Agent 00Soul

17 hours ago, Staggering on said:

A bit of a time warp gig last night, an old fashioned dinner/dance evening with a "Gatsby to Casablanca" theme, just perfect for our 7 piece swing/Dixie band with a guest vocalist. It was a dress up affair with costumes from 20's flappers to gangster outfits and the crowd of just under 50 were up for a good time. As you can imagine most were older but there were some much younger folks there as well.

Are you familiar with this gent?  I saw him with his "radio orchestra" a few weeks back in Liverpool.

https://www.bdsentertainments.co.uk/

I have to say that they were hands down the best 20s/30s act I've ever seen and I've seen lots.  The audience was, as you said, mostly people over 50, but there were also lots of young people who are on the retro circuit who were dressed so perfectly, that I felt I was in a costume drama.

Has anyone watched Geddy Lee’s TV show “Are Bass Players Human Too?”?  I’ve only seen two episodes so far - the ones with Melissa Auf der Maur and Krist Novoselic - and was wondering what the community thought.  

5 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

No we don’t have any singers in this band, instrumental only

That's really cool.  My last band was also instrumental and I loved it.

1 hour ago, Lozz196 said:

We’ve just gone through Hazy Shade of Winter (The Bangles version). It’s one of those songs that is actually a fair bit harder than it sounds - well that’s what the rest of the band tell me, it’s easy enough on bass.

Are you doing the Bangles' 3-4 part harmonies?

I've been on a garage rock kick lately.  The best thing about that is I can usually learn the bass, rhythm guitar, and lead solo quickly.  This morning I did Help You Ann by The Lyres.

Another thing to remember: basses, like all wooden instruments, need to be broken in for their sound and playability to be at their best.  If you play all the time, this can happen within a year.  For most weekend warriors it can take longer.  It's something else to consider when judging new vs used (and of course not all used instruments are broken in).

39 minutes ago, Beedster said:

I've recently got rid of all my vintage instruments

How did you do that?  Ebay/Reverb/Facebook, consignment/sale to a shop, private sale?

16 minutes ago, Bassybert said:

Or maybe the market’s flooded and we’ve all got way too much gear than we’ll ever need 😂

Good point - the generations who were really into gear are in the downsizing era of their lives now, or soon will be. And the younger ones don’t fetishise gear as much (a good thing IMHO) and could never afford this stuff anyway so never developed as strong an attachment maybe. 
 

Either way, it sounds like the numbers of market value are hugely inflated. And they don’t tell you how long an item was for sale before some person with money showed up. 

Sounds like market value means much less than it did. 

25 minutes ago, TimR said:

It only really becomes an issue when you run out of space at home and need to declutter, or the bailifs come round...

In an instance like that, do you think it would be better to find a vintage guitar shop that takes commission and suck up the lower price just to get it into as many more serious eyes/testing hands as possible?

40 minutes ago, Agent 00Soul said:

 

 

Reverb etc are loaded with cool old/vintage instruments, some priced to "market value" (which is still a lot of money - like a 1990s ES-335 for 2500GPB or a Rick 330-12 from the same decade at 2100GBP) and others at rock star-only prices (1964 Fender Jag for 6000GBP).  Yet neither seem to sell very often.  I have several instruments and also amps in my feed that I've been watching for years out of interest without a bite among them.  What's going on?  Are people hoping that one of the few rich musicians left is going to see that your item is "the one" and buy it?  How long do you expect to list high-dollar, but still market value, stuff before it sells?  Is the term market value even legit these days?  I ask because I have a decent collection myself of instruments and boutique amps that are worth something on paper, some of which were new when I bought them but are vintage now, that I imagine I'm going to have to start downsizing within the next decade.

8 hours ago, casapete said:

Not true I’m afraid - of the seven studio albums released by Macca in the 21st Century, some or all of

his band ( Abe Laboriel Jnr, Brian Ray, Rusty Anderson and MD Paul Wickens ) appear on six of them. 😊

I stand corrected!  But my main point is still valid: that’s a real band. 
 

They’ve surely been together longer than the Beatles and Wings put together by now I imagine. Wings is actually a good example of “What is a band?”  Colloquially, they were a proper band not the back-up of a single artist. But they changed members all the time and were always on Paul & Linda’s payroll. Then there was his 1989(?) Flowers In The Dirt band, released two albums and toured the world for a few years without being officially given a name. Band or no band?  It’s a hugely grey area defined by semantics. And I think the audience and the people involved in/with the group can see different ones. 

2 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 I understand Brian Epstein completely missed the boat on merchandise and ticket prices.

He only asked for a 2% cut for all that merchandise released in the US during the height of Beatlemania in 1964 (wigs, colouring books, toys, etc).  I was just reading about it yesterday. One of the licensors was interviewed and he couldn’t believe his luck. He was laughing all the way to the bank. 

4 minutes ago, Staggering on said:

He's planning to get Canada first, things are tense here these days with the new tariffs announced yesterday. Can you say "loose cannon"? Very scary.

Can the US actually do anything to Canada militarily?  They’d be retaliated against by all of NATO surely. Economics are another matter of course. 

If you are into following non-mainstream music, especially bands, the easiest way to do I’ve found is to join the mailing list of some of the few remaining indie stores left. I especially recommend https://www.resident-music.com in Brighton for this. 

Maybe they were testing to see if there would be some kind of backlash?  It’s still awful precedent. Who knows where it will lead?  Are whole areas going to be forced to build some kind of “great firewall” to keep this kind of thing out?

16 minutes ago, asingardenof said:

Mine says Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America), which seems to be the case in a lot of countries

That’s what mine says now too. They’ve updated it since I began this topic. 

7 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

Duck Duck Go works well as a search engine and does not track you. I have long considered Google the evil empire.

Do they have decent mapping software?

For the past 15 years governments have been telling these people to regulate themselves and they just laugh. Trump says something ridiculous and they implement it instantly. This sets a very dangerous precedent. It’s also symbolic of the sort of things the rest of the world is going to need to gird its loins and resist. Companies like Google are relied upon the world over so they are surely hoping that if they make enough changes to fit Trumptopia, the international community will have no choice but to gradually accept it, especially as an entire generation comes of age with this kind of thing so they are used to it. 

I just checked Google Maps and they renamed the Gulf Of Mexico into the Gulf Of America. Apple Maps is still calling it Gulf Of Mexico. 
 

Why are these so-called disruptors in Silicon Valley suddenly listening to the whims of a political leader?  They never have before. 
 

23 minutes ago, Bolo said:

How many bands name themselves after the bandleader? Solo artist in name but factually a steady group.

 

Exactly.  And they stay together and gel like a band over time.  It’s not a thing just for the kiddies either. Paul McCartney has played with the same 3 guys live since 2001.  They don’t usually appear on his recordings, but I think it’s a real stretch not to call them a band. 

8 hours ago, crazycloud said:

1982 Ibanez Musician MC924PW

I had a book called “New Wave Riffs for Bass” and the cover was Sting playing one of those Ibanezes. 

6 minutes ago, simisker said:

Maybe it's because I come from the indie/rock/alternative side of the tracks, but I've interpreted a 'band' as an artistic collaboration between all members [in variable proportions, obviously/famously].

 

 

 

I come from the same side of the tracks and believe me, I wish this were more true.  But it's not been my experience.  Every band I've been in has been dominated by 1 or 2 people.  Unfortunately IMHO, I've found a lot of people in bands just want to be told what to do and be left to do it by the songwriter, who will guide them as to what he or she thinks might fit their tune best.

10 minutes ago, simisker said:

True, but then you're not a band member, you're a hired hand.

I guess that depends on the signifcance you place on the semantics of what a band means.  I mean, no front person introduces the group they put together as their "hired hands".

Also, what about the situation where Beck put together a group of top session musicans for his Odelay tour in 1997 and they more or less became his permanent live group if I'm not mistaken?  They might still be playing with him.  They've also been hired regularly to do the same thing for Air and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Justin Meldal-Johnson was the bassist if I recall.

From what I understand, part of the reason Bruce Thomas parted ways with Elvis Costello because was because he thought they were a "band" and Elvis ultimately saw The Attractions as the backing musicians that he had put together and was paying, albiet the best possible band for the gig.