• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Bass Player Pet Peeves

#81
- guitarists who need to use 4 different effects for EVERY solo they do
- drummers who feel the need to "fill" at every opportunity
- ANY instrumentalist who feels the need to play between songs
- ANY "musician" who feels they are more skilled than they actually are
- ANY "band" that feels they are more skilled than they actually are
- posers
- wankery
- bad time
- ANY guitarist who feels the need to bring a Marshall stack to a small club gig
- bad off key singers
- club owners who feel you need them (we need eachother)
- bands that are WAY TOO LOUD
- being told to turn down when you are on "1"
- etc............
 
#84
I've mentioned this before, but it makes me so upset I have to write it once again:
- Being the most motivated member of the band, thinking unprintable thoughts every time rehearsal gets cancelled.

Only this time there's no word at all about rehearsal...
If I don't ask I'm betting tomorrow will come and go without a word.
I REFUSE to be in the drivers seat of every band gathering.
I think I'll sit in the back seat looking out the window and just wait and see if anyone else steps up and takes control.

Sorry about the rant, but I had to get it out.
Pheewww....

/Ff
 
#88
1) Singer/songwriters who have no appreciation or clue about how you're the one single, solitary person holding the music together, and, adding insult to injury, become indignant because you're not joyfully volunteering to add background vocals, too.
2) Rock guitarists who feel the need to crank the low end on their Marshall 4x12 cabinets because the only recorded music they've ever heard is the kind where you can't hear the bass player, and they don't expect to hear you. (I think this peaked in the '80s.)
3) Soundmen who spend 20 min. getting an enormous drum sound and then ask you to "take out some lows and add more definition" because you can't be heard. (Also an '80s plague.)
4) People who think you're playing a "bass solo" when it's really just a brief, arranged section, interlude, or whatever where everyone else has dropped out (example: "Brown-Eyed Girl".) And, drunken buffoons who yell, "Bass solo!!" when those places come up. I really hate that.
5) Bandmates who tell you, "It's okay, don't be afraid to play more" when you've spent a artistic lifetime striving to eliminate the superfluous and pursue the "less is more" ideal.
6) Bandmates/songwriters who give you a new-song demo with a fully-fleshed-out bass part. (Someone already mentioned this one.)
7) People in the supermarket who thoughtlessly leave their shopping cart parked right in the middle of the aisle while they impulsively go to read some labels or something. (Okay, that's not bass-related, but it always gets to me!)
 
#92
Big city special event planners who don't do anything to help the band secure VALIDATED PARKING even though it's in the contract (can you tell this just happened to me?)

Lonnybass
 
#95
violatedppl said:
-here play this
Click to expand...
God I hate that one. Worst is, it happens all the time when I go to this jam night at school. It's like, all the other guys know the same tunes, which I happen to not know. And all the songs I know, no one else knows. So I always end playing stuff I don't really care about.

I also hate people who clap out of time. I'm ashamed of being white sometimes.
 
#96
Crappy bands with big egos.

Drummers who rearrange a whole kit beccause they can't play with two toms, there can only be one - when it's a triple bill and they are the middle band.

Guitarists who practice (at full volume) before starting a song.

Crappy singers

Cheesy clubs who overcharge bands to come and play their joints when they know if there was no bands they wouldn't make a dime.

Battle of the bands - which are all b.s. and at best make the promoter a hell of alot of money and allow one band to record a c.d. ( which would have cost them under a grand anyway).
 
#98
I've noticed that a lot of rock and blues guitarists have some sort of unexplained adversion to instruments outside of rock. I played in a blues band briefly. Two guitars, vocals, bass, drums. When we got a set list going, I said "lets make this a real blues band and get a Hammond player and a tenor sax." I was met with skeptical looks. The band leader said "maybe to sit in but you don't want a band full of the annoying instruments." I spent 3 years in a prog rock band where the guitar player said he really wanted to explore chromatic and non-diatonic tonalities. I suggested that he listen to Coltrane. He told me that saxophone reminds him of Clarence Clemmons from the E Street Band, and therefore is cheezey.

"Free your mind or something" - Butthead
 
#99
  • Guitarists who spend €120 on a tuner pedal. Then tune up once at the start of the gig and refuse to actually use it in his effects chain because it will affect his tone.
  • Guitarists who go missing for ten minutes when the rest of the band is up on stage waiting to start wondering where he is
  • People who talk to you in the middle of songs where you end up screwing up both the conversation and the bass line because you cant concentrate on both.
  • Club owners who leave you outside in the cold for two hours because they wont pay until the disco you played before is over.
  • Club owners who decide to half the agreed price after the gear is almost setup so you have to take everything back down before you tell them to F!"ck off...no dough no show.
  • Having a group of people sit infront of you all night shouting up abuse but for some reason stay until the end of the gig. (you dont like it you know where to door is)
  • The price of all musical gear.
  • Breaking a string live
  • Having more drummers than spinal tap
  • Giving your all to a song and being met by complete silence from the crowd not because it was terrible or too wierd, jsut because. They just stand there and look its really wierd.
  • People who keep insisting you play songs that you havent got a clue how to play no matter how much you tell them you don't know it.
  • People who are plastered talking rubbish to you all night after the gig.
  • Being in a band that you probably wouldn't go and see ( if it were physically possible to do that) That said I still love being in the band. A bit of an oxymoron that one
  • How the majority of your audience don't know what makes a song good or bad or what makes a band good or bad or how to appreciate music in general.
  • Adam clayton
  • Bono
  • U2 in general (lets not make this a pro/con U2 debate I just dont like them)
  • The Edge and his delay pedals
  • The fact that he's called "The Edge"
  • Setting up a all your gear turning your amp on and then hearing absoloutley nothing coming out of it then
  • Spending ages trying to locate the fault from above.
  • Being underpowered
  • Not having gigs when you have €6000 left to pay on a new PA
  • Not having gigs
  • Having an audience member stroll in behind the band pull the master faders down because your too loud as opposed to simply asking us to turn down.
  • Pretentiousness
  • Not having the self-discipline to practice more
  • Audiophile cables
  • Bullet Points that wont do what they're told
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back