molan

Don't know if this has come up before but I've been a long time subscriber to Wolfgang's Vault newsletter & every now and then they unearth some real live concert gems that you can listen to live. Many of them are complete concerts recorded for American radio - particularly the King Biscuit Hour shows. Quality can be quite patchy but they have some great stuff. I'm currently listening to The Clash live from the Agora Ballroom Feb '79 - I'd guess soon after Give 'Em Enough Rope came out in the USA judging by the set list. Some artists have multiple concerts here - unsurprisingly the Grateful Dead have about the most - 36 in total! Wow - as I was typing this I spotted the Baker Gurvitz Army from Reading Uni in '75 - I was at that gig, lol. Gives a good indication of how obscure some of the music is I guess. Some of the material costs to listen to but I've never come across anything I wanted to pay for yet. Home page is [url="http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/"]http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/[/url]

I was involved in sponsoring one of TT's tours (first one post Robbie I think) and we got a batch of comp tickets so I took my daughters. I've never seen / heard so many young girls losing control in one place at the same time. One teenage girl near us quite literally wet herself when they came on! The thing that got me was how many of the mums were all dolled up & really going hell for leather as well - definitely a bit intimidating, lol.

I went to see them at SHepherds Bush on Sunday & I'm afraid I was a bit disappointed Sound wasn't brilliant, bass & bass drum very boomy, and SB is normally a good live sound venue. I also got bored rigid in the 20 minute 'Dweezil conducts the band' section in the middle. I saw them last time they were over here (maybe 2 years now?) and, IMHO, they were a million times better. Dweezil's solos were more focussed, band dynamics seemed better and they played a string of tricks with live vids of Zappa himslef which worked incredibly well. This time around it felt much more like a 'tribute band' to me & just made me remember quite how good Frank was live (I saw him a couple of times with Steve Vai on 2nd guitar). However I have to say that the audience were getting into it a lot more this time around so maybe it was just me that thought they weren't as good!

Excellent - count me in for 100 Club

My other trick in crappy rehearsal rooms is to use my little Sadowsky pre & try to feed it straight into the power amp stage or, failing that, using as the mast tone control & running the amp totally flat. It only has simple volume, bass & treble controls but I've used it on a couple of horrible sounding amps in the past & it made a big difference. You're more than welcome to borrow it if it would be any use, pretty small unit & easy to post!

[quote name='51m0n' post='516346' date='Jun 17 2009, 12:43 PM']So with that in mind I've had spotify dialed up to Motown-tastic all morning, and just soaking up that feel, and its plenty of notes but really relaxed, which is what I wasnt [/quote] If it's any help I've got 700Mb of classic Motown with the majority of vocals removed. They are not quite instrumentals as the backing vox are still there to help with position in the song etc. I could either burn to CD or maybe upload a clutch of them somewhere for you. In terms of sound have you thought about checking wheher you could at least use your head at rehearsal & feed it into the Peavey cabs? Might help you with eq etc. You could also see if you could get into the rehearsal space between now & the next session to really work the eq on the Peavey gear to get it sounding as good as it possibly can?

[quote name='silddx' post='516315' date='Jun 17 2009, 12:15 PM']I reckon I'm up for the 100 Club, anyone else?[/quote] I can walk there from work in about 5 minutes flat!

I did eventually get a reply to my 3rd email - it kinda said "we're too busy to reply to emails". I'm afraid I still think it's a bit rubbish to run an online business that isn't able to manage customer email queries. I thought this kind of practice had died out years ago!

I've just got in from rehearsal & dashed to the PC to see how you'd got on! Tell them if you get the gig there will be a queue of bass players at the door the first time you play live - we'll bring mates as well so they'll get a much bigger crowd Seriously well done though, great news so far.

Good new s Stu - wait til you discover that you're playing outside with no cover & the weather is overcast with a high chance of rain, should be a fun gig. . .

Have you contacted them to say how much you enjoyed it etc.? i always do that post interviews to make sure I keep some dialogue going. Tends to be by email in a work environment though as it's easier to sound really enthusiastic without coming across as desperate, lol.

[quote name='51m0n' post='515351' date='Jun 16 2009, 03:05 PM']Still no word, so starting to think they probably chose someone else....[/quote] As someone who's regularly involved with new people recruitment stuff I always go by the 'no news is good news' rule for at least the first day or so

Just my 2 pence worth on the use of agents & the level of professionalism at larger gigs. My old band (11 piece soul band) were fortunate enough to pick up a booking for a major London accountancy firm's annual party. It was in the main hall of the Natural History Museum (well - in the ante chamber behind the T-Rex skeleton!). We got the booking becuase we'd played a £1,000 wedding gig and someone in the audience worked for the accountants & recommended us. All the arrangements were handled by a pro agency who did all the liaison work with both the venue & the people who hired us. I couldn't believe how well organised they were. Every last detail was arranged in advance. Stuff like the exact layout of every band member on stage, instruments, mic requirements & preferences for make & model of mics right down to each drum mic! The killer for me was when they asked me to supply 'dietary requirements' - I guneinely thought they were winding me up, lol. When we arrived we were pre-booked through security & astonished to find out that we had our own private chef for the evening with a variety of foods he'd cook to order along with iced drinks & a selection of wines. Road crew had already marked out the stage for us & lighting rig was in place with spots set for the horn section & singers etc. We were treated really well by everyone all evening. From memory we got about £3K for the gig & the bookers took about 15% (not entirely sure about the % though). Personally I think they deserved every penny. We absolutely played our asses off & had a great evening

[quote name='51m0n' post='514917' date='Jun 16 2009, 12:46 AM']Job well done. Fingers crossed! the Roscoe still sounded amazing[/quote] Great news - really hope you get it, sounds like you nailed everything & the Roscoe came up trumps I got a call for an audition this morning in my email for a local band - (nothing like this one of course!) - and the main thing they said was that they desperately wanted someone they could simply get along with and could have a good time. Apparently their previous bass man had a bit of an 'attitude' problem. Mind you, I haven't met them yet so maybe it's them with the attitude & not the bass guy

[quote name='benwhiteuk' post='513493' date='Jun 14 2009, 06:53 PM']My combo is ‘arder than your combo…[/quote] Check 'em out on [url="http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=hartke&word2=ashdown"]Google Fight[/url]

the Roscoe will slay 'em Really looking forward to hear how it goes - all the best of luck matey I reckon you just need to stick by your MySpace maxim: [i][b] "These days it just has to be all about the groove!"[/b][/i]

I've bought and sold through the Gallery - they will definitely haggle (both ways!). I sold a lovely Sei through them and I was the one who put a slightly higher price on it than I thought it was worth precisely so they could haggle on it on my behalf In the current climate they are going to get a lot more people trying to push them on price but not sure if that means they will drop any further. Personally, I'd be tempted to drop my 'face value' price listings in the face of stiff competition but they are a very experienced bunch so I'm sure they know what they're doing

Listening to them right now. Some really good stuff here, loving those horns I like some of their promotional material too: "9 Piece Super Heavy Funk & Soul Collective" "Funk From the Trunk" "Heavy Authentic Funk" Could do with more video on YouTube though - this is all I could find: Do you know why the outgoing guy is leaving? I see he plays a Jazz 4, are you taking the Roscoe? Definitely agree with the stuff above about not being flashy & just finding the groove and sticking with it. It'll be so great if you get on with the drummer from the get go & really click with him

[quote name='biro' post='513961' date='Jun 15 2009, 11:03 AM']Thanks a lot! I really feel the urge to satisfy my long time hunger for a truly embarassing bass![/quote] I don't even think they carry much of a premium either, lol.

[quote name='biro' post='513949' date='Jun 15 2009, 10:58 AM']god, I want this bass! such a sparkling finish![/quote] Look out for 'holoflash' - that's the official name of this finish from Spector

Bootzilla Baby

It'll also depend where you're standing. Different amps will have a different 'throw' (I don't the technical explanation for this!) so one might sound louder when you're standing next to it & another will be louder the other side of the room. The bigger the room the greater the effect might be! I remember when I guitarist I worked with bought an original Fender Twin 100w valve amp and was hacked off that it sounded considerable quieter than his previous crappy Peavey 50w tranny amp. First gig we played he whacked the volume right up on the Twin to hear himself on stage & and nearly took the heads off the audience standing about 20 feet away

I recently got a '75 J Reissue in PX and have been playing it a lot for the past week. This is the first Fender I've owned since my original Musicmaster back in '79 (which I traded for a synth in the '80's - what a mug eh?). I often just sit at my PC & play random music to try & learn the parts & jam along to things. Having spent a fair bit of time doing just this today I've noticed that the sound I'm getting from the J is way closer to a whole string of original songs than any of my other basses. I've been mostly playing funk & soul stuff from 70's & '80's. I wonder if this is this simply because [i]every[/i] pro recording bassist from that era is using a J in the studio, lol.