Gasman

Our covers band finds that 2x60 minutes is the standard gig here in Dorset at pubs, clubs and events. We've got about two and a half hours worth of material with more being added next week, so no need to recycle numbers from the first half to fill up the time!

I wouldn't be surprised if the 'journos' producing the drivel above were actually using Chat-GPT to generate their articles... it's already happening elsewhere!

A gig I’ll never forget! A tale of disaster and a moral question… The venue was the Turnpike Showground near Shaftesbury in Dorset, and the event was a ‘Tractor Run’ over a Sunday lunchtime. This raised a smidgeon of alarm, but a gig’s a gig – so the organisers booked our band to play from 13:30 to 16:00 to entertain the multitude of attendees they were expecting. Now, the showground extents to 39 acres, it’s flat and exposed to the wind from nearly all directions and can accommodate 10,000 people at a time for big annual shows (we’d played there for one of those back in May). However, tractor runs are really meant for the owners and die-hard enthusiasts of agricultural machinery, giving them a chance to watch and drive their pride and joy in procession around the back-roads via as many pubs as possible – the general public aren’t very interested and don’t usually attend unless it’s held in a town-centre or as part of a bigger event (e.g. county show). Add into the mix the truly awful weather forecast (gales all day and heavy rain from around 15:00 til midnight) and you get the picture. We turned up at noon – no rain yet - only to find that the gazebo they’d promised as the band shelter wasn’t there – it had apparently been blow away overnight and ended up half a mile away in a hedge, completely wrecked. There were thirty security staff but just 17 other punters sitting miserably on a few straw bales in the biting wind. Would we play out in the open air, pretty please, the organisers asked? After a band huddle we said OK, but at the first drop of rain we’d be packed up and gone. The pix below give some idea of the vastness of the field but it can’t tell you that we were playing directly into a Force 5-6 gale – no need for foldback, I thought sardonically. There were no tractors there when we arrived. They were away on their run, leaving us to set up next to the burger tent and raffle stall. The tractors (about 20 of them) returned at 13:00 and we started playing early, all of us wearing a motley collection of whatever warm hats and coats we could beg or borrow. The tractor chaps collected their souvenir plaques, and ignored us (as well they might – we didn’t have three-point hitches or turbochargers!) At halftime, the organisers tried to hold an auction for the colossal amount of bacon, baps and burgers that were never going to sell – they virtually gave away most of it (to the tractor guys) for token amounts. They then embarked upon a lengthy raffle draw, where most of the ticket holders had long gone home so the same prizes were re-drawn again and again. At this point the first drops of rain began to fall – our well-oiled band-emergency-packing-up machine swung into operation, as it had to – we needed to get the gear into our cars asap as there was no other shelter! End of gig for us… So this is where the moral issue arose – your thoughts are welcome on whether we dealt with it in the best way. Should we have insisted upon being paid the whole fee? On the minus side we only did one set, not two, but that was after agreeing to risk our gear in inclement weather so as not to disappoint the organisers who hadn’t (through force majeure) been able to provide the agreed shelter – and before playing we had insisted upon a rider that if it rained we stopped. I had a lot of sympathy for the organisers as I’ve been on their side of the fenceas an organiser of similar events myself. However, experience had rapidly told me that they’d been wildly over-optimistic about public attendance, had invested far too much money in the wrong venue, over-catered for food drink, security etc, and were entirely at the mercy of the weather – they should have at the very least cancelled the band to save money but they didn’t. Anyway, as always it was about money… · I said I’d be happy with token diesel money to help out · Our dep guitarist (yet another!) made the valid point that he’d made a 100-mile round trip, played under difficult circumstances, fulfilled his commitment and so wanted the full fee · The other three thought that accepting half-pay would help the organisers while recovering something for a partly-wasted afternoon After a fairly heated discussion (without me, I was making the long trek to the Gents 150 yard away!) they’d agreed that we should take the full fee, but individually we could then donate whatever we thought appropriate back to the event… fair enough or not? My goodness, what a shambles, and what rain came down yesterday after we left!

Mustang Sally were booked in the George pub, Mere in Wiltshire again (well, three of the band do live there) and it was Carnival night once more on the Saturday just gone. The roads through the centre are closed at 18:00 to protect the crowds on the street and let the floats lumber their way through to the parade starting-point. Very sensible of course, but for me living nearly 50 miles away it meant leaving home at 16:45 and even then only just getting through the barricades with two minutes to spare. Setting up in the pub was very relaxed as our first set was only due to start at the end of the parade (about 20:30), so sound-checks were actually possible. Unfortunately those checks were early doors in a quiet corner of the main bar that later filled to bursting point with a crazy scrum of singing, dancing and somewhat leathered punters, so my sax set ended up with my lungs turned up to 11 even with the radio mic - see video... Time went quickly, we managed to finish at exactly 23:00 as per the pub’s licence, the landlord immediately booked us for the same gig next year and I was actually home by 00:30, happy to slurp a post-match cup of tea, but not so impressed with the sturdy welcome-home present my cat had left for me in his litter box… WhatsApp Video 2024-09-15 at 18.22.44_ff42baf4.mp4

Thank you Doc - I will persevere using your advice!

It's Sergio Mendes and Brazil -1 now, I guess...

Oh dear, have I killed another thread stone dead? Sorry, didn't mean to!

However old your body or your birth certificate say you are, don't pay any attention to them - you're as old as a) your mind says you are and b) how you act around your friends and bandmates. My band's drummer is 78 and he really kicks sh*t out of his solo feature on 'Wipeout' at the start of our second set. I'm 74 and don't mind playing sax solos while writhing around on my knees on the dance-floor in our rock'n'roll set, i.e. making a bit of a knob of myself for authentic 1950s visual appeal (thank gawd for radio mics!) Our lady singist is not much younger but still loves to climb on a table in the middle of the crowd to belt out 'Country Roads' towards the end of the evening. I do sometimes wonder what our latest dep guitarist (22) makes of us all... I'll give up only if my wife's health deteriorates to the point where I need to be with her 24/7, or when I can't physically play an instrument, or ultimately when I get a permanent open-ended booking with that great rock band in Hell... where I'll be in good company (as per the Dead South band's wryly appropriate song)

I thought one of these was an essential add-on to any bass-player's signal chain - not sure what I thought it would do, but everyone has one, yes? Maybe produce nice meaty sounds? So I bought a Bass Preacher... The only impact it has had on the output from my signal chain (HB passive 4 string bass - Aguilar boost - Aguilar AG700 - Darkglass 212N cab) seems to be a radical reduction in volume! What am I doing wrong? Help!

Does he work for the raffle geezers? My lizard brain is deeply suspicious of multiple draw wins!

Could be that prices asked are too high in some cases (er, with or without cases!) - with the gradual slump in confidence nationally, as @beedster says folk are thinking much harder before splashing cash. I've noticed that in parallel there's been a general reduction in asking and achieved prices in the saxophone world too, even for the ultimate Selmer Mk6s

Maybe his sister?

A double-header again this weekend (Sat/Sun) for Mustang Sally, once again with a fluid line-up (dep guitarist #1) due to ongoing holidays and stuff. Saturday saw us setting up in the function hall at the Mere Social Club (line-up was D/B+sax/G/KB/Vox+guitar) for a private 70th birthday bash, very well attended by a great audience who seemed to appreciate our medium-octane pop playlist. This list is very much in contrast to the AVGAS-strength guitar fireworks numbers we used to play before our genuine rock-star walked out in May. It does make adding new numbers much easier with virtual rehearsals (and sometimes no rehearsals except the gig!) for simple numbers like ‘Walking on Sunshine’ and ‘2-4-6-8 Motorway’. Compared with, say, ‘Hotel California’ or ‘Echo Beach’ these new numbers are a doddle and the punters do like something really catchy for jumping about to. Pix are from this gig, including one that proves I actually DO play bass! Sunday we played at the George Inn Castle Cary, a gig organised by its enterprising landlady to compensate for the local council cancelling the town’s annual ‘Party in the Park’ on cost grounds – line-up (dep #1 and dep#2 guitarists as KB man away) was D/B+sax/G1+B/G2/Vox+guitar. This pub is a rabbit’s warren of interconnecting bars and rooms so the headbangers can jump around in the hub where we’d set up, while others could eat and drink in relative peace and quiet around the edges! We started at 18:30 and finished at 21:10, so home for an early cocoa; it rained hard during the evening so if the gig had been in the Park, everyone would have been well-drenched… It was another really enjoyable gig with a lovely crowd, resulting in that lovely landlady booking us for NYE – result!

What, Dr Albran?Good call!

"You play music for yourself first, and the punters after" - a very naive PoV I think. This won't work if you want to play regularly to the mainstream public and earn money doing it. - ignore the punters at your peril. However, if you're aspirations to playing in public consist of amusing yourself and your bandmates with 40-minute improvisations on 'Red House' to one man and a dog in a back room somewhere, good luck to you!

As a 74 yo bloke I do need to uprate my image a little - I think I'll try showing a bit of thigh and cleavage on stage this weekend - see how it goes down with the Dorset punters!

Andy Baxter is good - sold my Bongo in a week just now, all other basses in a month or so.

Five to the Bar (if you're into beer and Brubeck...)

The great thing for semi-pro musicians who are otherwise retired or self-employed is that mid-week afternoon gigs are easy to fit in – as of course are holidays and things like golf, although I’m not a fan of either… This being the case for all five of us our band gets regular work playing at the many agricultural and steam-fair shows down here in Wurzel country; typical was the Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show yesterday, playing from 17:30 to 18:45 straight through. First act before us was a pair of glamorously frocked lasses, singing 1940-50 style harmonies a la Andrew Sisters, plus some more recent Post-Modern Jukebox style takes on numbers like ‘Bad Romance’ – I liked it! Following us was a funk-oriented band, with then a big brass ska outfit to finish. This year the organisers had coughed up for a proper mini-Glasto-type stage instead of pallets in a marquee, with a good PA and engineer who knew what he was doing, so we had no excuse for a poor sound! We were using guitar dep #2 from a choice of four – he’s very good. We rattled through a pretty mixed set (see attached), including a ‘new’ rock’n’roll medley featuring sax, where I actually get a total of 24 bars improve – whoopee! I must say that our KB player’s bass lines are worryingly good… Short video attached to prove we were there. Mrs G came along but made a beeline for the show-jumping (she had to give up riding a few years ago but still loves horses). Apparently our band could be heard at the main ring where she was sitting – ‘not a bad bit of sax,,,’ she mused later on the way home, ‘but I think the people doing camel-racing were a bit distracted by it!’ WhatsApp Video 2024-08-14 at 22.22.11_8eeb4d6b.mp4 1x75_minute set_v1.pdf

I've been amazed too! Dep #4 was playing in another band at a mini-fest we gigged at. Our singist isn't backward in coming forward so just went up after he'd finished playing and asked him whether he would like to dep two gigs for us. He said he'd never depped before but would love to try! She sent him our generic setlists, he learned the ones he'd never played before in a couple of weeks, turned up and did a great job on two gigs for us - even helped carry the PA in! Solid gold, that guy... would love to have him permanently.

Late report on two gigs last Friday and Sunday for Mustang Sally, using our fourth dep guitarist who was actually very good and a nice chap with it. Friday was a closed pre-event gig for the exhibitors only at a steam fair near Taunton. Big beer and food tent, a stage made of pallets and a good number of farmers, traction-engine owners and general hangers-on made for an excellent gig. It was helped by a short sharp shower at half-time, driving even more punters into the tent – total about 150. Our native Dorset lady singist did a great job of calling the numbers that the generally rustic crowd wanted, they loved it and we got paid so that we can call that evening a success. Pix are of our setup in the tent and a showman’s engine all lit up (uh-huh-huh!) just outside. The Sunday gig was in my home town of West Bay in Dorset; my being on the event committee was always a good way to get a booking here! We played 15:30-17:00 straight through, including some new numbers. The stages are set up right on the seafront so we had a fantastic sea view the whole time. Sound was surprisingly good given that the nearest land in front of us was Guernsey (60 miles). About 200 people watched us as they ate and drank copiously under the sunshine, so a good time was had by everyone. And another success for our #4 guitar dep. – shame he’s already in two other bands… Next gig is in a seven day's time at a mid-week North Dorset county show; we’re back to dep #2 who is also pretty darn good, so hopefully more to enjoy

Well, that killed this thread stone dead - my apologies!

What version are you using? I'm on 2.1.0 (old, I know) but have no such problem in cutting and pasting. Can you roll back your update?

Seven minutes is by no means the shortest! Back in '73 a classic jazz/comedy band I was with (the White Hot Air Men!) were setting up in the Half Moon pub in Putney for a rehearsal when Bob Kerr (of the Whoopee Band) rushed in and said he needed a band at Heathrow instantly for a paid job. We piled into a couple of cars and followed him flat out to the top floor of a multi-storey car park at the airport, all pretty much in the dark as to why; there was a very small piece of dingy carpet on the floor to make things even more mysterious. Bob told us to start playing 'there's no business like show business' as soon as the lift doors opened, which they did soon after. An American lady singist trio emerged with their minders, we launched into the number, they fell about laughing in surprise, the band all got a kiss and they were then hustled away into waiting limos. Total playing time 60 seconds, for which we got £10 each, pretty good for '73. Apparently this was all about a wager someone had made with the trio saying that the Brits were sure to welcome them by rolling out the red carpet and a brass band... I wish I knew who the trio were - could it have been the Supremes? Anyone had a shorter gig than that? For your amusement, a pic of the band at the Half Moon is attached - I'm the buffoon with the ludicrous beard and alto sax on the left...