JTUK

I take a backup and a tool kit etc etc ... I couldn't get away with an amp failure but if the gig was big I could probably use the monitor...

I like him and since you can't have Bernard Edwards on the gig, you would likely get canned if you tried and put in a clone. So, in this sense, he went for something different and I think it works. I even like his slightly maverick style and he makes the band very exciting to watch/listen to. This is always the same issue when a mainstay doesn't/can't do the gig anymore... and I think the best option is not to try and replace him, and get someone in who can take the band to a different place. What is passed, is passed.

Whether they would be able to play it is another question, but I may have done so in the circumstances... and I liked the guy. My basses are high-end and would cost £3k to replace but if the deal was genuine then maybe. I would also likely have some tools so that we could try and repair his if something like electrical. I think that would be the better way forward, all round, tbh.

I always thought it was a good deal for the bar owner the way the U.S run it... they could pay very low wages knowing that the culture of tipping would make the money up and more than worthwhile for the staff and the staff really have to work the 'tip' all on the basis of good service. The U/S is known for being more service orientated and this is just an extention of it. The culture here is more to price the job for the money you want and expect to walk away with that fee which you were happy with. Of course, no one will likely turn down a bonus but they tend to be rare. A pub might throw a tip if you have done exceptionally well for them but you then might expect that every time which is why they tend to be rare.. One-off gigs like parties, might generate a tip but again no on expects one if they have priced the gig well.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1413137132' post='2575208'] It may or may not have been the White Horse near Kings Cross Station, lol [/quote] Don't quite know it...but a gtr used to 'insist' we stop off at Brown's before our gigs at Dover St Wine bar. The number of times we turned up at the venue 10mins before the start at 11:00pm ...well, it got a bit fraught at times... :lol;

If they want you to play 4 hrs for $100, then I'd have no problem with a 'bonus' but the pubs here already put money on the drinks to pay for the band..and they need people to be willing to pay that... so to put around a hat/jar on top of that would not be the most appropriate thing, possibly. If they are talking about you playing another 30 mins or so, then of course, they would have to pay for that but you know a pub set is 2x45mins for the fee. Other regions of the country might expect 2x1hrs but round here it is 2x45mins for £250 for a decent-ish band if you bring people in..AND keep them. For a pub to earn that £250 to pay for the band means you need enough people drinking for 2 hrs. The mark-up on the beer can be 100% or more, but that doesn't take into account the other hourly costs. As I said before, passing round the hat is mainly for jazz gigs where the core band would be on £50 per man ( x 4 ) and the guests would get the 'pot' but no pub band would work for that as ...and alluded to before .. who controls the pot takings..??? A variation of that would be a standard fee of around £100 to 150 and a percentage of the takings... but again, no band will take those gigs as no one may trust what the takings are..and 10% needs £1000 ( £100 ) just to get back up to what you'll get elsewhere. A couple of pubs here tried it..and got NO takers, IIRC. Having said all that... some bands may help a venue out with being a tad flexible but they really [email="AREN@T"]AREN'T[/email] expecting to work for less than their normal/minimum fee.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1413117153' post='2575002'] I've been to one of those pubs, I waited all night for the band to come on and just kept putting another pound in the pint glass, we even went back the week after and stayed in there all night just to double check [/quote] Nice chatty girls...... and attractive though...

Facebook it in the Dep groups, but generally the good guys, or supposedly good guys, will want the fee and exes and I get the impression the gig is a bit better than that, so you want a good player but can't afford it ..?? Not meant as anything other that the way it is.... and the drummer will be playing the sellers market card..and they being the seller. If it were London or S/E I could maybe more help. Best go young and keen....and cheap.. and state your rates on FB for 1x gig plus two rehearsals.

Round here pubs pay upto £400 for a band... we can get £350 and I assume one or two do better. The bar will put their drinks up to cover for live music and generally it works. You can tell which pubs are good music pubs by the lenght of time they have been able to put on good music nights. Depends on the business model... some pubs stay with local bands which they can get cheaper, but then to fill 2 nights a week on a 3 month rota can get hard. If you ship in better bands, then they are more expensive and also want travel costs so it is a fine line that only the Pub can really navigate. The better bands have to accpet they may subsidise other nights and can't take everything they think they may be owed on their gig, and also the pub may put on a cheaper band at £150 so they have more money elsewhere. Not quite robbing Peter to pay Paul but you get the jist. Punters are sensitive to paying higher drink prices and some want free entertainment as well as drink at usual prices. Sometimes you can't win... I tend to play pubs that I would drink in.. so I will support the venue even if I am not fussed about the band on that night. Many bands will tell you there is nowhere to play... and moan about the local scene...but I don't always see them supporting venues or other bands. It should be give and take.. If you are getting good enough money... then passing round the hat/jar is maybe asking too much from the audience, certainly if they are paying extra on drinks that night..

PV and Mackie have the same innards as well, according an amp tech friend of mine.

I don't like the idea of upping the input level like this. If you are using a bass with output that is low..then ok..it is just a mild boost, but if you are trying to get much more volume than it was designed for, then you could be overloading the input and output stages and if you get away from clean sounding bass, then it is harder to hear components struggling, particuarly speakers. So, I'd say...don't expect or go after too much of a boost. If you rig is too quiet, either get pokier pickups, a better bass, and better rig, fit for the purpose...??

Are the rehearsals paid...?

Ok... just to expend the chord chart idea. The / is a crotchet/qtr beat so you are | C 2,3,4 | on a count in a 4/4 bar If you sub-divide or need a rest beat, then you use musical notation like quavers/rests etc etc to determine that. The only person who writes out a 'chart' like in your examples are singers who may play a gtr/keys and they mark the changes for their vocal purposes. For players, they have totally disposed of the bars..which rather defeats the point. And if ever drummers worked from those...well, they just wouldn't... You can do a lot of gigs without reading if you have decent chord charts ...

Along these lines, a very good singer and a very good frontman who can work the crowd is like gold dust so you usually end up with one or the other ... I know plenty of lead singers and I can't say I know a single one who can pull off both at this level... IME. X factor is being able to sing and have GREAT presense,

1st thing... I hate 'charts' like that. I am not interested in playing to words so it means next to nothing in musical terms, IMO. Write it out properly, with the chord in a bar and that way you can write half bars if you need to. You have the beat/tempo and you are playing that chord for the lenght of the bar..and if you need to, you sub-divide the bar with correct musical notation. A full bar could be written | C \ \ \ | Am\ \ \| F \G\ | G \ \ \ | Not sure what they hope to achieve by playing Wonderful tonight like that, tbh.. I guess you'd have to hear it, but that in itself suggests to me that these guys will never get out of just goofing around in rehearsal... Maybe, that is the band in a nutshell with that type of thinking ...???

[quote name='leschirons' timestamp='1412964233' post='2573757'] I'd love to see them but it sounds quite weird saying Chic feat Nile Rodgers when he's always been in it. Like saying The Rolling Stones feat Mick Jagger. [/quote] But..... he even has to annouce to the audience that he produced/wrote all the songs the band plays so as people don't think they are a cover band...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[quote name='mrtcat' timestamp='1412970539' post='2573831'] I try really hard not to buy anything made in China. I'm sure they can make things well but I have way too many issues with China (human rights issues, animal welfare etc etc etc) to want to support their economy. [/quote] Entirely fair opinion, IMV. Difficult to do... if applied across the board, but at least you can try.

Had a very good drummer in last night and his tendency was to push. Felt uncomfortable to me and I didn't like it in the first set. He loosened up in the second and we had more fun... For me, the best feel/groove drummers tend to be back.

It is more a jazz thing where the fee pays the house band and the jar goes round for the 'guests' to pay for petrol or a drink. Pubs tend to put the price on a pint to help pay for a band now so it isn't a tradition outside of jazz gigs, IMO.

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1413009137' post='2574024'] Thanks. Good luck to you too. In fairness, they/we play a lot of 12 bar blues rock n roll numbers. This in some way makes playing easy. Yet it also flags up a lack of knowledge of the genre when I keep finding they end the song without ending a bar, ket alone finishing the 12bar sequence. I think my best here is keep playing with them, but watch out for another band. For my part, I feel right now I struggle keeping on track following the chord changes when I'm playing whilst reading the lyrics to see when the change comes. My frustration is knowing that what we're doing is 12 bar blues, but they've designed the chord changes not following a 12bar sequence. [/quote] Get them to write out a chord bar chart, so you count the changes. That way they can't change anything..as you have the song template. and you are maybe then teaching them a discipline as well.... plus chords chart reading is always useful to have with new songs and bands anyway. 12 bars are so called for a reason.... and rock n roll endings always end at the end of the sequence... unless you really know what you are doing. It is a standard thing with muso's and bands so why you want to mess with it, I don't know...especially if the alternative version is a train wreck..?? I mean, why..???

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1412986780' post='2573981'] Might still be useful from the 'gaining experience' point of view. But you'll only be gaining experience of rehearsing, by the look. This kind of thing is a lot more widespread that you'd think. Musicians are right up there in the delusion stakes, along with politicians and clinical lycanthropists. [/quote] Agree...as in what other options have you got..and you may well learn something..or not, but both can be useful. You could probably find the delusionals out every week at your popular gigs. That in itself isn't a crime, as at least they are out there trying..as opposed to never getting out there, ever. Varying degrees of 'delusion' is what seperates everyone....

[quote name='Grangur' timestamp='1412982804' post='2573953'] I've just got home from a band practice. Mrs G came along too. She was in the kitchen chatting with the other wives. Its amazing what she learned. Apparently the other guys have all known each other for years. Played for years too, but nobody in the band has EVER gigged ever, with anybody. So we're all total noobs at gigging. So when they talk about DIing everything and mic-ing up my cab, they are simply BSing... interesting. (Or scary) [/quote] There is always a lot of BS about bands, you just have to know who can live up to it. I never mind ego..upto a point, if the guy delivers. If someone knows they are good, then they know... but that doesn't mean you have to be a dick about it. You'll find out what guys and have read about and what they know. A good strong opinion can be good... but if they can't reference that then you could be heading for a blind alley. I think you need to have them know that you are all in the same boat as giggers, and so until someone prooves they know what is what..as opposed to reading about it a lot..then no one has the final say. You are going to have to work together.... and also expect to fall over on a few basics.

[quote name='Paul S' timestamp='1412794114' post='2572197'] A couple of our usuals - one of our guitarists is 5'4" tall and weighs approx. 17 stone. He always walks up to his mike and says 'can you see me behind here?' usually gets a laugh. Near the start of a gig, usually when one guitarist is tuning up, as he often does, singer will say something like 'we'll be playing great tunes from the 60s right through to this year. Hopefully you will know some of them. Hopefully we will too' I think the best one he ever came out with was at the start of a gig - we had rehearsed with a keyboard player who then left leaving us to default to our usual format of 2 x guitars and dust off some old tunes at short notice. Singer said 'We've had to change our set at the last minute as our keyboard player has hurt his fingers. Oh, hang on, its next week he gets his fingers hurt, isn't it...' [/quote] I can see your guy being a decent front man.. We don't bother as we don't have anyone who can really carry it off... but connecting with the audience is as much a useful skill as being able to sing well...IMO

[quote name='Coilte' timestamp='1412940259' post='2573464'] I'd hate to think that what someone else assumed, was to be the criteria for what songs were played. It does not stop U2 from playing some of their songs !!! [/quote] Yes but you know what I mean. Round here, you'd get pretty short change from the audience unless you did something pretty special with it. I can think of a few places where some would walk out...

No...didn't go, but he has been touring this show for a few years now so it has been compulsive viewing on Youtube.. Love Jerry Barnes, for sure. Probably my fave bass player, atm..