super al

After years of playing in bands without a keys player I've now played with 3 very, very good ones in the last 4 years!

The soul band I currently play with have 2 of the 3 and those guys play the piano parts, string parts, organ parts and the horn section parts too! (We do have a horn section but money and space dictate how often they play!). 

I think we've been blessed but the set we play attracts the right kind of guys anyway, what self respecting keyboard player wouldn't want to play Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, James Brown, Lionel Rich Tea, etc. If you have a set of songs where they can show off, the good ones will come knocking 😊

I played a jazz bass from 2003 until I bought a 5 string ibanez in January 2018!

It's a sunburst MIM and it's had a couple of modifications, I kind of stuck with it through loyalty and I like the look of jazzes but as soon as I played the Ibbie 5 string...BOOM! It was like I ditched the Mrs and ran off with Scarlett Johansson 😊

4 minutes ago, yorks5stringer said:

We always start with My Silverlining by First Aid Kit, very straightforward and the harmonica player does not play on it so he can check our sound too.

You have a guy who plays just the harmonica? Does he do anything else? Shaker, make tea, drive the singer to gigs?

I bought the V amp after reading about it in bass guitar magazine! Used it mainly for home practice and then at rehearsal when we had silent rehearsals at the drummer's house. We all plugged in to his PC and then used headphones to hear the mix!

Happy memories, I just use a TC electronic bh250 for practice and rehearsal now.

I'm a bit like @stewblack I don't suffer the nerves like I used too but having said that it's nice to know that the set opens with Sweet Soul Music and once I play G to C at the precise moment in the intro I'm in the zone!

Just played a gig that was a late booking, someone recommended us from another band. It's a boozer that I've played a few times before and used to frequent as a customer too!

Set up was strange, people eating (they do very good food apparently) and we couldn't set up properly until this couple finished their meal. Once they left we set up and soundchecked with 5mins until showtime!

We play soul music from the 60s, 70s and the wonderful 80s and I think we hit the spot. Good size crowd and people getting into it. At half time people were asking for our phone number and the landlord moved some tables to create a dancefloor area.

2nd half always starts with My Girl but punters were up dancing and continued to until the end. Thought we'd finished the gig but got offered £100 for another half hour by a punter and so we carried on, in fact we played another 45 mins so gave value for money 😊. Played tunes that we haven't played in soooo long.

Landlord reckoned we were the best band by far that they had play there (praise indeed, they've had some good bands up there), he wants us for New Year's Eve party! Plenty of gig offers from punters there so all in all a nice little earner with potential gig interest thrown in

Slight cramp in my fretting hand near the end but really enjoyable gig, the locals still like to party it seems!

4 hours ago, Blink said:

Superstition is a great dance track played at the right speed (not too fast). We morph into Rappers Delight, Good Times, Another one Bites the Dust etc. before bringing it back for the 3rd verse.

Aw... I like the sound of that, a funky medley.

Never played Superstition until 2015 I reckon, now played it for 3 bands (all in E).

Hey @stewblack your almost ready to dep for me now! You'll have to learn Betcha By Golly Wow though 😎

Ha! Thought this thread was about the Rolling Stones album...

No tats here, my body is a temple and you shouldn't graffiti a place of worship 😆.

Although not a fan of ink, my nephew's best mate is a work of art from head to toe. Hardly any room left for more...but he doesn't play bass and I doubt if any tats are bass related. Sorry. As you were.

1 hour ago, chris_b said:

You cancelled a gig to go and look at bass gear? ??

Never mind playing gigs, GAS needs feeding 🤤

1 hour ago, Bluewine said:

In 8 years nobody has ever depped for ne and I plan on keeping it that way for as long as I can.

Blue

Hi Blue

Do the band have a dep or 2 just in case you can't make a gig?

In my 30 or so years of playing only the last 3 or 4 years have I been in bands that went down the dep route. Before that if someone couldn't make the gig we didn't play the gig.

1 hour ago, TheGreek said:

Don't be threatened by this...think of it as a chance to improve and having a tutor close at hand.

It's happened 3 times so it's rare, it's a bit like Monty python's Spanish inquisition - his 2 main weapons are fear, the element of surprise and...

My last 6 years playing bass have been all about making improvements and moving up the bass playing ladder so I try to take positives when something bad happens. When I depped I skim learnt some of the songs just to get through a gig with 30 or so tunes. Now I'm in the band I'm learning the new songs plus going over the old ones and picking out where I can improve them. Having the occasional kick up the derrière is a pain but I get a few pointers nonetheless 😃

I'm in a strange situation where the band I depped for last year asked me to join full time. The original bassist got shifted sideways (or demoted!) to guitar where he's much better than the old guitarist.

I've asked for help with basslines a couple of times as he is a good all round musician (plays drums too) but every now and then he'll stop a song halfway through and do this kind of angry way of telling me where I'm going wrong. I kind of get the feeling he hasn't quite left the bass behind and he thinks I'm a bit crap on the more complex numbers (we do a lot of Motown, soul and funk). I have a young family so time learning, practicing and rehearsing numbers is limited.

Keeps me on my toes I suppose and I've spoken to the BL about why he picked me to replace him so I'm happy for now 😬 but feels like a ticking time bomb!

On 24/08/2019 at 18:42, 4000 said:

When you start complaining about “today’s music” you have officially become your dad. ‘Nuff said. 😉

I've just looked at the line up and I've heard of just 10 of the bands/artists and the Foo Fighters are the only ones I can claim are in my music collection...😯

... but I reckon my dad wouldn't have known any of the line up from my 1st Reading in 1990!

I'm not a big Foos fan, the early stuff is good, but I quite enjoyed their set (ok,ok Rick Astley was a bit cringey!).

More from the Durrington gig (above) as of previous vids.

We've recently done a showreel of 5 of the songs from that gig so the accompanying 'live' video is of us miming to Stevie's 'Uptight'.

Some overdubs on this but the rhythm section is from the night of the gig.

3 hours ago, Les said:

It would appear Valerie is somewhat de rigueur. 

Does anybody do anything different with it or just play it like Mark Ronson and Amy's version?

We've jammed it in rehearsal a couple of times at a slower, funkier tempo. Sounded quite good but we haven't taken it to the stage yet.

10 hours ago, jrixn1 said:

If you want a data point, our second set tonight was:

Higher and Higher
Car Wash
Blame it on the Boogie
Superstition
Signed, Sealed, Delivered
Heatwave
Dancing in the Street
Heard it Through the Grapevine
Rescue Me
Say a Little Prayer
Think
Respect
You Can’t Hurry Love
Young Hearts Run Free
For Once In My Life
Sir Duke
9 to 5
Valerie
December 1963
Can’t Take My Eyes Off You
Don’t Stop Me Now

No Sex on Fire but Superstition and Valerie are indeed in there

We do 7 of these in our soul band's set.

I love playing Higher & Higher, definitely a great set opener that gets people up on the dancefloor.

I managed to avoid Superstition (in E) all my bass playing life until 2015... now played it in the last 3 bands!

Love it though, you can't beat a bit of Stevie Wonder.

Not just me but the whole band! Only the 3rd time we've all been together in the same room since the brass and drummer joined!!!

Check out my new (2nd hand) PPI bass, the Lakland, thanks to the wife for that.

Another Barefaced user here, bought two one10s to go for the mighty bass stack look.

32 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

A quick edit from ‘know one’ to ‘no one’ and we might 😂.

Aaaaaaaargh!

Inglush waz nether moi strong pownt

Spent too much time watching Spinal Tap!

You wouldn't even get Spinal Tap's Stonehenge in that room! 

(A quick edit from " to ' and know one will have a clue what I'm on about)

This happened just last weekend when the family went on their annual festival jaunt.

We were at Larmer Tree Festival and it was about 5pm so everyone is hungry, next up on our list are Gomez but we have plenty of time. There's a bit of queue for the Persian grub but I join it anyway. In front of me is a guy in a light blue tee shirt which I think to myself "nice colour, very clean and uncreased, must be here for the day".

The queue is getting longer and right across the pie stall next door. Blue tee guy turns round, takes a look and then starts chatting to me about the queue blocking the pie stall and how he feels bad for them. He's doing all this in a joking way but he gets the queue shifting away from said stall. 

Later on we're watching Gomez and I've seen them live 2-3 times before and a big fan of their music since the start but put me in queue for food with Tom Gray and I haven't the scoobiest. There he was on stage in the same tee!

4 minutes ago, Teebs said:

*like*

"High Llamas" you say...

I sense a thread crossover comin' on...

There was a rumour he played keys occasionally in the local Abba tribute band too, the man is versatile!

3 hours ago, KK Jale said:

This is an obscure band but one I love, so....

I was in pub in Brixton with some mates years ago and got chatting to some guy. We quickly got on to music and I quite likely bleated on quite a lot about whatever project I was in at that time (probably the doomed Stax-type band). He seemed to understand everything very well and so I asked if he was doing any stuff himself. He turned a bit shy and mumbly and said, well, he did a bit of techy work, stage management and whatnot. Who are you with at the moment, I inquired? Well... The High Llamas, he replied. Wow, I replied, that's really cool... Gideon Gaye is one of my favourite underrated albums... I was listening to The Dutchman just the other week... very Beach Boys, but so original... blah blah blah. 

Some days later I recalled our chat and googled the band to look up some info about their more recent albums. A picture popped up. The bloke was in it. He wasn't a stage manager. It was Sean O'Hagan, lead singer of The High Llamas.

Bastard. 

Pete Aves of The High Llamas lives round these 'ere parts. I was in an indie rock band from Southampton and we got a gig supporting a mate I was in a band with years ago at Salisbury's Old Ale House. Somehow he'd persuaded Pete Aves to play drums in his band.

Then a few years later I went to watch a couple of blokes do a John Martyn tribute, low and behold it was Pete Aves again.