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TrypF

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Everything posted by TrypF

  1. This is my experience. I don’t have the money to buy a £1,000+ bass, but I can buy an instrument, give it a proper setup (learnt through many years of trial and error) and I’d be happy to gig it. Add a few hundred quid of upgrades (over a number of months, usually) and I have a roadworthy Instrument I can really rely on - it helps that they’re always Fender-shaped, cause I know where I am and have all the tools. That’ll do me.
  2. I’m big on modding, but only on cheap basses and guitars. My number 1 (in my picture) is a 1999 Mexican Precision, and over the years I’ve changed everything but the wood and the frets. It’s loud as hell and pretty bomb proof. I recently bought a Squier Strat in a Cash Converters for £45, added about £250 of parts, month by month and now have a really nice looking and playing guitar. I wouldn’t change anything but the strings on my Ricky!
  3. The whole of Stop Making Sense is a masterclass as far as I’m concerned. Cities and Found A Job especially.
  4. Bandcds.co.uk are reasonably priced and have a wide range of formats. Have used them quite a few times,
  5. My last band got so sick of being ripped off by promoters, playing in between completely different genre acts, we took the plunge and became our own promoters. Hire a function room in a place with a music license, ideally with its own bar, and pay a trusted mate to staff the door. With a couple of other acts on the same page, this can be a money spinner, especially if you add merch. It doesn’t work if any of the acts treat it like a free rehearsal and don’t promote it properly, though.
  6. I read about this feller Steve White in Guitarist. The notion of learning McCartney basslines the wrong way round, while singing those parts, blows my mind.
  7. Dutch band The Analogues have a ‘no outfits, original gear’ approach to playing the Fabs, usually albums in full. They come over to the UK once in a while.
  8. The O’Jays For the Love of Money used to be mine. Gets the picking hand limbered up nicely.
  9. Absolutely. My long lead has really helped out in the past - I have also been the 'responsible adult' for the other band members' sound. Curiously, I've played in two bands where the lead guitarist has to be told to turn UP.
  10. For this kind of thing I'd do the work myself as the stress of repackaging, shipping it and waiting for a replacement would be too much of a faff. Like the other posters wrote, I'd check neck relief, string height, neck pocket, then the nut itself. I recently bought a Squier CV fretless Jazz that had control knobs that didn't grip properly. A new set ordered from AllParts cost a tenner or so - for the great deal I got on the bass, I didn't want to hassle the shop over something like that. If it is a nut problem, a GraphTech one is a great upgrade for very little cost anyway.
  11. There's great playing on her 99.9 F album by the amazing Bruce Thomas. I think her main audience didn't go for its more experimental vibes but I love it.
  12. The Pretenders. First line up or current one. Great song after great song, playing alongside some badass musicians.
  13. That's a beauty, Cat. As a fellow mandolin/bass player I am very envious!
  14. Many bands I follow or am friends with have a 'shell' site with one, or at most a few basic pages - but these display, front and centre, the social media people favour these days. For example, here's Silvertwin's site: https://www.wearesilvertwin.com They have a young-ish audience (plus old farts like me who liked their sound before it was retro) but I'd guess they want to make sure there is some standard web presence. If you can get a cheap domain and someone to put together simple pages, that's how I'd go.
  15. A great drummer who, sadly, I never got to see live. I remember seeing their Glastonbury show on TV and he was wearing a Regent Sounds t-shirt - my favourite music shop in Denmark Street. Next time I was in there I mentioned it to a staffer who said Taylor always came in when he was in London, bought an acoustic to noodle on in the hotel room, and would then sign it and give it away to a fan. They also described him, like so many have, as the nicest, most unaffected 'star' who had ever been in the store. Their business had improved quite a bit after the Glasto show and yes, they were now always sold out of t-shirts.
  16. Label all your stuff - I use a particular coloured tape. Really comes in handy with stuff loads of other people have like SM58s and Boss Tuners, and stops cables going walkies afterwards. Carry spares of all sorts - you're a bass player and frequently the only responsible adult in the mix. I've had offers of all sorts of favours when another band broke a guitar string and I was the only one who could help. It's been said before, but be nice to the sound engineer, no matter how bad they are. I still remember a band on the same bill as a friend's lot, who had the worst sound I've ever heard. 'What's with them?' I asked him. 'They called the sound guy a rank amateur at soundcheck', he replied. 1 pint before and no more. This works for me. I do it with three pints of weak shandy if there's lots of hanging around to do, so if anyone offers, I raise my 'beer' and say 'I'm OK'. Engage with the audience. I know it's hard for some, but for me it's acting. You wouldn't walk into a room full of strangers and loudly say 'Evening! How are we all doing?' But on stage, if you're the singer, it's a necessity IMO. Set lists in black block capitals. 1 per band member, all supplied by the same person Be supportive to the other bands. If they turn out to be a bunch of idiots, so be it. But some are worth getting to know, and appreciate seeing you in the audience.
  17. OK, it isn't particularly funky, but I love playing along to Doug Stegmeyer's parts on Billy Joel's 'The Stranger'. Skip Just the way You Are. Nailing the bass part to Scenes from an Italian Restaurant is very satisfying indeed. Apparently, this was how Nikolai Fraiture of The Strokes developed his playing.
  18. I was the singer and guitarist (yes, I know...) in a band where the other members were really not pulling their weight, saying all the right things and sounding supportive - but ask them to write their own part, suggest covers etc and they'd look at their shoes. I took a week's holiday - the first I'd had in years - and asked them to book the next rehearsal in my absence: I would make myself for any evening they could agree on. I kind of knew what would happen in my absence, but enjoyed my week off. Next time we met, I asked if they had the date in the book. 'No, sorry, didn't get round to it, could you...' 'Band's finished', I said, and went out and bought a new bass, ready to join a proper band. It's still my number one instrument and I've had a lot more fun and, generally, much less stress since.
  19. What irks me is that the 'journalist' (and I use the term loosely), decided 'I can see how someone could take offence at this, especially if pushed in the right direction. I'll call round every female bass player in my book of indie bands, ask them how offended they are, then pick the most outraged response and use that as my big quote'. A shiny pound says he got quite a few women saying 'and you point is? Stop wasting my time.'
  20. I didn’t say those ten people were always pleased to see us! 😀
  21. Glad to hear you’re on the mend, Blue. I’m 2/3 of the way between 21 and 65, and definitely feel I’m slowing in terms of stamina when it comes to gigs. In the 90s I felt I was indestructible and the gigs would always be there. I was productive, keen, but also earnest as heck and probably a bit of a pain for people around me. By the time I had a good career going in another discipline (my 30s), I chilled out, accepted music would be semi-pro at best and had much more fun playing as a result, while taking the discipline bit seriously and not messing bands about. Those bands lasted about 20 years, then I had to take time out for personal reasons, then Covid happened. Now, I’m doing loads of music with all sorts of people from musicals to agit-punk, all for petrol money, but on my own terms, and having a blast. However, I’d be loathe to join a busy gigging band because the energy isn’t quite there: the one-off gigs are fun but I remember the old bands - for every big festival gig there’d be the tiny club show miles from anywhere, in front of ten people.
  22. Graham Maby is the nuts. It’s telling that through all Joe Jackson’s changing styles, from new wave to jive and Latin, Maby was the only ever-present. In my last band, I talked the lads into covering I’m The Man and it ended up being our default set closer, and the most fun to play I think I ever had with them. The Joe Jackson Band reunion album Volume 4 is a lesser known gem, recorded live in the studio.
  23. When an equal split works (U2, Coldplay), it works well, but everyone has to pull their weight in one way or another. When it doesn't (Queen, UB40) resentments creep in about people not doing their bit, getting the same money for B-Sides (as has been mentioned) etc. It's all about trust. On the flip side, people get stiffed a lot by the 'chief' songwriters, as folks have recounted here. Mick Taylor left the Stones as says (your honour) he'd co-written many RS songs that then appeared in the brackets on the resulting record as 'Jagger/Richards'.
  24. Although I think U2 have gone seriously off the boil in the 21st century, they were quite something back in the day. A lot of this was down to the rhythm section - the ultimate safe pair of hands for Edge to create his effected soundscapes and Bono to sing, posture, pontificate and so on. I remember watching the Rattle and Hum video til it wore thin and falling in love with AC's battered Precision bass - for what he does, you don't need bells and whistles (and certainly not a Warwick that looks like melted chewing gum). It nearly fell apart on the Zooropa tour when he went on a big drinking sesh and had to drop a show, replaced by his tech. I believe he was read the riot act by the band and told to clean up his act or else and, to his credit, he has stayed off the dizzy water ever since. Like the other posters have said, it's harder than it looks especially in the stadium era when everything from the lights to the video screens are synced to a click track, and the folks who deride his abilities are generally non-bassists.
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