Deanol

2 hours ago, DaveFry said:

Sept 69 Abbey Road was released . A month later George Benson and friends ( including Ron Carter and Jerry Jemmott , Herbie Hancock , Freddie Hubbard ) recorded " The Other Side Of Abbey Road "  an album of covers .

I had to read that carefully as on first skin reading I read it as Ron Jeremy!!

Never a fan of the band or that type of music, but it is so desperately sad when someone takes their own life. I wish he (and the thousands of others who do that each year) could have spoken to someone to get help.

I don't know the circumstances in this case, but whilst ringing the Samaritans might have helped, many never pick up the phone, or try to get help. Never even think about it sadly.

I also feel sorry for those left behind, who will question whether they could have helped him more.

It's a terrible, terrible shame.

No YouTube links as I am supposed to be working!

SRV & Double Trouble

Texas Flood Album

"Lenny"

Super Reverb bliss!!!

As a guitar player I have fingertips on my left hand like leather. No worries. Those bass strings are like wool to me!

As a serious tip, if you want to build up callouses on your fretting hand, tune an acoustic guitar down a whole tone (to D, G, C, F, A, D), then play it for a while until your fingertips feel comfortable. Then tune up a half-tone, and repeat. When you are okay with that, tune up to standard pitch and play. I can go from soft fingertips to hardened off enough to play confortably for a few hours in a fortnight or so.

Once you have those callouses, remember that if you play like Stevie-Ray Vaughan, with 13 guage strings on your strat, at some point one of your callouses will fall off. Ignore the resulting blood and simply reattach - like SRV did between songs! - using superglue. It was used in Vietnam for combat medics to close up wounds temporarily until the wounded soldier could be taken to a hospital.

Hi,

I am trying out the Overloud TH-U amp sim and it's very good. I think I will probably buy it.

But it comes with a cabinte that is an impulse response loader rather than one of the standard cabs, which is nice, but I don't know much about IRs, other than they represent a speaker in a cabinet, microphone, room, mic preamps etc.

I get them and I want to start playing with them. But I am confused why there is space (in the TH-U IR loader) for two IRs. I don't get why you need two (or more in some third-party loaders I have read about) spaces. Can anyone explain it please?

Thanks,

Dean.

Never played a Hondo bass, but I did play a Hondo Les Paul for a few years in the early 80's. I decided I didn't get in with Les Pauls so chopped it in for a 1988 G&L SC-3 strat (which I still have!). I know it is a 88 SC-3 because they only had the steel roller nut and Sperzel tuners on the 3 series in 1988. It is a transitional model and therefore, my mercenary nature hopes, rare.

Sorry to continue the thread hijack.

I grew up listening to rock-n'roll and 70's radio offerings. Then I got into hard rock as I hit my teenage years (what a well worn road that appears to be!).

Nowadays I will listen to anything from classical, Jazz, rock, rock'n'roll, country, blues.

Nothing from the pop charts or rap, dance, jungle, hip-hop etc stylee's. No "new" music or stuff that is played on Radio Six or whtever it is called. I might tune into radio one occaisionally but only accidentally and I assume it is static so I move on rapidly.

Pop is fine as long as it is prior to 1988. On or after that is a no-no for me.

Terry Wogan walts.

18 hours ago, taunton-hobbit said:

Whenever I've had an 'issue' at gigs, it's always been some female at the back of it - never fails!

😎

There speaks the truth and t'was ever thus!

B. B. King famously named his primary guitars Lucille. Back in the 1930's rural Mississippi he was playing a gig in some road house. There was no power so the light and heat was provided by open barrels of lighting oil that were simply lit on fire. Two blokes got to fighting over some woman and they knocked one of these barrels over setting fire to the place. Everyone ran out of the place and it was only when he got outside B. B. realised he had left his guitar inside. As it was his only way of supporting his family he ran back inside to get his guitar. Inside the flames were worse but he saw that the two men were still fightin! He picked up his guitar and ran back out and then the building collapsed, killing the two men inside.

He asked the name of the women the men were fighting over. She was called "Lucille".

These basses are perception changing, elemental works of nature. They are hand-crafted to free the supertonal characteristics that have been breathed into the forces locked within them. They are a timeless testament to the very heartstones that dwell withing all living things, and which bind us all into one.

I particularly like the fact that they have a price on them that ends "and eighty-five pence", as though they were washing up bowls from Wilko (which, when I think about it, are also full of water)?

I've been browsing for an amp sim plugin for my laptop. I want both guitar and bass amps, and I will have to pay to get what I want because every damned free one is for stupidly high gain!

If someone is going to develop and give away amp sims, which is a very charitable thing to do, why do they always seem to come with gain structures appropriate for German bands named something like "Satanic Angels of the Night" or something. Le Pou is guilty of this. Why not knock out a nice, clean AC30, suitable for The Shadows stuff.

So I have downloaded the new version of TH-U, which does contain a lot of stuff I will use, and much more stuff I won't. But I will still have to pay for the stuff I won't.

I also want to cost out the Amplitube Custome Shop stuff, to work out how much it will cost to buy just the amps and pedals I am interested in.

Anyone else struggling with this?

1 hour ago, ubit said:

He actually was foolish enough to appear at one of his gigs in Glasgow wearing a Celtic top. There was nearly a riot. Now it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that if you play ANY city , you wouldn’t wear the colours of any team. You immediately alienate half the audience. He later said “ oh, I didn’t think anyone would mind” what a div!

The cynical part of me (the bit between my toenails and the tips of my hair fiollicles!) says Rod knew exactly what the reaction would be but wanted to get one over on the Bluenoses anyway. How can you be from Glasgow and support either Caltic or Rangerzs, and yet not know the reaction of the other half of that city? I don't buy it. I think he wanted to parade his Celtic allegiance to annoy half of his audience.

My toenails on the other foot say he is innocent and really didn't think anyone would mind (I am giving them their bi-annual cut this afternoon (it invoves wire cuters, a hand file, and plenty of paper towel for the blood spillage).

2 hours ago, PaulWarning said:

a lot of song writers are inspired by other people's songs, sometimes they just don't change them enough of them to hide that fact, Led Zepplin hardly tried, some of Paul Weller's songs seem very similar to other songs that have gone before, some of it's deliberate plagiarism and some accidental, they can play a riff and think "hey that Sounds really good" without realising it's sounds good because it's familiar. 

I once wrote a song round a bass line, and thought I must have copied that from somewhere, I asked the band and they said "no, can't think of anything" after we'd been knocking it about for a couple of months the singer suddenly said "Is Vic there", we still did the song though

I am not a fan of Led Zep (mainly because of Plant's vocals and Page's lead work - his rhythm playing is sublime though), so other that a rarely-listened-to greatest hits album I have no real knowledge of their work. I have seen it mentioned that they ripped of work, and though I have no reason to doubt it, I don't know what they ripped off. Can someone post a list of a few songs they ripped off, and where from please?

On your second para, I am remined of a story about Paul McCartney when he was writing "Yesterday". Apparantly he woke up one morning with the entire song in his head but wanted to make sure he hadn't ripped it off from someone, so he was playing it to people for weeks replacing thelyrics with "scrambled eggs" , asking "have you heard this before", before Lennon told his to stop being stupid and get it written up and published.

Must be nice to have that kind of talent, where you can write something like "Yesterday" in your sleep!

8 hours ago, Bluewine said:

Started gigging when I was 12. Still gigging at 66. More like once a week than 2-3 times a week.

Not a whole lot in life makes sense to me until I'm on stage and well into the first set. It's where I feel at home, confident and in control. I don't get that anywhere else in life.

Blue

 

You beat me by a year! I started gigging (but as was said by Baxlin they were bookings back then) when I was 13 and did so as guitar player and then guitarist/singer later on. I gigged for 20 years until it became too difficult when we had kids. I finished in 2000. About five years ago I started jamming with a few friends. We are all guitar players and use drum tracks, and very recently I started playing bass with them to fill out the sound.

As we all have kids who are growing up now (17 and 21) we have a little more time on our hands and are making noises about getting back out. We are working through Mustang Sally, Sweet Home Alabama, and for the last song of the "more-more bit", Hi-Ho Silver Lining.

4 hours ago, Bluewine said:

I'm only in it for the money.

Blue

A professional! What a refreshing change.Well played that man.

25 minutes ago, ubit said:

So not only have you the ability to pick and choose your venues to play in, you are wealthy enough to move  on a  whim to somewhere else where they like your music. It must be super to be you. 

But the alternative is to sneer at the people who are less discerning listeners.

I would rather not play than do that.

3 hours ago, ubit said:

You are lucky you can pick and choose your venues to play in. We have no choice. The venues that have live music are frequented by pretty much the same people. 

 

 

Plus, can you not tell a tongue in cheek comment? 

I never did get to pick my audience. But the audience and I both enjoyed the same kind of music. If I hated it though, I would have either not played it, or played it with good grace. I wouldn't have abused the audience because I was playing music they liked and I didn't. The musician is at fault for hating the audience simply because he hates the music he has to play.

I don't buy the argument about not being able to pick and choose venues. Yes you can. You can move to somewhere with venues that will allow you to play your style of music. You can join an originals band who play your style of music. You can stop playing.

One has at least three options if one's musical taste is so refined that playing other styles of music makes you feel demeaned. Or does it not demean people enough that they want to stop playing? It is only demeaning to a certain point, which will allow one to offend the audience, but not quite enough to do anything about it.

Which was the tongue in cheek comment? Seeing as I have to ask you to point it out, then it would appear that the answer to your question is "no".

18 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

I've never been willing to play material I don't like. If I liked the music that's generally popular I'd no doubt be happy to play it in order to play to crowds of happy punters...

However, I've always liked left-field music starting with the early no-wave scene, through free jazz, obscure funk, unheard of prog-fusion etc. We could attempt covers of some of this ephemera, and 90% of folks would think it our own (and probably hate it!). So covers for me are rare - this is also because I like to make my own music; I get far more enjoyment out of writing in collaboration with the band than working out someone else's song.

I had a conversation a while ago with a well-known (in the scene, at least!) free-jazz drummer. He was the original drummer with Bon Jovi, and left because he wanted more music and less crowd-pleasing - he said (in his Brooklyn accent!) "the music's in me, man, it's just gotta come out! I don't care about what the audience want, I've just gotta play!". And strangely, I know exactly where he's coming from. It means that, even though he's the best drummer I've ever played with  - by a long way - he'll never get rich doing it. He does occasional sessions for pop bands, even played drums for Chuck Berry once, teaches drumming in a local college, but all that's to pay the bills. He spends the majority of his time playing with obscure jazzers to a few chin-strokers in a back-room in Hebden Bridge. For just a few quid...

Which is exactly how it should be!

He decided he didn't want to play the music demanded by one audience, so he went out to find an audience who liked the same material as he enjoyed playing. Result, happy musician, happy audience.

What annoys me is when musicians hate the music that their audience wants to hear, and yet they are unwilling to go an find a different audience, so the musician ends up calling the audience Philistines, and musically uneducated, and less discerning listeners.

Go out and find a different audience. If you can't be bothered, then you are at fault, not the audience.

37 minutes ago, ubit said:

He was and still is, a very well known local celebrity. Liked by many people , but my point was that audiences from drinky pubs won’t appreciate music that is technically amazing if it doesn’t have the commerciallity that they crave. 

 

We used to play material we hated because we knew it would get a better reaction. I didn’t do badly with the admiring dancers myself to be fair. There’s always a silver lining when you sell your soul. 😉

I suppose that's the difference. I never hated that sort of material. I enjoyed listening to it. Even now I can still enjoy "Hi-Ho Silver Lining" even though I played it at the end of virtually every Friday and Saturday night set in the pubs and club of South Yorkshire, Derbyshire, North Nottinghamshire, and North Lincolnshire for decades.

Just now, ubit said:

They had a definite fan base 

In that pub where the girls made it clear they were not liked? Or somewhere else?

If they were in the pub with the girls, what proportion of the audience constitued their fan base? Over 90%? Under 10% (made up of students in a local pub)?

5 minutes ago, ubit said:

I’m maybe not describing the said clientele properly . I am in no way a musical snob, but I’m a music lover. When I say less discerning listeners , I refer to people who have absolutely no clue about music. How it works, what’s involved with making a good sound, the time and effort required to reach a standard and who are happy with hearing “ Wagon wheel” for the hundredth time because they know it. 

Mrs Ubits brother is also not a musical snob. He is a prodigy that just loves to play. His ex bandmate, however is definitely a musical snob and would look on with disdain at those type of people and think of them as being beneath him. 

Was this ex bandmate in the band so disdaned by the girls? If so, again it is no wonder they were disliked. Yes you say they had a fanbase, but how many took the view that the girls were right out of the whole audience?

In your first paragraph above, in my day we used to call such people "the audience". We respected them and enjoyed playing music for them to dance to and sing along to. They paid our wages. We might not have been able to play "Imaginary Number Music" by that well known Norwegian band "Death Blood Ice and Snow" but we did cop off quite frequently with the lasses.

Did they give off a vibe that they were perhaps playing to...

6 minutes ago, ubit said:

less discerning listeners

Because if they did, then that would be an explanation why they were not liked.

That phrase, right there, is the problem. The snobbish attitude to people who don't like anything obscure is because they are "less discerning listeners". Turn it around and it becomes that the Friday Night Pub People don't like the music being played because the band are "up themselves, arrogant show-offs".

35 minutes ago, ubit said:

I should add that they used to play the Blue Peter theme very fast. Technically incredible, but who the hell wants to hear that on a Saturday night in the pub? 

Very few. I would guess a few students and others who consider themselves to be intellectuals would enjoy it ironically. But most Friday Night Pub People (I'm going to trademark that phrase) would not think it was particularly clever.

Perhaps playing the Blue Peter theme very fast is why those girls didn't greet the band with enthusiasm!

By Christ there's some pretentious musos on this site! From some of the posts it would seem some people don't actually want an audience, or if they do have to suffer the indignity of playing to actaul people, they want the audience to consist of people who sit around in silence listening closely to every note, nodding in appreciation. The band of course will not play anything "popular" - oh no, that would be pandering to uneducated, stupid Philistines - but will play an entire set consisting of obscure tracks, such as "Speed Metal By Logarithms" from obscure album, such as "Inverted Snobs" by obscure Norwegian bands.

I am a musician. I played in bands for thirty years, and I hated that kind of snobbery. I would much rather play music people know, and will get up and dance to. Of course nobody is going to listen to obscure music, no matter how well played, in a pub in a market town on a Friday night! They want stuff they know and can enjoy after a long week at work. They want music they can dance to, sing along to the choruses, and get off with the opposite sex to!

Does it have to be note perfect? No. Of course it doesn't. It simply has to be recognisable to the audience.

If you object to playing that kind of music in pubs on Friday nights, then I suspect you are in the wrong game.

The Rolling Stones are named after a Muddy Waters record called "Rollin' Stone".

Which got me thinking about other bands named after a line in a song, and... I can't think of any!

I don't mean bands with a name that just happens to be in a song, so you can't have "Yes". They have to be named explicitly after a song lyric.

Anyone else think of any?

For full disclosure, when I said...

4 hours ago, Deanol said:

When I played in bands, I used to use a non-master volume AC30. In eeffect it was like having a mster volume turned up full. To get it clean was easy, just adjust the gain to get the volume you wanted. To get it to overdrive (which is what we all wanted to do!!) you needed to turn the gain up to start it distorting, but that was loud - really, really loud! 

It should be noted that I now use hearing aids!