crez5150

If I were a blues guitarist...... I'd be called 'Muddy Starfish'....... ;o)

are you using a pick?

[quote name='MB1' post='575650' date='Aug 20 2009, 03:19 PM']MB1. In the early days he did smash/damage a few as thats how the Frankenstein Fender bass came about that he recorded Tommy and Quadrophenia with.There is also pictorial evidence he smashed a Warwick Buzzard bass too me thinks![/quote] Probably tried compare the sound of it to his Status Buzzard...... ;o)

George Michaels concerts last year were all backing tracks regardless of the musicians on stage..... he even has a Yamaha PM series desk stage right that he adjusts the mixes himself......

[quote name='Jase' post='574304' date='Aug 19 2009, 03:26 PM']Cut them out altogether, make extra money on a pub and even more on a wedding [/quote] Or use them properly to build a fantastic sound and so people will pay you more anyway..... ;o)

[quote name='The Funk' post='574180' date='Aug 19 2009, 02:09 PM'] 1:03-1:07 [/quote] The Dirty Barsteward

Wharfedale used to do a 12" powered wedge (true stage wedge shape) that I used a couple of times as a bass monitor.... worked extremely well and a much smaller footprint that a 2 x 10. Think it was the EPM12M J

This one as well ;o)

There is also this 24" from PD - [url="http://www.precision-devices.com/showdetails.asp?id=17"]24" driver[/url] I've heard it used in many sound systems..... when I say heard..... I mean my solar plexus felt it.... :wacko:

[quote name='chris_b' post='570395' date='Aug 16 2009, 02:55 AM']Why do bands playing at weddings think they are playing to an audience? They're not, these people are wedding guests. That's a completely different thing and they need entertaining not impressing![/quote] Your wrong..... The guests are the audience.... they want to be impressed AND entertained. That's what your booked for.... if you impress then you get more bookings from it hopefully..... I've played three weddings this weekend, we have gained 4 more gigs for 2010/11 because we impressed the guests and one booking because we impressed the Venue manager.... you have to be able to do both!!

[quote name='lanark' post='568878' date='Aug 14 2009, 12:08 PM']Just bought a Laney HCM30B and it's missing three corner protectors. Anyone know where I can buy cosmetic spare parts like this for not very much money?[/quote] Adam Hall

[quote name='largo' post='568849' date='Aug 14 2009, 11:49 AM']Hi Crez5150, no I didn't mean originals I meant songs the band want to play or usually play in their set. You might like the latest Metallica number, and play it in your pub set but it doesn't mean you should play it in the wedding set. I guess I was trying to say you have to "read the crowd" and alter the set accordingly.[/quote] Absolutely..... Our standard set is about two years old now..... a mix of standards really but we chuck some new one's in as requested..... First dances are always odd..... We done an Elbow track recently which was odd for a first dance but a great track in itself.

[quote name='SS73' post='568846' date='Aug 14 2009, 11:46 AM']Flea wins on recreational substance's consumed and still able to play bass.[/quote] Surely Lemmy would piss all over Flea in that comparison??????

[quote name='pegman1' post='568792' date='Aug 14 2009, 11:12 AM']Who's the goofiest bass player ever?[/quote] hahaha

[quote name='Low End Bee' post='568760' date='Aug 14 2009, 10:43 AM']Anyway the real answer is obviously Overend Watts. Best boots ever[/quote] He get's my vote!!!!

[quote name='obbm' post='568705' date='Aug 14 2009, 09:59 AM']No, neither is Mark King.[/quote] Indeed.... we could make a big list here of all popular bassists including Jaco, entwistle, Bruce, Berlin (shudder....), Wilkenfield, etc....... Wouldn't it be more fun to see who was the fattest or thinnest or goofiest bassist ever.... I think so.

I take it that most of you posting here are talking about original act's? When I was playing in an original act, we had our own sound engineer that we took from venue to venue..... most of the other serious bands we were playing with done the same... and most venues accepted that this was the norm.

[quote name='TMB' post='568701' date='Aug 14 2009, 09:56 AM']There is a raging arguement amongst my friends and collegues. They have been discussing 'The best bass player ever' and as expected Flea has been a hot subject. We all know he is ace.... and we all know that there are many more truly great players (too many to mention) but if you had to choose one..... would it be Flea because of his uniqueness and individuality or someone else? Help solve this row.. please... ![/quote] No he's not!

[quote name='nobody's prefect' post='568623' date='Aug 14 2009, 08:13 AM']Can't resist replying... My life used to have an annual cycle of summer with lots of wedding gigs and winter with function and small-christmas gigs. January and February were usually the quiet season, and the only time of the year when I could get plastered on early Saturday nights. I think most of the wisdom has already been freely given, really. I don't know if this is true in Britain, but here wedding gigs are bread and butter for people studying for a master's in jazz at Sibelius Academy, which isn't too shabby a place. We're really quite egalitarian here! One thing I'd like clarified is: how in the heck do you play more than one wedding per week?!! Here, it is not physically possible, despite Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. In real life, on cannot be physically present in two different wedding parties at the same time. Or are you people going to tell me that normal people get married on other days of the week than Saturday over there? It boggles the mind! Also, you don't know how good you guys have it playing weddings. You complain for having to play a soul classic? You have to get to the place all of TWO hours before the down beat? Here, the reality is this: you will start driving at about 1 pm. It can be 11 am or 3 pm if the wedding's in your town and the actual church stuff is set late, but never 4 pm. You set up your gear so that everything's set up and you can get away from sight before the guests start arriving. Because they haven't paid to see sweating, cursing musicians schlep gear. You get to eat from the buffet unless the gig was sold by a twat with a stick with metal twine on it, and now some c**ts will abuse the wine and beer buffet and make the music go all to hell. Now you get to the first part with options: cake can be had either before the couple's walz or after it. If it's before, you play the couple's waltz - it's always, [i]always [/i] a waltz - followed by parent-child waltz, followed by FIL-bride/MIL-groom walzt. Then you play a set of traditional dance music. Waltzes, polkas, tango, jenkkas, humppas, masurkas, foxtrot, perhaps a pair JIVEs or TWISTs if you're a maverick and maybe a set of two latin (rumba, son or merengue) songs. If the cake's after the couple's walz, it's 3 walzes, the cake, then the first set of 45 minutes at some point of time before the couple leaves. You can play more, but you can't claim those minutes against your later play time. The down beat of the first set can be at 8 pm, but it can also be at 11 pm. Whatever is the case, you're paid for being in the readiness to play and schlepping gear, not playing. So you'll try to pass the time in some sort of drafty back room with people with whom you get along, or not. Since a lot of the guys I played with were starving full-time musos, I'd play with the same line-up maybe twice each wedding season. (They'd always take a freelancing gig if it came their way, as would I - 'our band' was together for some years, and the one who couldn't make it due to previous engagement would get themselves a capable sub.) A few more words on the music: the couples waltz would in my estimate be in 60%-80% of the time be [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IA8MBbSgc4"]Akselin ja Elinan häävalssi[/url] this youtube linky also has a rough translation. I'd like to point attention to the lines in second verse:'We'll share the poverty, sorrow and joy of together, until away we sink into oblivion.' Combine this with a slow tempo and I never could see why people chose this waltz. I much preferred [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko8KS-ZowZg&feature=related"]Maijan ja Jannen häävalssi[/url] esp. when we'd booked the female singer for the gig (we had two singers who did about half and half of our gigs) or [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-Mt98Sed0A&feature=related"]Häävalssi[/url] or [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFxfPDD_k_g&feature=related"]Metsäkukkia - woodland flowers[/url]. Häävalssi is Finnish for 'Wedding Waltz.' Now, for those who are not scotsmen, this muscular pathos may seem ridiculous, but you have to understand how it relates to our national narrative and history. The VERY English habit of portraying the attitude of not taking things seriously can ease social interaction, but, you know, giving one's own culture an unquestioned universal applicability is, simply put, neither very perceptive nor cogent. And we'd all like to thought of as perceptive and cogent, no? We still live in the world of [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs7nWKYyUFU"]Scottish Borderlands[/url] in some sense. Now, depending on the wedding, there would be one to five sets of traditional dancing music. I usually sold 'wedding waltzes plus 3 x 45minutes, would you like one set of traditional music and two sets of pop-rock-disco?' When one plays traditional dancing sort of music here, there are a few iron-clad rules. Firstly, one must set the tempo at something the elderly will be comfortable with dancing. From about [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjWK9HV8tIo&feature=related"]Kulkuri ja joutsen/Vagabond and the Swan[/url] to this [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NorgJ0zivAA"]Säkkijärven polkka[/url] or a little more. Chose this version, not the faster one by Viljo Vesterinen, as there's some imagery related to the lyrics. More specifically, the stolen Karelia. (GDDMN that revisionist history practised in Russia, backed by the state gets to me) Secondly, whatever music you perform, you must have a set of two in the same style and close in tempo. We call that set a 'pair' and we'd have specific pieces that were a pair in our repertoire. Thirdly, as regards pop music, play whatever. Make it well-known to please the peeps or less known as suits you. Don't play songs related to breaking up or killing your man / woman, though.[/quote] A very interesting read.... I think you'll find that here in the UK, the wedding gig scene is a very different affair.... has become seriously commercialised at the higher end of the market... You'll find venues offering different rates for the hire of the venues... even free if you get married between Monday-Thursday which suits some. Saturday weddings are traditional but as you will see if you look, any day is game. I'm playing three weddings this weekend (Fri,Sat & Sun). July and August are my busiest season for Weddings and we had over 30 of them in the bag this year which was up on last year and Next year should be just as good judging on the enquiries we have deposits for already. I agree and disagree with some of the stuff said here but I guess it varies from band to band. The band I play with is made up of a collection of musicians some are Pro and some of us are semi-pro (depending on how you view that term.... I'm sure there's another thread here about that). I enjoy playing the wedding gigs as I get to play with some great muso's and yeah the songs may be set but we get to shred the hell out of them which makes for a great show for the audience. Jay

[quote name='JD1' post='567726' date='Aug 13 2009, 10:05 AM']I don't have the patience / tolerance to do the schmoozing with the bride / groom and / or their parents. The guy who runs the band will try and steer them in the right direction with regards to timings and choice of material. Based on the number of functions we've done, generally we know best but you do get the odd one where they have been on the phone dozens of times in the run up and are adamant they know best. Ultimately its their night and the customer is always right I think one couple printed off the set list and proceeded to cross off the songs they didn't want (without thinking what the guests would like). Decimated it. I think we had 5 songs left. We've also had examples of blowing peoples heads off at 8:00 when they are still on the sweet course. I've had my fill of function work and will be packing it in at the end of this year. That said, when you compare the venues, people and food to the north east (or any for that matter ) club circuit, functions bands have a lot going for them![/quote] +1000

[quote name='largo' post='567707' date='Aug 13 2009, 09:53 AM']I've played wedding gigs for years and yes, some of them are hard work but so long as you have a list of songs that cater for all then generally it's a pretty good night. Some nights it's fast all night, some it's 2 fast, 2 slow. Others it's more ceilidh, other's its mostly modern. You can't pickup over a grand for a wedding and expect to play "your" songs. I think so long as you remember that, then wedding gigs are fine. If your not willing to do that, then IMO you shouldn't really be playing weddings and should be sticking to pub gigs.[/quote] when you say 'your songs' I presume you mean original's..... that's a no no pretty much.

As I'm mostly playing wedding gigs at the moment..... (16 this month alone.... phew!!!!) I'd comment by saying that the fist set is always a tough call..... people are still arriving/greeting people and letting dinner go down. 2nd sets always fill the floor.... Have a look at the wedding bands thread as pointed out by Oldgit... some interesting points. I personally only play wedding gigs now just to annoy the hell out of Bilbo!!!

One thing you should try if you haven't already is to try and tighten it further...... sounds mad but works... should help losen it up