peteb

He's got a point!

Dunno, you could say pretty much the same for Peter Frampton, Foreigner, Mariah Carey and Ozzy. They are all big household names, especially in America...

Rather a strange admission from someone with such a punk rock background...! 😉

Don't worry, it can't have been her - this was 40 years ago (about 83)...!

In the early 80s, I was in a band in London with a very good girl singer that had a bit of interest, but there were a few personal tensions and we split up. Me, the guitarist and the original drummer decided to resurrect the band without keys and started looking for a singer. We held auditions over a couple of days in a rehearsal studio in the Elephant & Castle. The first session turned up a couple of possibles, but the second one was less productive. One girl turned up in a leather mini skirt, dressed up as if for a night out and looked great, but unfortunately she didn't have a great voice. The guitar player later rang her up, saying that she didn't have the right voice for the band, but she had something if they could find the right project for her. He ended up talking her into going on a date with him, which obviously was the intention all along. However, the best was saved for last. A Welsh girl (who I remember was a nurse) turned up about half an hour late, just as we were about to knock it on the head and go to the pub. It was pretty obvious she wasn't going to get the gig, so we take her for a drink. After a couple of beers, she was still wanting to sing and she obviously wasn't short of confidence, so we head back to the studio. We try to teach her one of our songs, which she just couldn't get. She then reaches into her bag and pulls out a Black Sabbath songbook and decides that she wants us to play Paranoid. We had been taping the auditions, so the guitarist discretely turns the tape off, only for me to flick it back on. She wasn't great, in fact she was awful and singing so flat she was nearly coming back in tune an octave down at times. At this point, her boyfriend comes to pick up her up and she's giving us her details, confident that she's completely nailed it! I must have played that tape to everyone who came down to my gaff for weeks...

I'm not so sure that it is. On some level, art should be its own reward and the fact that you've been successful and made a lot of money pursuing your art should be recognition enough! The RRHOF is really just an exercise to generate a relatively small amount of income to those who own the brand, not to mention create rather meaningless controversy on social media. Also, this hall of fame concept is really linked to the stats driven approach that the yanks insist on applying to sports. It's all very American! However, if such an institution is to exist, then I have no issue with Foreigner or Oasis being in it...

I don't really see the issue with many of them! Oasis - massive over here and pretty much defined the music scene in the late 90s to mid 00s, not as big in the USA but still well known Cher - longevity and a lot of massive, iconic singles Peter Frampton - Humble Pie and big solo career, still massive & influential in the States Kool ATG - big funk act, loads of well known tunes Foreigner - massive band, helped establish AOR as a genre, loads of hits and longevity Mary J Blige - pretty iconic for a while, although it depends where you are setting the bar Mariah Carey - great voice (if a bit OTT), massive hits and a huge star Jane's Addiction - very influential (no JA, probably no RHCP), again depends on where you are set the bar Ozzy Osbourne - can't think of any reason why he isn't in already for his solo career! As @BigRedX says, music is supposed to be an art and I'm not really keen on bringing in this element of it being seen as a competitive sport. I agree that it shouldn't really matter who is being inducted. But if you are going to have such an institution, I've no problem with a few of those candidates.

Yea, Birmingham was always a good town for us back in the day.

Maybe, but also the Midlands and the North East. We did play quite a lot of gigs in the Greater Manchester area / Lancashire rather than Manchester itself.

Not so much in the north. Hair metal and AOR were massive around here, and you can still get a decent audience in pubs today playing covers from those genres. It may have been a niche, but it was a pretty big one! I would say that agrees with my experiences, having gigged around the country in the 80s (and again more recently) and having lived in both the north and the south.

There are also pro players who know of all the options but gravitate to Fenders, because they know that is what their gigs require / their clients want.

A year or so ago, I saw a Scottish pro drummer acquaintance of mine playing with his blues band somewhere around here. The normal bass player was on tour, so they had a youngish guy depping for them. This kid was an ace player, had a degree in music, played in a classical orchestra (forget which instrument) and also played an upright on jazz gigs. In addition to that, he also did various pop or rock gigs on electric bass. He had just paid £3.5k or so for a new mint green, RW neck, CS P bass and asked me what I thought of it. I played it and it looked, sounded and played great. He said that he knows its not cheap, but he wanted a simple, reliable, top quality bass that he could take on any pro gig and know that it would work. You can't really argue with that. Would I pay £5k for one - I dunno, probably not. But I can see why he would...

If I had ever an opportunity to make any sort of a living as a pro, then absolutely. However, whenever I had a sniff then it jut wasn't a viable opportunity at the time. I am currently playing with a keys player who has been a pro since being a teenager - been in a couple of signed bands (one quite famous), done loads of tours & sessions, toured with a couple of famous old MOR household name acts and then slogged around the clubs when he got a bit older, etc. He did OK out of it, but I'm certainly a bit better off financially than he is now that we're both in our 60s (me early, him late 60s). Nether the less, I would have swapped his career with mine in a heartbeat...!

I find its always best to actually ring places like the Gallery and speak to someone. For a start, it's the only way of knowing if they have sold the bass three months before they got round to putting it on the website! Some people used to moan about the old Bass Direct website, but the Gallery's was always far worse...

Yea, it looks great, but I agree that I would be very wary about paying a lot of money for a refin, purely because how it would affect the potential resale value for such an expensive bass. However, it makes me think - back when I was relatively young, we all had 70s Fenders and we all modded them! We all swapped out pickups, put on new bridges, etc and then sold them on to each other for £300 or so, without it affecting the value of the bass. Of course, they weren't considered 'vintage' back then! I remember seeing an interview with Rick Wills and Tom Semioli on 'Know Your Bass Player' and they agreed that a P bass isn't really your own until you've taken a screwdriver to it! If I was ever to seriously consider buy a vintage Fender, I think that I would be looking for one that had a badass bridge or whatever already fitted, and was therefore considerably cheaper than an all original example. I would be scared of owning a really expensive vintage P bass because I would be afraid of modding it to get it how I wanted because of how it would effect its value...

I voted 34", which gets a decent string tension and just sounds better (I once had a 34.5" that was great as well). I also voted for a 35" scale for a five string or where you are tuning down more than a half step.

Daryl, the Skegness reference is a bit of a joke as it is a rather grim resort on the North Sea that most people would rather avoid (unless they're really broke)! It's not like going on holiday to Spain for a week in the sun. There did used to be a big blues / rock festival at a holiday camp in Skegness until very recently. It was always about this time of year. I played it once - it was a really good event...! Oh, and happy 70th birthday Daryl - enjoy your new venerable status and great that you're still out there...

1. Why you don't have any gigs? Yes, we have gigs but not as many as we would like and less than previous years. It is getting harder to book tribute gigs without agency representation, despite having quite a lot of recognition and a couple of reasonably well known members. 2. Do you rely on an agent? No, but we do use them occasionally. If it was up to me, we would be using them a lot more. 3. Who finds coordinates and confirms gigs? Generally, the band leader (guitarist) for the Zep tribute, although I’ve got a few. For the new blues band I’m doing, it will most likely be mainly me and the guitarist. 4. Are you or any band members in this for the money? For a couple of members (in both bands), making money from gigs (from several bands) is a significant part of their income. This something that the reasonably highly paid drummer sometimes fails to realise! For me, it pays for holidays and new gear, strings, etc. It might be a weekend in Skegness this year! 5. How much do you want to gig? Two to three times a month would be ideal. Playing the tribute circuit necessitates a fair bit of travelling if you want to go out for half-decent money, it just comes with the gig. I have no problem with that at all if we’re making enough money to make it worthwhile.

The thing that confuses me is that he says that maple necks weren't a thing until the 60s, but I thought that 57 P basses came with a maple fingerboard.

I have indeed been confused occasionally about that!

Funnily enough, I had once a Mayones jazz bass with a 41 / B nut width. That was a really great bass to play, although I could never get it sound just how I wanted it to.

What profile / nut width does an 'A' neck have?

I thought that 50s models were 44 and all of the 60s ones were 41 - you learn something new everyday! I had a AVRI 57 P bass for a few years. It was a nice bass but the neck felt a little wide. I much prefer the 41mm wide nut, which feels better to me than a jazz bass or the earlier, wider nut, P basses. You can tell that I started out on 70s P basses...!

What was the standard 41mm P bass nut width then? Was that a B or a C??

One of the big reasons for the decline of rock music discussed by Rick Beato and one of his mates, a former record company exec / A&R man / producer: