I do have a gig, as it happens - on Saturday, at one of our many social clubs. Good payer, too. We'll be trying out a couple of new tracks.
It's a fair bit more than that! Sure, you're never going to make a living from gigging, but none of us do it for that reason. I started the band around 6 years ago. It's gone through three major incarnation in that time, but we've been gigging solidly for around 4 years.
I don't think so mate, that was just your poorly executed plagiarism. You are the rim specialist. They even made a film about you
We charge £1000 minimum for a gig (unless it's for mates, then we'll do mates rates) The money goes into a pot which we use to pay for our rehearsal space, equipment maintenance, transport to and from gigs and a bit of beer money. We don't take any 'wage' although we always pay our soundman for each gig. In my experience, a lot of people don't really know the true cost of hiring a band. They think it's just for the 2/3 hours that you're playing, but there are months worth of rehearsals, fuel, time, maintaining instruments, stings etc. Then there is the gig itself. Playing between 9pm and 12pm usually involves loading up the equipment around 2pm, getting to the venue, unpacking, setting up, sound checking, playing the gig, packing down, loading the vans, driving back to the studio, unloading, setting up the rehearsal space etc. Usually finishing up at around 3am. So that's a 13 hour day for a 3 hour gig.
Very true!. Many people don't realise that for the band this is work. If a band is well rehearsed, everybody knows the set, and it's order. Knows where to come in and where to butt out. It all requires much more discipline than it apoears to an audience, who just hear the end result of all that work. Yes, you can have some fun with improvisation on certain genres of music. In fact, I won't do a gig unless I get a chance to cut loose somewhere in the set. But the vast majority is just down to going over and over a number in rehearsals until you've got it just how you want it.
There's always room for improv in our sets. As you say it's part of what makes playing live, well, playing live. Otherwise your audience might as well be listening to a record. Our songs are Funk, Latin, Afro based, and whilst some have some tight arrangements with definite intro/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/verse/chorus/outro, others are more free form. We have two sax players, a keyboard player and a singer who is great at scatting. So quite often we'll (me bass, the drummer and the percussionist) will play the rhythm section, with the others alternating solos over the top, sometimes coming together to harmonise. We like to adopt what we call 'Go Maceo', a technique we learned watching Maceo Parker play live, which is just stripping everything back to the bare bones, quietening the volume right down, but keeping the tempo going in a really subtle way, it builds great anticipation for ramping it back up into a crescendo.
Humans are violent in general and can be affiliated to any faith or none. Skiddy is a cock who let's his mask slip now and again.
Thanks for bringing this thread back on track, friend. Mind you, it would be weird to discover that in humiliating Bambi, Pixie and I find a space where we can converse as equals. I think even Bambi wouldn't mind sacrificing something of his dignity for that. I don't know... perhaps it's the Christmas spirit, but I might even be prepared to call a truce for Christmas Day. A bit like the soldiers coming out of the trenches to play football.
