Breakfast

They're all horribly bad but you are a rock covers band so I'm figuring that is your intention. In that vein I've gone for the most horribly bad yet somehow also great "eROCKtion"

[quote name='stingrayfan' post='80105' date='Oct 27 2007, 01:18 PM']You like it there? I've always found the staff to be surly and the rooms themselves, grubby. One bloke who runs it there we nicknamed "Smiler" on account that he never did smile. Even when he took our money.[/quote] That's exactly unlike my experience- the guys who have been working there when I've been rehearsing (which was weekly for most of the last three years) were an entertaining and helpful bunch. But then I did see them pretty much every week over years so we got to know each other a bit.

It be [url="http://www.myspace.com/the_rooms"]The Rooms[/url] you be wantin'. Just across the roundabout from North Camp station, pretty good facilities and cheap in the day. I think you can hire any number of amps and drums as needed.

I listen out for fragments of melody from other instruments I can steal and integrate with the bass line without them clashing with what everyone else is doing.

[quote]Practise in the dark so you can learn the feel of your fretboard without having to look at it[/quote] Definitely! This is really important because if your face is anything like mine and you look at your fretboard it creates a double chin that isn't normally there and the stage lighting emphasises this cruelly. Learning to play while you look up means you look better, you photograph better and you can make eye contact and engage with your fellow band members and the audience better.

If you can't do it slow, you'll never be able to do it fast. True of so many things in life. Listen to what makes songs work- what the rhythm section do when they want a song to pick up into a chorus or space out for a bridge. The better you understand those dynamics the better you will sound when you are playing in a band.

If you know anyone good at reading I've been told that a good way to get started with it is to transcribe bass lines you already know. That will teach you a whole lot about what note goes where and if you can find someone to play it back to you (or chuck it on your computer and let that sort it out) you'll get a good idea of how accurate you are with it.

[quote name='acidbass' post='52317' date='Aug 29 2007, 02:02 PM']I've also played with the original members of Folk Rock band Horslips.[/quote] Acidbass you are on my list of people who are awesome. I love Horslips, very underrated in the genre. Or maybe not that underrated, there is some sifting to be done to find the gems on some of their records... Hmmm... claims to fame... Once supported Brendan Benson of the Raconteurs, also The Stories, who aren't as well known as they deserve to be but were just back from touring with Elton John. Also someone in a pub who claimed to be a former singer from Toto said he like the band I was playing in. That is literally the size of it...

I play acoustic guitar. I'm really into my finger-picking, but it's difficult and I'm rubbish at it. Might go back to nose-picking instead. Also owned a drum kit for years and could play some quite fancy things, but none of them in time.

So, if we're in the audience for a covers band, what songs <i>should</i> we be requesting?

A lot of Leonard Cohen covers are better than the originals, especially after the mid-seventies when he seems to have started using keyboard backing tracks for his arrangements. John Cale's "Hallelujah" is a good case in point, which was in turn covered by Jeff Buckley and everyone else. REM's "First We Take Manhattan" is pretty awesome too. I'm hoping someone does a heavy cover of "The Future" before I have to just because it needs to be played that way. Fairport Convention played some great covers- I'm inclined to think that things with Sandy Denny singing on them are better than things without so their version of "The Ballad Of Easy Rider" is definitive as far as I'm concerned.

Good singers without huge ego and/or primadonna tendencies.

I think it's important to look like a band- Oasis may not have looked like they were trying but when they walked into the room people would have looked at them and thought "that's a band" and the clothes would surely be part of that. Some of it is creating an impression of being slightly apart from the audience and being slightly a team with the rest of the band. It doesn't have to be marked, but it can help if you're a little over the top because there is something a tiny bit theatrical about going on stage to play to a bunch of people so thinking of it in those terms can be helpful, especially if you're reluctant to change out of your slippers, string vest and trackie bottoms to go on stage.

Last band was quite prescriptive about this, we went for a band "look" and then everyone dressed it- we were all flares and bright colours for a while, then we tried suit jackets and shirts, but that worked out a bit hot for gigs. I quite like wearing a shirt, makes me feel like I care about what I'm wearing, and I avoid black simply because in very many venues the backdrop is black. As a rule I prefer to be a different colour to the background.

Started guitar at 15, picked up bass at 17 and it remained my main instrument ever since. I'm playing more guitar these days, though, trying to get the hang of all the stuff that the really good acoustic guys do, where you have the bass line, melody and harmony all playing at once. Frankly I've been working on this for a couple of years now and it's still doing my head in, but it's laudably difficult...

That mid-morning slot seems to have all the best presenters - Ken Bruce on Radio 2, Jo Whiley on Radio 1 and (my favourite show since Mark & Lard ) Gideon Coe on 6 Music. Surely someone at the BBC could see fit to swap them around a bit so you could get a consistently good day's listening...

Succinctly put there... My favourite thing in my old band was to play the last note of our most climactic guitar solo a semitone flat. It was the perfect Les Dawson moment. It slightly did shoot the song, but it was reliably hilarious in soundcheck or rehearsal.

If you're ever in Toronto, Club Bass is an excellent bass-only shop. This was what was on their wall when we visited: Also lots of smart amplification from interesting makers...

Black Jack Davy by Steeleye Span- the bass at the beginning just sings, simple but amazing. Lazarus or Butterfly McQueen by the Boo Radleys- both have the combination of beach boys harmony pop and deep dubby drive perfectly balanced. Lazarus may be one of the greatest songs ever written, but you need to hear the album version with the long dub intro... +1 to Wonderstuff, Senseless Things and Stone Roses. I'd add "I Wanna Be Adored" to the essential list from the latter. Pineapple Head by Crowded House. The way the bass dances with the mandolin and guitar is tremendous.

I really like a lot of music that has been influenced by dub in various directions but it occurs to me that I know very little about it as a genre. Can anyone suggest what records would make a good introduction or are truly essential, either from a bass playing or a general point of view?

Another probable. Probably with a semi-acoustic Lakland and my little patrick eggle. Unfortunately I am so bad at knowing what I've already committed to I can't be certain I'll be there...

I heard all bass players play better when they're wearing hats.

I'd work on my ear training, cos that's where I'm weakest...

Listening to the new Richard Thompson one - Taras Prodaniuk, Danny Thompson Lots of very solid playing there. Danny Thompson is outstanding, as ever.

I was just thinking maybe there's an evolutionary element as well- the instruments that have survived from the early sixties and not fallen to pieces are probably the ones that have the better build quality just cos the more rubbish ones already fell apart.