peteb

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...

I agree, on both counts. I'm sure that they selected her because her undoubted abilities (demonstrated by having worked with the great Jeff Beck, etc), also knowing that it would help to avoid the direct comparisons with Peart that asking a big name prog drummer would have done. However, it may have a secondary benefit and have a marginally positive impact on the misogynistic climate amongst certain sections of American society.

I don't think that Rush fans are renowned for their prejudice, but the fact that a female can score such a high profile rock gig without anyone with any credibility suggesting that it is a 'woke' gesture (or whatever) is great. The tour will (initially at least) be focussed on American soil, where there are plenty of right-wing commentators with very misogynistic attitudes who are dominating mainstream media. I think that overall it is a positive thing. And, as I said on the other Rush thread, it does ensure that there will be at least one woman at a Rush show!

I think that people are missing the true significance of them taking Anika Nilles out on tour - they are ensuring that there will be at least one woman at a Rush show!

I know Danny and he's a nice guy! Unfortunately, he's not a big lad and I can't imagine him wanting to get involved with anything potentially as serious as this. It is one thing to get annoyed and call out a YouTuber over ripping other YouTubers off (and then to benefit from the resulting online publicity), it's quite another to get involved in a case going through the criminal courts in the country he lives in, with a guy who is a career criminal and who has been known to make physical threats!

Perhaps a mod should consider merging the three current threads on Rush?

I can see a downside, but you're a long time dead and it is their legacy and theirs to do with it as they please. If they miss playing together and playing those songs, then why shouldn't they get back out there and play. As you say, why the hell wouldn't they carry on as long as they physically can! I agree with you about Peart and bringing a female drummer onboard, and bringing a separate keys player makes sense. I'm also assuming that the tour won't be as long as those they did in the past. I've got no skin in the game as I don't particularly like the music and won't be buying a ticket if they play down the road, but there seems to be a great friendship there and they come across as great guys. Best of luck to them.

I don't even like Rush's music much, but I do like those two!

To be fair, it's just as likely to be a Precision with rounds, but those are the two main reference sounds that most producers want!

Why does anyone need to hear my negative opinion of their band? There's maybe two or three people who I know, trust and would ask for their opinion about a band I'm in. Generally, if someone wants to tell me how great we are, then I will be gracious about accepting the compliment (even if I won't take it too seriously), but if they have a negative opinion or think that they know more about it than me, then I will give them very short shrift. Similarly, I won't give anyone my (negative) opinion about their band.

Bought a Gary Moore live CD / DVD (yep, another one) from Mick a few days ago. All good and a nice guy...

Funnily enough, despite my best efforts, I'm in the opposite camp. I tried out loads (and sent a lot of money on one), and even though some of them have a decent enough tone, I've never found one that has a response that works for me live. I ended up selling my expensive Class D amp and getting a Handbox hybrid amp, which is an easy one-hand carry but sounds great. As far as the OP goes, I'll see your Trace Elliot and raise you an old SWR amp. For me, SWR coming onto the market was the big step forward for bass amplification. You can pick up secondhand SM-900 heads for a song these days and they are serious amps (the cabs were superb as well).

I recently bought a brand new Chord 2u rackbag (cost about £55 IIRC), but I don't need it now and could do with getting out of the house. I'm not going to post it, but if anybody wants to pick it up from north Bradford, they can have it for free.

Yea, I think that Daphne Blue / tort is possibly my favourite P bass finish, although sunburst / tort is always a classic as well...

@walshy If you had that Daphne Blue AVRI62 up a month ago, then I would probably have bought that instead...!