peteb

Apparently, this announcement was due to Carlos Ghosn's great escape from Japan...!

If only you had asked two weeks ago - I did this journey the weekend before last. Not much help I know.

Blue, I know that this is a bit of a thing for you, but sometimes I prefer start-ups. There are only so many half decent gigging bands on the circuit at any one time and the good ones tend to have pretty stable lineups. There's nothing worse than going into a not so good band and then have to tell them they're doing it all wrong - they tend not to like it 😕 At least with a start-up, you can get to have a say in the players involved and how the band will go about things (both musically and offstage). There's no guarantees, but if you get the right people and if you are realistic, you can usually get something going reasonably quickly. It's a good idea to learn a repertoire of commonly played songs, so at least you can pick up deps while you're looking for another band.

But they did, which is the point! I've just been reading Bernie Marsden's autobiography. When Whitesnake started they had a drummer called Duck Dowle on the first few albums; a great pro drummer who was a good fit and who they all liked. But as soon as Ian Paice became available he was replaced. All the rest of the band thought it was harsh and knew it easily could have happened to them, but they all agreed it it was the right thing to do. Unfortunately, sometimes that is part of being in a band. No point in getting upset about it, even though it is frustrating. It's no reflection on you, just move onto the next band...

We may have been neighbours (I lived on Churchfield Road). I moved there in 83/84 and moved up to the frozen north in January 86.

So did I...!

I had forgotten the Trades - another up the outside fire escape job! Not the worst load in around, but it's inevitably raining and the fire escape is above an alleyway where all the bins are kept so it always smells a bit ripe!

The PA we had (remember that this was back in the 80s) included 4 x Martin bass bins (the cheese wedge shaped ones), four substantial mids cabs, tops & separate horns enclosure for each side, a large flightcased desk, a horribly heavy amp rack and a big FX rack. The guitar player and soundman who owned the rig used it to start a PA company later on (still in business today, not using the same gear). We had to get that lot up an outside fire escape at a couple of gigs (including the White Lion in Warrington if I remember correctly), but nothing as bad as Edwards.

This was back in the days when we used two 412s (in flightcases), an 8u bass amp rack, valve guitar amps (in flightcases) and a large double drum kit (in flightcases). In fact, the only items that were not flightcased were my bass cabs (a 410 & a huge 215). Fortunately, there was an always an in-house PA when we played there...

To be fair, the fire escape at Edwards was indoors, but gawd it was steep! Nightmare getting flightcases down it at the end of the night...

The load-in at Edwards No 8 back in the day was so bad that it still occasionally pops up in conversation, over 30 years later! Did you ever have to load out down the fire escape at the back? That was even worse...

I've always assumed that you wouldn't be playing to the same crowd in the last set that you were in the first at 8 o'clock, that there would be a constantchirn of punters watching the band then moving to another bar and maybe coming back later?? I think that the UK model of 2x45 sets plus encores makes a lot of sense for a night out watching a covers band.

Totally agree. The reason I never engage with SBL in any meaningful way is that most of the stuff he seems to promote has very little relevance to the gigs I do, or even the gigs I would like to do. I suspect the same applies to many of the youngsters who want to get started as a gigging bass player and would be Scott's target audience.

I've always heard referred to as a 'short change' or a 'quick change', never as a 'short 12 bar'

From what I've heard, it was more to do with what he fancied playing on any given night rather than whatever pickup band (cheapest guys available rather than 'session' musicians) was on the bandstand. I'm sure that whoever was playing with him would know the song perfectly well, but just had to follow the great man and what he decided to play.