bluesparky

There's a rumour on t'internet that prince has passed away.
Is there any truth in it?

[quote name='40hz' timestamp='1460728265' post='3028247']
I absolutely love Flea but that is just AWFUL.
[/quote]
Me too, when videos of players and bands who're new / inexperienced / don't have the abilites yet to perfect the songs they're posting are heavily criticised for doing so, I'll shy away from making negative comments as I was them once.. But when it's someone who you know damn well can actually play, and can play well, it's hard not to raise an eyebrow and wonder out loud what they hell they're doing!

Great work Tom, thank you for sharing.
Cheers,

[quote name='KingBollock' timestamp='1460727025' post='3028231']
I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought it sounded really amateurish. If he had played it in his bedroom and put it up on YouTube, the comments would have gone:

[i]You're doing well for only playing three months. Keep it up!

Dude. You need to relax and learn the basics first.

Lol!!

I want to have sexual relations with your mum.

Don't cry, you should just get more proficient before putting stuff on YouTube...

Failed guitarist! Lololololol!!!1![/i]

Still, love those cabs, they look ace (going back to the aesthetic look of amps and cabs thread). I was sooo close to buying a couple of the 4x10s a couple of years ago, just because they look cool (and they were going cheap).
[/quote]

I have spent quite a while chortling at a fair few of the comments on a couple of threads here and there..

Unless I've missed it on here (apologies if there is a post about it, I couldn't find one), did anyone else see the footage of Flea playing the National Anthem (stars and stripes) and the L.A. Lakers vs. Utah Jazz basketball game a few days ago?

It's certainly divided the community elsewhere, he's been seriously criticised for overplaying and having an awful tone, but also for simply not removing his cap during the national anthem(!).
Me, personally, I didn't enjoy it at all and I've been a massive fan of his for almost 3 decades now...

[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8itum6etNcM"]www.youtube....h?v=8itum6etNcM[/url]

I'm a bit of a Reef nut to be honest, I must've easily seen them about 25 times over the years, good for you for seeing them in such an intimate venue.

I managed to see them at UEA and loved it, sadly I've been busy with work so I've not been able to make it to any other gigs on the tour.

They're playing the Jimmy's Farm festival in my home town of Ipswich later this year so I'll be looking forward to that.

If I remember rightly Jack was in Bassist magazine many years ago and a couple of things stick in my mind, him talking about using a Rat pedal on summers in bloom, using a Korg G5 bass synth for a bit early on, and that he did go to Basstech for a while. I'm not sure if it was a full time course, more for a few lessons.
I even managed to make an appearence in the Superhero video as it was filmed in Perivale just down the road from where I worked and my boss heard on XFM that they were asking for extras. He pretty much said "what are you still doing here? Off you pop!".
Glow has been my outstanding favourite album, Replensish is a fantastic album with Naked & Good feeling being incredible tracks but I just really love the whole feel of Glow.

I should've left you's vibe is outstanding and Summer's in Bloom is simply mental live.

Jesse, as well as being Ronnie Wood's son is also Mr Fearne Cotton. When they ended up standing next to me where I was working at a gig last year I was more impressed by him being next to me than her (obviously)!

Another great bit of trivia is that Good Feeling's video is shot on the surfing beach in Cornwall where I had my family holidays every year when I was growing up, and where I now take my family every year... Happy days.

Over the past 15 years of my touring career I've seen MANY vocalists say "good evening (insert incorrect town / city / COUNTRY!!! here) and even seen them trying to talk to the crowd in the wrong language which is funnier, but at least they're making the effort!

I saw the chills headline V one year and they got completely lost during parallel universe, there was lots of looking around trying to work out where they were going to come back in again etc whilst going round and round with the same riff..
Also, I saw them the first night at Hyde park and Anthony came in too early after the solo in my lovely man, the next night I listened to radio one broadcasted the next night's Hyde park show "live", which was strange as he made the same mistake, again, in the same place the next night! How weird!!
I did a very small corporate show once, for a company which was founded in the 60's. To celebrate an anniversary of their founding, the got lulu in to do a short set, with a full band (only to about 50 or so people).
The band were very good, made up of session musicians including a couple I recognise from other backing bands. However, they had to restart "shout", twice, because lulu got it wrong both times.

Now that I'm finally back from touring (for a bit) it's time I gave these bad boys a little bump!

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1454852224' post='2973513']
How long does each course take, and how many hours ?

I finished my BMus degree last year. My first year I had maybe 20 hours a week contact time. We were expected to do at least that again at home. In reality it was a lot more, I probably spent another 30 hours a week at home practicing and other work.

It'd be a lot of work doing something the equivalent of a degree, whilst working full time. Unless you can break it down into smaller modules spread over a period of time.

I'm currently doing a part time MMus. I have one 2 hour lecture a week, I totally misjudged the amount of work outside of that.
[/quote]
To be honest, I'm not sure, however, reading the syllabus closely it does seem to say in one section "Candidates are expected to complete the whole of this unit in one exam sitting, however prior research and preparation would be expected for all sections and the promotional portfolio will be submitted at the beginning of the exam having been completed in the candidate’s own time.

The syllabus also seems to suggest a “cross-media promotional portfolio” is to be submitted to support their program.
Unless I'm mistaken (which is quite common) it appears to be mostly exam based except for a portfolio / promotional material which needs to be prepared in advance - which sounds interesting...

Hello!
Has anyone taken a look at or had any experience of these?

Since taking a few Grade 8 exams on bass I’ve been on the look out on where to head to next for bass qualifications.

I’d love to do a full-time education course but that simply isn’t an option, I’ve also been pursuing piano & music theory grades to keep myself ticking over but I’d really been enjoying the bass exams, basically as thanks to my work schedule it’s impossible for me to be in a band to it gives me something to work towards, practice for and some direction.

The links for the diplomas are here:

[url="https://www.rslawards.com/music/diplomas/performance-diploma/level-four"]https://www.rslawards.com/music/diplomas/performance-diploma/level-four[/url]

[url="https://www.rslawards.com/music/diplomas/performance-diploma/level-six"]https://www.rslawards.com/music/diplomas/performance-diploma/level-six[/url]

It looks like level four equates in standard to the first year of a music performance degree course whereas level six equates in standard to the final year of a music performance degree course.

The prerequisite for Level Four is a Grade 8 / Music A level / Music BTEC and the Level six entry level is a Level four qualification.

I’m very interested in it and I very much look forward to choosing what I’ll play for the exams and working hard to master the arrangements I’ll play, although I’ll be breaking new ground on learning about how to answer questions such as: understanding target audience, relevance of target material, use of promotional material, who are the target audience and is my material likely to reach them, do I know what to do with any follow-up i.e ‘likes’ on Facebook, twitter followers, contract knowledge, liability insurance etc!!

I don’t know how many of you are interested in any of the exams out there (RGT, rock school or trinity etc) or whether this floats you boat, but I’ve not seen it mentioned on here before so I didn’t know if anyone had noticed it yet..

Thoughts anyone?

Cheers.

Reef (for the 21st time!)at UEA for me, after working for solo pop singers for the past couple of years it'll be a welcome relief! As will a summer of working at rock & metal festivals too!

Sad news, top bloke too..

I thought I'd post this here too.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-35101721?SThisFB

I won't go into the boring details of the video equipment that crashed in the afternoon (a hippotiser, which was repaired with plenty of spare time, as opposed to how it was described in the new report), but I may add the fact that with the exception of two shows for this entire tour, she's been late on stage every night by on average 45 mins.
Over an hour late on stage is pretty usual / common.
She had to cut her set short by 3 songs that night as the venue were going to pull the power at 11.45pm, having already extended the curfew from 11.30pm mid-show (at who knows what cost).
Of course, it's nice that the crew get the blame. Not at all frustrating. It seems the backlash on Twitter etc before the show, about her being late on stage prompted the apology / shift of blame.

It seems that so far only the UK venues have the balls to follow through with the threat of pulling her power, literally everywhere else the tour has been to so far has ended up sailing through the advertised curfew.

Anyway, first world issues 'n all that. Soon be Christmas!

Muse - Stockholm syndrome!
Nice and heavy and separate from the rest of the song.
+1 for sir psycho sexy too, there's a whole bunch of chili pepper songs that have great outros too, Warped is another nice pretty one!

There is also the fact that the artist / band are often quite arrogant and simply refuse to be rushed or do what they're told to do as THEY are the one in charge, it's their gig, they'll do what they want.

I won't name names as it's unprofessional of me to do so, but there is an A list artist who've I've worked for who will intentionally go on stage late e.g. because they've been told that the show needs to not overrun due to public transport issues etc.. and that's just one example.

Other times they simply can't be bothered and will have a sleep in their dressing room until they feel ready - Going on stage two hours late isn't unusual.
Slow hand claps and booing during the wait for the turn to go on stage is the norm and pretty much a daily thing on certain tours. Also, seeing people who are leaving before the artist has even been on stage because it's so late is pretty bad, especially with tickets costing £90 minimum.

The only time on the entire tour they did go exactly on time was at the O2 arena when they were told that the power would be pulled at 11.40pm regardless of what was happening on stage.

This is certainly not unusual in the industry and in my opinion is very annoying as it simply takes the P.1.55 out of the audience, crew and anyone working for the venue.

There are of course many bands and artists out there who do everything on time, to the minute and respect the fact people have paid a lot of money to
see them and people who work for them have been standing by ready in plenty of time for the advertised times.

Festivals are always a pain, the afternoon / early evening bands will often overrun as their set will take longer than they anticipate due to each band extended endings, squeezing in a longer solo, between song banter, squeezing in another song & simply not appreciating the time that gets taken up between song. It all adds up, leading to delayed stage times later on in the day.

Once the bigger named bands start coming on, the changeover between bands will get much longer to absorb the lost time & for any extra production.
Before the headliner comes on it'll be the biggest length of changeover of the day to ensure a decent line check, pull any set into position etc.
It's very rare for a headliner at a decent sized festival to be late thanks to the lengthing of the changeovers as the day progress and therefore and headliner who does come on late, it's all down to them and they have to accept the consequences e.g. Guns 'N Roses at Reading a few years ago.

I've always found it frustrating and annyoing when bands go on late, seeing the audience getting genuinely angry at being kept so late, but the second the intro music starts, a kabuki drops or the band walks on stage it's forgotten about and all smiles again.
I keep imagining that someone in the front row needs to pass a note to the stage saying "Yeah, we may be enjoying ourselves, but we're still miffed you're late".

[quote name='Cato' timestamp='1448710824' post='2917550']


That was an expensive link.

I could have resisted if I hadn't seen the custom colours options on the bass clef t shirt.
[/quote]
There're lots of tempting things there, I've had to summon all the willpower I have so as not to buy lots of similar things I don't really need..

Sorry for the double post.. Bloomin' phone!

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1448661171' post='2917326']


'FACE' is for that other lot...


[/quote]
Ha ha!

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1448661171' post='2917326']


'FACE' is for that other lot...


[/quote]
Ha ha!

This t shirt caught my eye earlier and it's going on the list.
Not too in your face but obvious to us.
http://www.zazzle.co.uk/eadg_bass_guitar_tuning_t_shirt-235305239544153062

Thanks a lot, greatly appreciated.

Great, thank you.

Pantera!!!!
Jaco (in any line-up)
Vai (the "band") - just to hear the Sex & Religion album played live, with TM Stevens & Devin Townsend etc
Hendrix
Queen with Freddie. (I did do the 2008 cosmos rocks tour, but it was with a.n.other singing, not the same in my book!).
Led Zep (before my time though - however I was annoyingly in the building on the day of the O2 Ahmet show as I had just loaded out the Take That tour that was in the previous night / week. I knew most of the crew on the Led Zep gig and could've easily stayed in the O2 and seen the gig, but I'd have to have been in Manchester early in the morning after the Led Zep gig to load into the MEN and there wasn't a practical way of getting there. Looking back I should've just taken a cab to Manchester or hired a car - it'd have been worth it in the long run).

[quote name='Nicko' timestamp='1446726574' post='2901762']
I really like the Stereophonics music, but Kelly Jones is an absolute 1st class a**hole IMHO.
Slash. Need I say more?
On the subject of U2, The Edge is almost as bad.
[/quote]
Slash?
I'm not sure of his past, but now he's one of the nicest people in the industry.

A few colleagues of mine have toured with him multiple times and have said he makes a good effort to go out of his way to be approachable to fans & his crew etc when he certainly doesn't need to.

A quote from his LD was "if it wasn't for Dave Grohl he'd be the nicest person in rock 'n roll", which was nice for me to hear - on that note I asked what his & Slash's opinion of Axl was, the answer definitely wasn't quite so positive.