scalpy

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwdcI6yInzO/?igshid=MWZjMTM2ODFkZg== Mrs Scalpy has done a post about the gigs from yesterday I mentioned in my post!

After Friday’s turbo set up two completely different experiences. Early set up for the 11 piece, for a centenary celebration for a local company, big marquee for 200+ people. A luxurious 2 hours to make sure everything was ok, neat and tidy, plus the local music shop lent us a pair of chauvet dominator moving heads to play with. Lunch and a kip then onto… Acoustic gig bashing the hell out of my old Taylor 214 with the two singers and the drummer on assorted percussion toys for an hour. We were pushed for time (the drummer was following the van- not used to our country back lanes 🤣) so had 10 minutes to get ready. Plugged in my one jack into the provided PA, 3 mics pointed in the correct general direction and that was that! Nice hour of mucking about then back to the tent for hanging around, then two hours of trying to get work colleagues to lose their inhibitions about partying in front of the boss!

Local carnival last night. Big aspirations on a show string budget. PA provided and backline, but we have our own idiosyncratic rack in ears system so had 15 minutes to clear backline (to make room for a our 5 piece horn section) and get 11 of us on stage in 15 minutes. Our sound engineer and guitarist had another gig so it was my job to oversee all of it. Just about managed it with some delegation, then we managed to keep a crowd for an hour and half set. Two more gigs today- set ups will be much more straightforward!

Absolutely don’t need, I have two DB Cabs, the extinct manufacturer for this mini-rig purpose and an Aguilar would have no perceptible gains in the applications I use them. But these are seriously cool, I’ve got two DB112s in tweed my wife won’t let me sell, a 110 would be the perfect accompanying cab.

Nice wedding gig in Chichester this evening, furthest we’ve been off our usual patch in the three counties. Two deps in, keys and drums, but they really nailed it. Good crowd as well, took a little while to get them warmed up but they went for it in the second set- the only issue was a punter dropping a fart of chemical warfare proportions causing our singers to completely corpse during Angels until they could breathe safely again.

Got a similar situation in a few weeks- but my main motivation is the load in is horrendous so it’ll be bass and pedalboard for me!

Thank you all No backline and no amps apart from the PA. We’ve run the whole kaboodle comfortably from 2 domestic sockets- just don’t know what figure to put on that. Will have to get to the lock up with pen, paper and calculator by the sounds of it! Harry

Hi all Often my function band gets asked for its power requirements at a venue. Not being electrically minded at all, what is a reasonable response? Safe doesn’t seem to cut it! We’re 8-12 piece, running a 3k Pa, medium size led lighting rig and an in ears rack. Any help would be most appreciated. Thank you Harry

Just done two gigs on Saturday. In the afternoon the guitarist used a fender combo and pedalboard, in the evening he used his kemper. Kemper ate the amp for breakfast. We videoed both, it was fun having amps onstage for the afternoon, but the sound is clearly worse and everyone was struggling with monitoring. In the evening the FOH sound is much clearer, even we’d added 3 horn players and a percussionist. The guitar and bass (both ampless) sounded tighter and more focussed, the vocals sound way clearer and monitoring (in ears both gigs) was much easier.

This is what we do with ours and it’s not that bad. I’ll put instrumentation on the guide for instance when there’s a tricky tempo change, particularly if it leaves a single player exposed, such as keys or drums intro. They fall right in and adds some security to tricky sections. As said above, with deps it’s really helpful.

Sent this to the band, who thought it was hiliarious, (2 wanted to order them…) But(t) seriously, playing in a function band a click has proved essential. We’ve had two regular drummers, the first was paranoid about rushing so always underestimated tempos, then to his credit never shifted. I took over counting the band in, deliberately counting them in too quick- but it was guess work still. He retired eventually. The second got faster and faster- to the point our extremely competent horn section couldn’t play their parts- which was when we introduced the click. He still played on top of it, and I had to tear strings off the bass to keep him in check- so I sacked him. We now have 3 drummers we use depending on availability, all three have the ability to use the click as a tool for good, and it’s a joy having having the consistency, especially as live footage can be edited really easily to do compilations of gigs- tempos are spot on.

from Wiki- Follow-up single "I'm a Man Not a Boy" peaked at 27 in the UK, with subsequent singles including "What's Wrong with This Picture?", "Stay Away Baby Jane" (a collaboration with Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne) and "Another Fine Mess" also charting in the top 100. I’d be happy with a no27 hit, especially at those times, but I think Chesney could be safely classed as a number 1 one hit wonder!

Not quite in the same league as closing the Commonwealth games and certainly not a one hit wonder myself… We did a wedding where Chesney Hawkes was a guest, so we rehearsed up I Am The One And Only (a surprisingly tricky little beast with some clever key changes and timing tricks) in case he’d get asked to do it- which he did. So he walked up to me to me to check the key, knocked out a note perfect rendition (I think he’s had enough practise at it), crowd went bonkers, he shook us all by the hand and disappeared.

Takes about 15 minutes to properly get going. Looks like my Sire V7 mk1 will be for sale very shortly…

Following! Wife has complained my Sire (burnt orange) which I bought as bit of a beater looks cheap so have have had my eye on a metro express for a while.

Another if you’re interested post… Back in ‘99 the band I was in had somehow managed to blag a session at Studio 1 at AIR. Not bad for three boys from Hereford. Halfway through the day the other two had gone in search of a drink and I was left in the control room with the producer, when David Arnold walked in. After some introductions he said ‘We’ve just finished the new Bond theme, do you want to be the first to hear it?’ and promptly produces a CD for us. So we got to hear The World Is Not Enough before anyone else. Red letter day.

Hats. Here we go….

Insane. Great, but insane.

First amp was my folks record player which required an unfeasibly complicated set of crocodile clips to play through it. Naturally I blew the speakers. Suitably chastened, my folks were good enough to buy me a BCRich 110 combo as I persuaded them ‘I really need it’. For capital, as I sold it almost immediately to buy something way bigger and therefore much better- a HH 215 cab and laney linebacker 100. Still have the head, the cab died being used on a gig in Nottingham by a support band. Sold the remaining functioning speaker and skipped it. Promoted myself to a 410XL Hartke, which proved magnificent, and has lived in my classroom for 20 years being thrashed by students and it still laps it up. Powered by a 1400 hartke head, that hasn’t survived so well. Got fed up with being told I was too loud before I’d even plugged in so went for a lmt500 head and two Aguilar DB112s in boss tweed (that makes them sound better) and even after being on BC for 10 plus years that’s my main rig. Also have two 110 cabs from DB as a modular pit rig. I have access to a tube Veyron as well which is fun. Main source of sound sculpting now is a MarkBass Vintage Pre as my main gig is in-ears.

It’ll only work with a different drummer in Las Vegas though.

Surprised to see so many G&Ls in the list. My bass history- Encore PB3 Squier Silver Series Jazz Fender MIM p bass G&L Asat G&L LB100 (USA) Sire V7 5 string Still have the last three.

We were doing the equal split thing but it caused issues. The one singer owns the Pa, the other (my wife) does all the band management stuff, our old guitarist had the rehearsal space, the drummer travelled further, I do all the arrangements and musical direction etc. Problems occurred though with deposits for gigs and full payments ‘resting’ in my wife’s personal account, and attaching value to who did what. This wasn’t helped by the fact some members of the band became legends in their own lunchtimes and were somewhat less than 100% reliable on the music front, which I couldn’t tolerate as we’re a function band asking for a fair whack. So the singers and myself formed a limited company and now hire the rest of the band for each gig. We explained to the original members we couldn’t be so inconsistent and those who needed to got the message and left. It sounds harsh but we’ve had greater stability in the line up as a result, play better quality gigs and the performances are reliable. Some gigs we don’t make as much money as the ‘players’ but overall it’s working out nicely.

Michael Jackson medley- I want you back, Billie Jean, thriller (to nods of approval) darling dear (tumbleweed)

Bizarrely, I have trespassed on the very same land! A singer songwriter I play for lives on that lane and I missed it the first time I went there, headed up that driveway. Realised my mistake pretty early on though. My ‘one step closer to a bass hero’ is more of a stumble followed by a face plant. Sometime around 99/00 my band was doing a lot of recording with an engineer turned producer who had been McCartneys studio engineer for about a decade. One night we were in London going to meet a ‘manager’ about a ‘record contract’ and walked passed MPL offices in soho square. At that moment McCartney’s driver comes out and spots our engineer, and they briefly chat about old times and we get introduced. At that point he invites us in to meet Paul. However…. We were late for the manager and I declined……

My band all tremble before me as I lay down the law- my way or the highway! We’ve a set up that the two singers and myself are directors of the company, me as MD, and all the other players are hired in a gig by gig basis, invoicing for each performance. I prepare all the musical material, transcribing and arranging charts, backing and guide tracks and as it takes forever each new number we cover (up to 15 minute medleys at times) I want it the way I heard it when doing all the arranging. However, whilst that might sound cold the players who make up our regular band are free to make suggestions or improvements- we’re booking provincial level pros and know what they’re on about so it’s wise for me to listen and deps often mention what a good relationship we all have. It doesn’t always work, we’ve just lost a drummer from the team for instance, but what we’ve found is players come in as deps and gradually become more involved to become the first call. If you’re wondering, the singers roles are respectively manager and sales each.