Saw them in 92 in a venue pub in Manchester, keyboard player was something else. Got a lot of their stuff in my iTunes..
Gutsy is wrong, though. The predominant style of band on our circuit is a function type band, covering all the usual boring ****e that you've heard before . Firstly, there is absolutely no need to improvise any of that stuff. Secondly , you can tell from the standard of playing that the guitarists are simply not up to it. I'm talking purely about guitarists , here. Not bass players or drummers.
I've posted plenty of stuff for you to listen to. You won't listen to it because you are too much of a twat to admit I've got the talent. That's your failing, not mine.
I’ve listened to some of it. Just sounds like a pub band doing covers of the tracks that lots of pub bands of a certain age cover.
Well I can't speak for the types of bands on your circuit. Maybe if you're playing standard covers then there isn't much room for improv. But the music we play is a template for innovation and improvisation. We play some covers, but with our own twist. I'm not really interested in watching a band try and replicate a song note for note, that's boring. A lot of our stuff though is original, based around a strong backline funk/soul groove and then we are able to give space for the sax/key/vox to solo. As I've said before, playing music is as much about listening to your bandmates as it is playing your own thing. The guy who wants to grab the limelight and showoff is like the showboating footballer who tries to score a brilliant solo goal and misses, when he could have played a little triangle with his teammates and they could have all shared the glory. It's about knowing when less is more and knowing how to give each other room for expression.
This is why you come across as a twat. You assume incorrectly that you are the only semi pro musician who can do it, which is absolute bollocks.
Thenonious Monk sometimes used play one note in a bar, but he knew what all his other musicians were doing and how that one note, usually a blue note, would offset the whole thing and give it a lean or an edge that people weren't expecting.
How am I wrong? A band I will be seeing next week doesn't have a keyboard player, but still manages to play numbers that traditionally have strong keyboard parts and split the parts between themselves on the guitar. What I will say is from what I've seen (admittedly only on your website) you would be embarrassed to go on after them at a gig.
Yep it's called improvising, but only HIAG knows how to do it Most of the pub bands that I see, will have occasions when one of the musicians is missing and as you said the parts will be split between others or they have a stand in. Will always alter the dynamics slightly and call for some improvisation. As I said no two gigs are the same.
Love a bit of gutsy. Hes a man of few words but when hes using them he only brings out the nukes. Westie and hiag both destroyed quicker than a tramp on chips
HIAG talks out of his arse about lots of things on here. Improv is a big part for me in any live show. Whether I'm playing or watching a band I want to see the musicians doing something different, as I said, it's boring watching a band play a song note for note as it is on a record. And not even just filling in the parts for an instrument that is missing. We play songs that deliberately allow for space so that people can express themselves, and that includes the drummer, bass player too.
