / band leaders have a very definite idea of what an electric bass should sound like and what they want to hear is based on classic sounds from the 60s and 70s. There are plenty of stories from guys new to the session scene, turning up for dates and nailing what they thought was a perfect take, only to find the engineer or producer being less than enthusiastic and trying muck around with the EQ on the bass track. They do another take with a P bass and suddenly, everyone is happy. The guys who get the most calls are the ones who can get that sound on the first take or so.

Unfortunately, in many situations (especially at the higher-end, well paid sessions), you would be wrong.

As far as email goes, these days it is a less than ideal way of doing business. I got back from holiday a week and a bit ago to an inbox of 250 work emails, most of which were cr*p but more than I expected requiring a response. My boss had been away for the two weeks before me, monitors a team email account since someone left and wasn't replaced. He told me that he had deleted a large number of emails looking for business in my area when we had already said that we wouldn't be accepting applications, because he didn't want to bother me with nonsense emails when he knew I would have an overflowing inbox. However, someone later contacted me separately with a different query that I answered straight away. She then asked why she hadn't got that response when she made the same query three weeks ago. Almost certainly, her email had been accidently deleted along with all nonsense ones while I was away! You have to remember that Bass Bros offer a specialist service, operating in a very niche part of the market. They are also very good value in that part of the market. A couple of months ago, I was looking for a new bass with a budget of up to £3k. I talked to Bass Bros and another specialist, who are really good but generally a bit more expensive. Will was selling a virtually identical bass for around £450 cheaper than the other guy. When it came to part-ex another bass, he offered £500 more! I ended up selling my old bass to Will (again, for an acceptable price) and buying a bass for a little more than half my maximum budget on eBay (a Fender AVRI rather than a Custom Shop), but it was obvious that Will does offer an extremely good service in that space. Of course, you can deal with Andertons and get your emails answered straight away by a bigger organisation. But you won't get the benefit of the specialist service the Bass Bros offer, if that's what you actually want and if you're prepared to pick up the phone!

I've dealt with Bass Bros on tree or four occasions (bought, sold & part ex'd) and it has always been a positive experience. I have never emailed them, not once. I have always phoned Will, followed by sending pictures, etc on WhatsApp if necessary. Just pick up the phone, every time...