Cantdosleepy

I believe it was the Chief himself who correctly described metal as 'Music to paint Space Marines to.' I don't necessarily think that's an insult.

Want to look like unbelievable badasses? This is the look for you:

[quote name='bassman2790' post='397692' date='Feb 2 2009, 11:29 AM']Like everybody else, Phil Lynott look[s]ed about as 'Rock' as you could get[/s]s like an idiot in leather trousers. [/quote] Leather Trousers - just say NO.

I wish these men the best of luck, and hope that those who want to see them play live get to.

A good super-intro book is Gary Willis' Ear Training for Guitar and Bass. It's very much the thin end of the wedge, theory-wise, but should have immediate practical application. The idea is that you develop 'relative' pitch - when you hear two notes one after the other you can say 'Ah, the second one is a minor third higher than the first.' The plan is to reverse engineer that knowledge, so that when you're writing a bassline in your band you can think to yourself "I want to play this 'bum du-du baaaaa' melody I just thought up" and you won't have to spend three minutes working out which frets to hit - you'll know in your head the relationship between the notes and can getit right the first time.

...Howard and Vince?

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='391730' date='Jan 26 2009, 01:39 PM']'Simple', thuggish music (in the broadest sense) started boring me about 28 years ago. 'Pub rock' is to music what Eastenders is to drama, American Pie is to cinema or Mills and Boon to Literature. Superficial, predicatable, uninspiring and little more than fodder designed to take money off the great unwashed.[/quote] Or perhaps a different way of looking at the same argument could be: Incredibly formally interesting pieces are the equivalent of the complex writing of Joyce, whereas certain other far more simplistic constructions are like the simpler but laser-effective prose of Hemingway. There are excellent and terrible writers at every point in the scale, and I'm certain the same is true of music. Some musicians think they're Hemingway but turn out to be Jeffery Archer. Some musicians think they are Joyce but turn out to be convoluted-mush-pushers. [Complex jazz expert]'s music is, say Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain, compared to Spoon's Shotgun Stories. Simplicity if executed well can be staggering.

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='391525' date='Jan 26 2009, 11:07 AM']Something about not liking Radiohead.[/quote] I... I never thought it would come to this. I'm sorry chief, but it's over between us. *sobs* I cannot read sheet music. I'd like to, but I've only a finite amount of hobbytime, and theory comes far behind learning the drums, both in personal interest and immediate future usefulness. Same reason I can't read Arabic - it's not a slight on arabic, there's just loads of other stuff I'd prefer to do with my minimal free time. Interestingly - don't have any interest in jazz melodies, but love jazz drumming. Huh?

Could that possibly be some sort of herbal design on the drumskin? *Gasp!* I dislike reggae, and find reggae cover albums pretty insufferable. I would listen to a reggae cover of Venetian Snares or Come To Daddy, though.

[quote name='paul h' post='384120' date='Jan 18 2009, 04:25 PM']I must have missed that one and I couldn't find it with the search...anyone got the link? Ta.[/quote] Link us, please!

Playing in time is for cowards.

[quote name='vmaxblues' post='382505' date='Jan 16 2009, 03:23 PM']1) What do you look for in a music shop? 2) What would you ideally like to see in a music shop? 3) How far would you travel? 4) Am I mad to consider this?[/quote] 1+2) Competitive Pricing (doesn't have to be internet-low, but that ball-park) Funny, friendly staff Honesty about products when pitching ("To be honest mate, I reckon a XXXXX would actually be better for your situation. I'm afraid we don't sell those, though") Amusing friendly signs scattered around about describing the various products Staff who are happy to initiate chat, but are aware that not all customers want to chat Nice range of things, from ££££s slobber-basses to skip-found old junk oddities that can be got for £45 'Musicians/bands wanted' corkboard with some kind of 'Ad of the week' space, like Gumtastic ads to encourage thoughtful/interesting ads/projects Simple web presence with phone number and what's in stock and opening hours and map and info about parking/directions An awareness of the local scene - perhaps putting on the occiasional night at a local venue under the shop's name Quiet/no background music 3) I live in London and am happy to go 30mins each way. 4) Yep. Would you regret not doing it more, though?

All your bass are belong to Carol Kaye.

Motown Fact: It's ace.

You know who else uses Ashdown? Radiohead's Colin Greenwood. Listen to any of their Scotch Mist stuff or Godrich in the basement sessions. Just lovely tone.

Drum machine is better, for the reason lowdown described - you can set it up so it just plays closed hi-hats on every eighth or quarter note, turning it into a metronome. [i]"Playing along with a drum machine can't quite do what playing with a metronome can - a metronome is a much purer form of time so it puts all the onus on you to make the music with it." "it's easy to keep time when you have a 'perfect' drum machine playing a groove for you - harder when it's just a series of unaccented clicks."[/i] I totally agree with both of these statements. But the great thing about a drum machine is that you can get it to produce unaccented clicks. If you're practicing near a computer then you can get various types of both for free anyway - [url="http://www.metronomeonline.com/"]http://www.metronomeonline.com/[/url] and [url="http://www.threechords.com/hammerhead/introduction.shtml"]http://www.threechords.com/hammerhead/introduction.shtml[/url] will do the job right enough.

East London - Creekside studios is near Deptford train station, has a large car park: [url="http://www.creeksidestudios.co.uk/index.html"]http://www.creeksidestudios.co.uk/index.html[/url]

Ha ha - Sellout!

Scar in Camden is cheap, but the top room is right next to the overground tracks, so there's a distracting hum in all the equipment. Rooz by Old Street is lovely, but I'm not sure what the pricing is there. Vatican near Stepney Green is okay for the price and friendly, but the equipment there isn't always the best. I'm afraid I can't remember exact prices. For a three hour session we'd pay about 60 quid for Vatican, including drum and amp rental. Scar slightly cheaper than that I think...

Looks lovely!

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='358455' date='Dec 19 2008, 12:26 AM']If a musician is only liked by people who play that instrument, stay well clear.[/quote] I've found this to be the case, with the usual caveats. Jaco, Wooten, Bailey, Sheehan, Willis, Berlin; none of them are my cup of tea.

[quote name='leschirons' post='357455' date='Dec 18 2008, 12:00 AM']Here's one to get you all going about weird guitarist stories. Some years back I depped on drums for a few mates who had a pub gig. I knew all the other band members and had been playing bass with the guitarist in a previous band. SH*T hot he was. Knowing that I'd be asked to do some BVs I took a head set radio mic with me as a boom stand and drumming doesn't really work for me. Bearing in mind that in the previous band, we were covering everything from Larry Carlton, Steely Dan, Focus, to Toto etc, I had no worries about the guitarist. The pub filled up and three numbers in, we got a request for Red house which I would have to sing so, turned on the mic. The guitarist asks what key? I say A as that's where I can sing it okay. He says, "I don't know it" I say "It's an easy one, just jam it" (Hence, all in together with no intro) We get to the solo and he looks at me and says "I don't know the break" I mouth (quietly) "i-m-p-r-o-v-i-s-e He says "But how does the break actually go?" I shout out through 800 watts, (forgetting about the mic) IT'S A FU**ING 12 bar you WAN*ER Pub went very quiet. We spoke about this after the gig and it turns out he can learn anything really hard, really easily, with tab or even music notation, but can't jam to a slow 12 bar in A[/quote] That sounds like my personal nightmare. I'd never speak to you again.

Alright, how about having it in the Gigs section, something like this: <title>Promoter Feedback</title> [b]London[/b] [url="http://<a%20href="http://www.myspace.com/clubmgriff"%20target="_blank">http://www.myspace.com/clubmgriff</a>"]Club McGriff[/url] - 1 Negative (reason - duped into pay-to-play) Mysterious Dave the promoter - 3 negative, 8 positive (reason - killed a horse on the dancefloor) [b] Edinburgh[/b] etc etc ...and then people can reply to that thread adding promoters (good and bad). Someone can add those to the first post. Sounds good?

I won't be in future. He's not moving on the other bands issue. We're sacking it off, getting another venue (we've got somewhere last-minute, don't worry) and asking for a refund but preparing for small claims court. Is there somewhere on this site where we've got 'promoter feedback'? Would it be worth doing? It would be a good resource for somewhere like London, with the same old faces and lots of us playing there.

Thanks for the offer, funk. We've got one of the boys writing a letter at the moment. He's pretty good at this stuff.