paulears

How about a hunting horn! http://www.thomann.de/gb/thomann_bbfuerst_pless_horn.htm

I've had more issues with using centralised PSUs due to the slight connector differences, so my current method of dealing with wall wart PSUs is simple. cable ties. Each one cannot come undone, and fall out of the socket. In fact, my rack is so cable tied that it's now virtually impossible to remove any of the PSUs in there - which has it's own problems, but it does stop this kind of fault when bumped about in the van.

Clever, but I'd rather have a guitarist and some variation. There's a limit to what they can do. Bring back Casio one finger chords, drum machines and buskers with naff tracks. I did see them play on TV and thought it was clever - but if he dumped the drummer for a machine, he'd be able to keep all the money - Oh, hang on, Ed has already done that with his looping. I not not everyone is downsizing, the Beach Boys are up to 8 now!

I looked at your transcriptions and they are clear, easy and good representations of what my brain told me. Tab would give you what? where to put your fingers, but no idea at all how to play it. I hear people saying it's important because you need to make sure fingers go on the fret the original player used, but why? I have big hands and find that I don't need to do some weird fingerings because I can reach the simpler fingering frets. For me it makes some phrases much more fluid. I've no interest in tab at all, and never use it - although I do see why some people use it. For bass, which unless you play chords, I can't really see the point. Conventional notation has proven efficient over hundreds of years, and is pretty universal. I find some people's style difficult, but yours works well for me. Paul

Chas and Dave are a 3 piece - despite calling themselves a duo. Their drummer Mick retired and the drummer is now Chas's son, Nick. Having worked on their shows a few times over the years, the bass playing is underrated - damn tough set for Dave!

What really gets me is when people ask proper questions and somebody takes the effort to reply with their views and then gets machine gunned. Sure sometimes their advice is poor or even totally wrong, but others just add the right answer. Why some choose to be so nasty is beyond me. On one forum I it called an idiot by one of the moderators for suggesting what I'd done myself, quite successfully quite a few times, because it wasn't 'normal' advice. Who cares?

I get so cross nowadays with this constant PC rubbish based on a perceived insult by someone else! Here in the UK, I've not heard anyone refer to someone as a 'Nip' for years. So it's so easy to be out of date. Looking back a little, what is the difference between calling us 'Brits' and the Japanese 'Japs'? Nothing whatsoever. The name itself can be turned into an insult simply by the way it's said - so (as to not cause offence to others) 'Brit' said with a smile and a suitable voice is perfectly acceptable, while 'Brit' spoken as a curse could be a big insult. Until somebody produces a directory of acceptable words, with a time limit on the currency, it's all pointless. Back when I bought, aged 17, a Kawai Strat, it was referred to as 'Jap Crap' by those who didn't know, but now, crap, as a quality term can be applied to almost any make, including the big name brands sometimes, on those guitars that got away. Is it really ok for a rapper to walk out in front of an audience and mother Fu**** this and use any language he likes to curse, under the guise of this language being acceptable. Yet on a forum like this, we can't say 'Jap'? The world has gone mad. A forum, about my home town deals mainly in local news and opinion. We have a group of people in the UK, previously known as gypsies - but now they have to be called 'travellers' - and they move into an area in caravans, cause huge public order trouble, with the police and the local councils up in arms. They get a court order, and they get moved on - this takes three weeks, and they simply move twenty miles and do it again. There is evidence that local petty crime goes up when they are in the area, they destroy the local environment, and often they kill local ornamental wild ducks that exist in our parklands - which the kids feed. Their kids don't go to school, and pretty well they're despised, right or wrong. The local forum have no mention of it - so I asked why, and was told that they'd been advised that even allowing posts using the word 'traveller', rather than gypsy were racist, so the topic is a no go area. Please let's not do this to a music forum. There seems to be a problem with insinuating lesser products with big names come from Mexico. Chinese products are always described as crap, and the other Asian products don't do very well either. Indian kit is also tagged as poor - but nobody mentions Pakistan, because shortening that one here is a real 'no no' - really offensive. It's impossible to keep everyone happy

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1399745577' post='2447300'] How will they do that then? The tickets were sold out months before they were even announced. [/quote] TV, Radio and DVD rights - which are pretty lucrative. The reality is that every time the bands from the 70s, 80s and 90s go on, the response is often better than the much narrower radio 1 demographic. Look at Niles Rogers last year - loads of the crowd had no idea who he was, but the reviews afterwards were great. Metallica may well do a great set and go down well. Personally I'll probably not watch it but I bet it goes down well. A bit like people who slag of bands like Status Quo, whose fan base now includes parents AND their children, but have never been ultra cool. Let's not forget it could be much, much worse ....... Morrisey could be on the list!

Metallica and Iron Maiden may well be getting on, but their audience are big spenders - Metallica will bring their own distinct audience to add to, not replace the kiddie bands in this year - so is a sensible business decision by the organisers. I don't like them very much because it's not really my kind of music, but with age and long career comes really good shows. More modern audiences don't know good stage behaviour anyway = Liam Gallagher has seen off competition from Mick Jagger, Freddie Mercury, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain to win XFM's 'Greatest Frontman Of All Time' poll as voted for by their listeners.

I am getting really bad with typos - del boys works though!

I think you have to get over insecurity. Our band is very difficult/impossible to del, being a Beach Boys tribute and we all sing - so when I was booked on another gig, I had the great idea of asking the original bass player if he'd come back to do it. He knew the songs and harmonies, and he did it - and then when we needed a new sound man, we got him to do that because he knows the balance better than anyone! There's no problem - and even though I replaced him, I don't worry he'll want to return. Very handy solution for us! The old guitarist on the other hand, wouldn't come back - so we don't have a del for him.

The real problem is that music shops staff their premises with keen young musos paid NMW when they really should have staffed the shop with proper sales people, who know the product ranges and can actually sell! Sales don't generate themselves, there's an art to it, and there are plenty of skills people can learn to increase their conversion rate. Customers make buying signals and proper sales people can spot these. Sure - part of their job is to sell what they want, rather than the customer wants, and maximise profit. These people match up what people want (think they want) to what the shop has to sell, and as they're usually on commission, you can expect attention. Of course, sometimes we don't want this attention, but you can't have it both ways.

I too cannot stand Morrisey's voice - and I think that this was what stopped me even listening to the music. His depressing, tuneless and audience unaware approach, plus his odd behaviour runnier the entire band for me. He came to the theatre I run - his Tour Manager asked if I would mind keeping my back to the stage when he was on, because he didn't like eye contact with strangers. I suggested that perhaps this would be the best time for me to go and make use of the excellent catering he insisted on. So while Morrisey was 'performing' I was eating, but at the end - during the last number I tried to get back up to the stage to turn on the house lighting - my one show task, but security wouldn't let me "because I might bump into the band coming off stage". I tried to explain that I wouldn't recognise any of them anyway - but the audience had to wait in the dark until the dressing room doors were shut! The entire day was probably one of the worst gigs I've had to work on. Don't even get me started on 80 white bath towels, brand new toilet seat and all the meat products restrictions. The Smiths might be good, but would have been better if they had dumped the dreary depressed fool who fronted them and got somebody who could sing and had an ego 1000 time smaller!

Not 80s, but my band are a tribute and we spend ages trying to get what we do, as close the originals as we can, but our rule is that we'll only do a song recorded or written by the original band. This does give us a chance to do some songs made famous by other people from time to time, but these songs are the minority. As our band is looking at an original US band, we do find that popular songs in the US may have not done that well here, and vice versa, plus a few songs we just don't like very much. Sometimes, people ask for them, so in these cases, we smile and do them. In Japan, and other distant countries - they have a completely different popular song list. We have around 40 or so songs which we put into an A, B or C list, so depending on how long we need to play for, we make up the set list from A list first, then adding Bs - C list songs feature in the theatre set - 2 X 50 mins. This system works for us.

I was owed some money by a client for radio microphones he had on long term hire and he offered a swap for a nearly new Jazz 5 string bass - I couldn't get the action as low as my old and much loved Peavy International 5 string, without lots of buzzing and fret noise, despite the neck being fine, and then I discovered the Fender suggested string height was nearly double what my Peavey can play at - my style meant I play quiet, and use more amp gain. I've now got used to the higher action and rather like it, because the tone is much brighter and twangier which suits my current band better. However, I can't go back because my Peavey now sounds dull and muffled. Play something different, and you stand a good chance of no longer liking the old one!

A great shame, I didn't know they'd gone under. I too had one as my first 5 string, and I still have it. Some idiot at college tuned it up, not realising the thick string was a B, and the neck has developed a buzz as a result. Nice sound, and low action, although the B is a bit slack and flappy.