Doctor J

Depends on the band and why you're playing the music you're playing. If you're trotting out covers for money, I'd imagine audience numbers and reaction plays a big part in how you percieve the gig went. If they don't sing along to your Sex on Fire, then were you really that sexually fiery? Perhaps getting the cash money eases that pain? For originals, it's always nice to get a positive response from people after the gig. I mean, it's great if people turn up at all but, when they do, if people seek you out to tell you they really enjoyed music you wrote, that's always a good feeling. If they buy a CD and a t-shirt too, even better. I was in a band in the early-90's where we were chasing a sound of very selective appeal. We got a weekend support to a reasonably popular mainstream band and we bombed. I remember looking over at the guitarist during the set and seeing two people in the crowd, beyond him, mouths agape in slack-jawed wonder/repulsion. I was delighted. I thought that if we were alienating people who liked the mainstream stuff, then we were on the right track.

It's also lucrative. There is no supply without demand, from those who want to tick the box and say they saw Blondie, GnR, whoever, and those who still watch it on the telly, keeping the viewing figures high enough to justify another meander through the festivals next year. If someone offers you big money to plod through the greatest hits one more time, and you enjoy going through the motions, you'd be a fool not to take it. Screw the begrudgers. By the time your favourite band is playing large arenas, or stadiums, or is high up on the bill at festivals, their best days are long behind them, anyway. If you didn't see them when they were playing small, filthy sweatboxes, you've probably missed the really good stuff already 🙂

Yep, as said, the way I heard it was that he wanted the Stingray to be the Flea. Not a mere signature bass, but a rebranding.

Probably that the Stingray has sold just fine without needing to give a cut of the cash to Flea whereas Modulus went bust.

Having become detached from popular music awareness around 25 years ago, I'd expect a decent modern festival to be full of names I don't recognise. Any lineup I'd come up with would read like something from the last century and it shouldn't be that way. Many of the bands from my era are mediocre live, these days, even when playing the old music from back when they were good. They shouldn't be at the festival, anyway. I need a time machine festival 😂

Quality player and a great band, despite the inevitable link to britpop and the negative conotations that seems to now infer. There's no place to hide in a band with no rhythm guitarist. I saw them plenty of times over the years and he's a musical and inventive player, while never giving the impression of someone weighed down by technical considerations 🙂

Weak sauce.

Yep, modded Cardinal.

77 is no longer just the year punk broke, it's also Debbie's age. Not bad. My great-grandmother couldn't rock a show like that.

Yep, self-taught on bass, guitar and drums and have recorded and gigged in bands on all three. I started on bass in the late 80's, had one book on bass playing, which got stolen after a while, so learned from watching other players live and in videos and taking the things I liked from their sound and technique. None of my guitar-playing friends were any use at writing music, so I started playing guitar a couple of years later, purely so we could have a band and play our own music. I followed the same pattern of self-learning through looking and listening. A few years later, I started playing drums and, again, learned the same way. I'm not a maestro on any of them but, in truth, I don't really want to be. They're a means to an end and that end is making music. I'm good enough to play what I want to hear and, if I need to play something beyond my abilities, I'll figure out how to do it and practice it. I don't feel burdened by this approach. I don't feel the need to master techniques I have no musical interest in playing. I sound like me and I'm as good as I need to be to make the music I want to hear. That'll do, pig, that'll do.

The courier should have a record of the weight of the package you sent.

There's definitely something in the air, I picked this up yesterday

DD Verni from Overkill playing a BC Rich Widow?

It was probably meant to be gloss but... Gibson.

I don't think it's needing everyone to love you, at all. We've all played to disinterested crowds who, at least, have had the decency to fosters off to something they prefer and let you get on with it. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, everyone who has played live knows the score, I'm sure Sleaford Mods are no exception. We all like a performing artist to engage with, and feed off the energy coming back from, the crowd, not to just go through the motions, so how can we expect them not react when someone stays right up the front showing utter disinterest, at best? It has to be distracting, at the very least. Putting a photo on twitter was bad form, most definitely, but at least they were emotionally engaged and gave enough of a sheeet to notice. Perhaps they haven't done enough gigs in pubs to an audience more interested in the football on the big telly for it not to still be something of a novelty for them? They haven't had the enthusiasm to care ground out of them and still value the reaction of the crowd and let that feed into their performance, I would guess. Not a fan, btw, but did enjoy that song with Orbital recently. That's about it.

We got this on national radio, somehow. Not this, though

The hot wire is white. They've already connected the foil to the ground wire so all you need to do is solder the back wire to ground and you should be fine.

Yeah, been there. Playing guitar, in a one-guitar Metal band, in the final of a competition to play at Wacken, I completely forgot the song at the end of the first verse, which was especially unfortunate as I wrote the song. After a few bars of faffing around, hoping my fingers would remember what to do, and after multiple frantic and confused looks from the rest of the band, I remembered what was going on and stumbled into the second verse. Very embarassing.

This is relatively common. Connect the poles to earth and you'll ground the buzz. What's happening is when you touch the poles, you become the conduit to earth. You can solder a wire to the copper foil on the back of the pickups and solder the other end to something connected to earth. If you don't fancy soldering, just ensuring a good and stable connection to earth will do it. Some manufacturers use the metal springs which push up the pickup to do it.

You might say.. they shouldn't have Dundee gig? There's my coat, see you later!

83 to 93. The thrash years, the birth of death metal, the peak of heavy metal and hip-hop, early grunge, some truly sublime pop over here and in the US and the great house music years. Kill 'em all at one end, Focus at the other... beautiful... before it all turned to shiiiiite. Is there anyone for whom it is not their teenage years? 😉

Top job, @upside downer, well deserved 👍🏻

Has anyone even briefly considered there may still have been brown M&Ms in the bowl? Cut them some slack, you don't know what emotional state they could have been in!