TimR

But lozz, are you playing covers or are you getting paid to play originals. There's a fine line when you're playing originals with pay to play. When I played originals in the late 80s we hired a few halls and sold tickets to our friends. We just about covered hall hire and PA hire. We managed to get friends to man the door. The first time we learned a few lessons. 1. The band that was supporting us ran off with their ticket money leaving us to pay everything from the share that was left. 2. When we started to play, the guys manning the door came in to watch, leaving the door unattended and loads of people just walked in. After that we had a few other problems with drug pushers and gatecrashers which in the end made pay-to-play a less expensive option. So long as you're not getting ripped off, it can work well.

As I say, it's not new. We were doing it in the 80s. The biggest problem we found was that, even if you bring loads of people and 'sell' loads of tickets, the promoters were unable to count accurately. The link to the MU shows you what to look out for. Advertising costs. Take your CDs and T-shirts and sell them at the gig make more money.

Definitely, but I think there is enough going on in those tracks without having to add 'tasteful licks'. Thinking more about the jubilee concert, it would gave been a sound engineer and monitoring engineer's worst nightmare. Artist after artist doing one tune, just get the mix right halfway through the song then it's on to the next.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1338936023' post='1681521'] If bands are willing to pay-to-play then why not go the whole hog and hire the venue as well? If a band can't bring in enough punters, then why would a promoter want to risk their own money? Once, perhaps, but never a second time. I'm not arguing [u]for[/u] pay-to-play, just trying to recognise the difficulties and risks on both sides. [/quote] I totally agree. Putting on your own show is the way to go if you have a good following. Otherwise the venue owner needs to ensure that he puts on good quality acts and he will get a reputation and more people will come. He also has the ability to have a good local advertising campaign that visiting bands just can't do. Ripping off bands isn't the way to do this though.

I can't believe this sort of thing is still going on. We did it in the 80s. I think back then it was £35 to play at the venue, probably close to £100 in today's money AND you had to get a certain number of people through the door. After that you made £x per person who said they had come to see your band. Strangely it didn't matter how many people came to see you, you never saw any money because either "No one said they'd come to see your band" or there was some other excuse.

Yes. Original bass player and co-writer of a whole host of tunes. I've never seen them live just thought the backing vocals wern't very backing. But, hey, everyone's a critic....

What surprised me (although I don't know why) is that there is an It Bites forum. My friend is on it and knew a lot if people at the gig from their forum names (shakes head) and they argue about Francis Dunnery vs The New Guy. Laughable, you'd never get bassplayers doing that sort of thing. Oh wait.....

[quote name='lurksalot' timestamp='1338882530' post='1680327'] If you are only lending kit , I don't think you have the same risk as if you were hiring it out. It might still be reasonable to suss the competency of the peeps using it though, both for their own safety and the wellbeing of your kit [/quote] Well, it's still raining. I'm not so worried about what would happen to me. It's more how blasé people are about their safety. The above comments ae just two examples of normally sensible people not thinking straight. Quite surprised at flyfisher and still not sure if he was joking.

[quote name='jonsmith' timestamp='1338916606' post='1681075'] Drifting OT, but I'd say it's a bit different to the last one, although not exactly a massive departure. No confusion or disappointment where I was standing at Bush Hall, but I think everyone around me - mostly die hard fans I'll admit - knew what was going to happen and already knew all the songs! [/quote] I moved about a bit. The sound in Bush Hall varies tremendously depending on where you stand. There were comments made. People seemed to like Nathan's bass playing though. Hey ho. Funny that Lee was on The Tall Ships tour but not on the album but is on the latest album but not on the tour. What was that extra guy doing singing in Madness - terrible. Maybe Suggs does not sing with them usually and the regular guy thought he should be included? I didn't like it.

[quote name='jonsmith' timestamp='1338907737' post='1680878'] Guitarist or not, I actually like Nathan King's playing with It Bites...but yes, Lee Pomeroy's a fine bass player and seemed like a very nice chap when I spoke to him briefly. He's recently been playing with Steve Hackett too - SH has had a few great bass players of late. Thought Lee Pomeroy would make an appearance yesterday when I saw that Gary Barlow had a big hand in proceedings. Oh & I can recommend the new It Bites album for those that are interested. [/quote] The last one was closer to the old 80s stuff and seemed to be aimed at pleasing the fans. Haven't heard the latest one other than they played it in it's entirety at the gig and there were a few confused faces and disappointed fans. I should really give it a proper listen as I thought it sounded quite good.

Wasn't watching for a lot of it. Saw Lee play a few times with It Bites in the last couple of years and noticed the same things. He's a very good tasteful bass player. Last month they were using Nathan King who I'm not very impressed with. Another mult-instrumentalist who doesn't have bass as his first instrument. Too much going on for me. The concert was great if you like that sort of thing. But that's what you get when you try to cover 6 decades in one concert, a bit of something for everyone, which leaves great periods of nothingness in between the bits you like. Mcartny's jacket and bass and great masterpiece Live and Let Die complete with fireworks were superb and I can't stand the guy usually. For Elton John I had to leave the room. What Stevie Wonder and Will-I-Am were doing sing the Martin Luther King inspired Happy Birthday, I have no idea. I thought everything else was pretty good though.

You only need a master keyboard and laptop now though don't you? Keep some basic bass gear. Depending on what amp/cab you're using you could play keys through that.

Sorry. Just had another discussion with someone who borrowed my PA and complained it wasn't working properly. Turns out they were running everything, lights, PA, backline, bar, from a two 50m extension leads joined together and run down the garden from a socket inside the house. This scares me. Lots. I didn't even ask it was on an RCD! Am I going to get done when someone blames my 'faulty' equipment because their band is going to play in the rain 'at all costs'?

E string machine head sheared off while fine tuning waiting to start. Played first tune, decided that I wasn't going to play the whole night with no E string and spent the first verse of the second tune re stringing EAD with the E in the A slot etc. Had to think about a few tunes. Lesson? Always have a spare bass with you.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1338803631' post='1679315'] So are all outdoor gigs off Tim? I have tickets for the Chillis at Knebworth in a couple of weeks! [/quote] Are they playing on grass at the end of a bunch of extension leads daisy chained from Knebworth House? Or On a purpose built stage rigged by pro electicians?

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1338763521' post='1679099'] At which point the RCD will trip won't it? ..... [/quote] Hopefully. They have their limitations. Like most safety devices they reduce the risk, not eliminate it. They wont trip under all fault conditions. They are only designed to protect a %age of the population. Certain people like elderly, very young and ill people are still at risk. You don't know how much current for how long will kill YOU until YOU receive the shock. I'll stick to not mixing electrics and water. I've have some bad experiences. If you want to trust your life to a £10 piece of gear from Homebase - go ahead.

[quote name='Count Bassy' timestamp='1338754781' post='1678957'] Only if something is faulty in the first place [/quote] Extension leads go faulty really quickly when you pour water on them.

In my last band, it depended on who booked the gig as to was the optimist. If the drummer booked the gig it would go ahead come hell or high water, if someone else booked it he would be happy to cancel if there was a football match on. It's not a great deal of fun playing to an empty field. At a local village gig last year we waited an hour for the weather to clear before going on. Typically people waited at home until it cleared so people were arriving throughout our set. The evening was cracking for all the other bands though, even if they all had to drop a couple of songs from their sets to fit in. I once played a gig in a gazebo in a garden where we moved the gazebo to face the house and everyone stood by windows inside the house to watch. Was quite funny playing to the people upstairs. The big problem is you can't play on grass, you'll get electrocuted. If you've got flooring down it's risky but better.

Thanks for that mate. Bookmarked and joined.

[quote name='Marvin' timestamp='1338567548' post='1676569'] These philistines are simply mocking what they ain't got. They simply aren't organised or nice enough to have such a bountiful wealth of knowledge, friendship and arguments as what you find on this 'ere small corner of the internet. I think Skank summed it up perfectly..."f*** 'em" [/quote] Or alternatively they are and by pouring scorn and derision on you it deflects attention from them and the possibility of you finding out about their Extreme Knitting forum.

I'm not in the busk it at 'practice' camp either. Practice is what you do at home, rehearsal is what you do as a band. However, this is ok when you are covering a basic tune with the same instruments. Replacing keyboard/guitar with guitar/keyboard and rehearsals often become practices But everyone should at least have the progressions, licks and form down off pat, which makes arranging a lot quicker and simpler.

Well kind of, but after 25 years of playing I would hope I know my intervals and have played enough chord progressions for most songs to fall under my fingers pretty quickly. Couple that with PCs and MP3s and 20mins should be plenty. Although occasionally a song will take a lot longer. Compare that to 25 years ago when I was rewinding tapes and picking notes out 1 by 1, a simple pop tune could take all night to learn.

That's just an experience thing though. I think the more experience you get, the less time it takes you to learn your part, or you just skim learn it to get it to rehearsal level. So then you don't feel you have invested hours in a song and don't want to bin it.

[quote name='Kiwi' timestamp='1338553823' post='1676247'] 2,300,000 hits a month speaks for itself, I think. [/quote] All from the same 23 users It's geeky rather than nerdy. I think there was a thread recently about personality types where strangely we all fitted into the same group. Funny that. There are chat rooms/forums on practically every subject but the strangest one I've seen is Pistonheads a very narrow demographic! I'm a member of about 4 different ones on different subjects and they're all the same and mainly the off topic subjects are the same and the busiest areas.

It's all part of working with artists. If a painter want's the sky painted blue, it's not going to be easy for him to tell you which shade of blue. At least with music someone can write down some basic dots or chord structure and you can work on that. We've all been in the situation where we've been told - just stick to the roots. Only later to be told that one of the notes we're playing is wrong - "Well yes, that's because you told me to play roots...." It works both ways, as I said earlier, and will maintain, there are a lot of guitarists who think they can play bass. It seems to be more common and I wonder if this is why 'good' Bass players are apparently so difficult to find. I've seen 3 bands this year where I've not thought much of the bass player, only to see the guitarist and 'bass player' swap roles at the break and been even worse. So that's 6 guitarists that can't play bass I've seen this year, and doesn't include guitarists who picked up my bass during practices to 'show me how it goes' We bass players have either got it horribly wrong, or a lot of guitarists don't actually know what the role of the bass player is. At least we can be fairly sure that as this guy used to be a bass player he has an idea of what he wants. But, hey, it's music, it's an art-form, there's no wrong and right.