Drummer has joined a second band...

[LBS-bass]

Exactly!
And - little-mentioned point: A polished studio-quality EP doesn't really tell a venue owner you can play live.
There's a lot to that. Do you actually have gig-worthy equipment? Do you know how to set a stage and interact with an audience? Do people like your show ? This last one is a point of constant and considerable TB discussion: "Should" the music be enough? Or is "The Show" more important? The pragmatic answer is: The audience will decide. If you can produce a video showing happy people in a club, it will go a long way to convincing the booker to give you a shot.

Seriously. The main band I'm in doesn't even have a press kit. We have video, and we network, and we know a lot of other musicians and club owners in town. If anyone wants to see how we play, I can shoot them a few videos from a recent show that will show them that we do not, in fact, suck. It's not polished, studio stuff but it is polished stage stuff shot with a high-quality phone. That's really all you need these days. Here's one of our originals and this was shot this past Friday.



It's not a professional video but it shows exactly what the venue is going to get.

 

[1bassleft]

On your other point about struggling to remember bass lines, are they yours or does the songwriting guitarist present them to you? Much easier and more natural to remember your own. But I preferred to be the McCartney in the Lennon/McCartney (yes, really, we probably were that good) rather than "the bloke on the 4-string that stands behind the PA, under the 'Toilet' sign".

Record, rough as you like, everything you do (sorry to go "you young 'uns" again, but we used to take a cassette recorder and make copies) and play it back in your car. It showed up some areas where I could add an interesting run, must do that next rehearsal. Better still (you mention you have vocal abilities) I would develop and practise harmonies while driving. They became such second nature I could keep my concentration for the bass playing (how to sing and play bass at the same time was a problem for me).

Of course, I drove into a few hedges/garden walls/infants in pushchairs while enthusiastically wailing and modelling my finger patterns on the steering wheel but if you want to make an omelette...

 

[LBS-bass]

Record, rough as you like, everything you do (sorry to go "you young 'uns" again, but we used to take a cassette recorder and make copies) and play it back in your car. It showed up some areas where I could add an interesting run, must do that next rehearsal. Better still (you mention you have vocal abilities) I would develop and practise harmonies while driving. They became such second nature I could keep my concentration for the bass playing (how to sing and play bass at the same time was a problem for me).

I second the suggestion to record everything. When my band is writing songs, I record everything because the recording gives me something to play along with later so that I can remember what I did and make refinements to it. This is really just like anything else in music. You have to practice, even the stuff you write yourself

 

[Shalto]

Let me challenge that perspective just a little...
First, let's replace "work" with "business."
It's not the false dichotomy of "art vs work."
Also - Lots of people make a living playing their own music. A definite minority, to be sure, but it is simply not true that only cover bands pay.
To break out, you "simply" have to have a LOT of REALLY GOOD music.

To clear up a possible misconception - IMO there's nothing wrong with people gathering to make music just for fun. I do it sometimes myself (even as I realize I should be home practicing...) What I find troubling is when those people think they're a band and are waiting for their big break (but hey - they're entitled to their delusions).

So my issue with the original post was NOT that the band isn't gigging, it's that it appeared that the project was making no progress. Everyone in a band is entitled to get SOMETHING out of it. Maybe it's money. Maybe it's the satisfaction of a creative contribution. (And maybe, it's the momentary bliss of a perfectly played song - nothing wrong with that. But if it's always the same song, played the same way, most will find that bliss ephemeral...)

There's nothing wrong with a periodic self-examination. WHY am I doing this? Is what I'm doing getting me closer to or moving me farther from my goals and WHAT ARE THEY?

IMO - in a band, especially one in which the members profess passion - if you're not moving the ball toward the goal, and you have no plan to reach a place where you can make such progress - you may need to re-evaluate your purpose. If you realize you are making no progress, A) you need to address the roadblock and B) you need to realize that anything NOT on the critical path is irrelevant - and in this context - that means band members who do something else with their time.

Excellent post

 

[crguti]

it sounds to me that the bass is the weakest link.

Their main issue with me is that I forget bass lines. I openly said to them that I have a real hard time learning parts. I don't think I'm a natural musician (other than maybe singing) and it's really challenging for me.

I wasn’t wrong after all.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

I wasn’t wrong after all.

It's not me. That was their criticism of me. I don't think it's entirely true. I know our songs, but if you ask me to learn something on the spot I will forget it. The drummer was deflecting in my opinion.



I appreciate all the feedback here guys, thank you. I take on board what's been said about getting gigs, that the EP is not going to be the driver. We've got no gigs booked now, but if our drummer is out networking as a result of this new band and can get us into some other venues then brilliant. I think that's probably key, as you all seem to suggest.

Getting a video is a slightly different issue. In the UK our venues are all very small. You end up very close to the stage, and the music is always overly loud. I'm not sure that a camera would perform well on the audio front. Having said that, I'll certainly give it a go.

If anyone's interested, there's a poor video of us here from late 2018. We were pretty newly formed at that point, and for some reason the bass drum was making its way across the stage so I ended up glued to the floor to stop it slipping further. (I'll probably regret putting this up now)



I felt quite sorry for the audience in this one. The room is tiny and we were obscenely loud. We were preceded by acoustic acts only. Just remembered the parts I shaged up too.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

In a further update, the guitarist has finally sent over rough tracks for every song we haven't yet recorded, so now the drummer and I will finally have something to practice to, which means I won't be letting the side down with my potentially poor bass playing and hopefully, nor will the drummer.

 

[1bassleft]

I understand your problem, although I had some strange expectation that London might be a bit better than the areas I played (I watched LBS-bass's video; a raised section for the drums! Madly jealous).

Seems like you had a supportive crowd on the night. Perhaps if your next gig also has your chum with the recording equipment ('phone or whatever it is) and choose a different vantage point. The objective this time is not a good, clean shot of the band on stage but more of the overall vibe. A few head and shoulders. The trouble with picking an angle, when your personal amps are what's projecting, is an imbalance to either guitar or bass, depending. But your helpful mate can move around a bit and try different things in the set because, as I mentioned, no owner will check out more than a song. Start with a good reaction to the previous song followed by a (short) parley/announcement of the next (attention-grabbing hook) song and (let's be optimistic that it's listened to throughout) a good reaction to that.

Ironically, I could only give it a coupla mins myself because Mrs was watching Pointless so aim for the best impact you can make and just have it ready to show when you're hustling. Good luck.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

I understand your problem, although I had some strange expectation that London might be a bit better than the areas I played (I watched LBS-bass's video; a raised section for the drums! Madly jealous).

Seems like you had a supportive crowd on the night. Perhaps if your next gig also has your chum with the recording equipment ('phone or whatever it is) and choose a different vantage point. The objective this time is not a good, clean shot of the band on stage but more of the overall vibe. A few head and shoulders. The trouble with picking an angle, when your personal amps are what's projecting, is an imbalance to either guitar or bass, depending. But your helpful mate can move around a bit and try different things in the set because, as I mentioned, no owner will check out more than a song. Start with a good reaction to the previous song followed by a (short) parley/announcement of the next (attention-grabbing hook) song and (let's be optimistic that it's listened to throughout) a good reaction to that.

Ironically, I could only give it a coupla mins myself because Mrs was watching Pointless so aim for the best impact you can make and just have it ready to show when you're hustling. Good luck.

I don't know man, London is saturated so it can be difficult!

We actually made a plan yesterday to do a much better video. There's a rehearsal space we go to nearby that has an extra large room that's also used for recording. They've got cameras in there too. We're thinking we could book a couple of hours in there so firstly get a live recording, and secondly try and get some friends and family down to be our crowd, and use that, get all sorts of camera angles etc.

As you say, the picture on that recording is alright but the sound is crap and there isn't a huge amount you can do about that given the size of venues!

Cheers for the advice. Hope Pointless was good.

 

[Krakmann]

The drummer is the only one making any sense in this instance. There’s no rule that says you can only play in one band at a time, especially if the one band is not progressing.

This one. Why on Earth should the drummer stick with an unreliable band leader and no gigs when the neighbour band offers 15 paid gigs to start with? Just because the drummer's very move might have scared said BL to record their vocals at last AFTER ONE YEAR?

Scratching my head. BTW, Dirtychinchilla, I LOVE your name.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

This one. Why on Earth should the drummer stick with an unreliable band leader and no gigs when the neighbour band offers 15 paid gigs to start with? Just because the drummer's very move might have scared said BL to record their vocals at last AFTER ONE YEAR?

I guess the guitarist is insecure about how he's performing.

Scratching my head. BTW, Dirtychinchilla, I LOVE your name.

Cheers! I think I'm the only one

 

[Mike Whitfield]

If I'm reading this right, you're not recording, you're not gigging, and you aren't making any progress toward either.
Exactly what is it drummer's other project is keeping you from?

Self delusion?

 

[LBS-bass]

(I watched LBS-bass's video; a raised section for the drums! Madly jealous).

I wish all the rooms we play had a stage that size with a riser! Most of the time we're squeezed into a corner somewhere, although the room we play the most has a fairly decent stage area, but no drum riser.

If anyone noticed, the videos we shot that night were not done with a tripod, but my husband used a hand-held phone and walked around the stage area to get us from various angles. He's pretty good at that. You can surely get a friend or family member to do this for you.

The newer phones are pretty good; if I had the time and inclination, I'd strip out the audio, EQ the boom out of it, and put it back together with better sound. That can be done, but for the kind of work we get around here it's not worth the effort; these videos do just fine for our purposes, and most of the time they are viewed on devices that will never reproduce that boominess anyway, probably most of you who watched it never noticed it unless you played it through big speakers or in your car.

The OPs video is not bad. It's too long, though. What you need to do is bring it into iMovie or some other video editing program and just slice it up. Put your best song up on YouTube and use that to show the people at the venue what you can do. It's something to start with.

I was telling someone else here a few days ago that when I first started playing out in this town a few years ago, I didn't know anyone. I put an ad up, got a response asking for something, and all I had was a grainy, ten-second video, which I sent to the guy. He offered me a gig, and it's all just been moving forward ever since. Every show you do is an opportunity to get new promotional material. I'll get still images from those videos we made the other day that will showcase every member of our band, so that I can put those up online. You just have to take advantage of everything you do to move yourself forward, otherwise you will continue to stand still.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

I wish all the rooms we play had a stage that size with a riser! Most of the time we're squeezed into a corner somewhere, although the room we play the most has a fairly decent stage area, but no drum riser.

If anyone noticed, the videos we shot that night were not done with a tripod, but my husband used a hand-held phone and walked around the stage area to get us from various angles. He's pretty good at that. You can surely get a friend or family member to do this for you.

The newer phones are pretty good; if I had the time and inclination, I'd strip out the audio, EQ the boom out of it, and put it back together with better sound. That can be done, but for the kind of work we get around here it's not worth the effort; these videos do just fine for our purposes, and most of the time they are viewed on devices that will never reproduce that boominess anyway, probably most of you who watched it never noticed it unless you played it through big speakers or in your car.

The OPs video is not bad. It's too long, though. What you need to do is bring it into iMovie or some other video editing program and just slice it up. Put your best song up on YouTube and use that to show the people at the venue what you can do. It's something to start with.

I was telling someone else here a few days ago that when I first started playing out in this town a few years ago, I didn't know anyone. I put an ad up, got a response asking for something, and all I had was a grainy, ten-second video, which I sent to the guy. He offered me a gig, and it's all just been moving forward ever since. Every show you do is an opportunity to get new promotional material. I'll get still images from those videos we made the other day that will showcase every member of our band, so that I can put those up online. You just have to take advantage of everything you do to move yourself forward, otherwise you will continue to stand still.

Wow, well done!! Thanks very much for the advice. I'm not convinced that video is good enough to get us a gig but there's no harm in trying!

 

[1bassleft]

I nearly tagged LBS-bass's most recent response* to add a "^this" to, but I see you already take the point, dirtychinchilla. The first thing I took from her video was not whether her band was my bag (this - rightly - doesn't concern a venue owner) but that they actually - definitely - don't suck, to use her vocab. The first thing I took from your video, chinch, is the sound of people appreciating whatever it was you did before the record button was pressed. These are both very welcome, as far as venue runners are concerned. I'm not sure you really need a more-pro-looking vid in a rehearsal space with friends/family going "whoop". I'd smell that a mile off (if I were a barman) and would prefer a slightly scuzzy recording of a real performance over that. As LBS said, there may be better mileage in a best edit of the one you have.

I'm really sorry I didn't watch more than a coupla mins (but Mrs did get a Pointless answer) because I had no headphones, but I'll remedy that tonight. Sounded good enough to perk my interest.

*most recent response until 6 mins ago, she types faster than I do

 

[LBS-bass]

*most recent response until 6 mins ago, she types faster than I do

Those typing classes I took in school actually came in handy

 

[LBS-bass]

Wow, well done!! Thanks very much for the advice. I'm not convinced that video is good enough to get us a gig but there's no harm in trying!

I agree with what @1bassleft said. You have a good show with good audience response there, and that's important. As I said, your best bet is to decide which song you think is best and just edit it down to that. Then send that out to as many places as you want, let them know you get a good response, leave in the applause, and hopefully that will help you get the next gig.

 

[1bassleft]

Those typing classes I took in school actually came in handy

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing was too expensive for me (my venues didn't shell out on a drum riser, remember?)
My son types faster than cockroaches get under the fridge when the light comes on; he just grew up with a keyboard like I grew up with shoelaces.

 

[lokikallas]

Unless he’s on a retainer (lol) I would go see his new bands gigs in support and bite my tongue.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

@LBS-bass and @1bassleft I've just put the following video online. Think this is a good one to send to promoters?