Panto season lures away Bass players

Just what is it about bass players and pantomimes? Like proverbial moths, fluttering over to a naked candle they are all drawn by the lure of regular Christmas work. 'tis the season, and all that we suppose. This is all very nice for the bassist, oh yes, nice sit down in the pit, plundering bass lines soundtracking cries of 'He's behind you' and 'oh no he isn't', not to mention all that mularkey with the turns. Spare a thought for your regular gigging band though. We don't stop during Christmas, oh no. Whilst winter weddings are more of a rarity than their summer counterparts, there are still plenty of Christmas parties to be danced at.

So onto our problem, regular bass player Chris, who is the MD and guitarist at the Marlowe, he's off the list. Next dep, Andee Price - well, she's playing bass at the Marlowe too. Steve 'Bass Ace' Hall, he's up in Liverpool, Nathan - nope, doing panto in Hull this year. Gah, boo to them we say. Where's your commitment, eh? Fortunately we have more bass players up our sleeves than you can poke a big pointy stick at. Enter our hero of the day, cute and cuddly Cambridge maestro, Ben Ashby.

This weekend has been a monster with two corporate functions and a wedding. Ben, who also depped with us in November at the Merchant Taylors Supper Dance in Northwood is to quote dear old Ashford & Simpson 'Solid as a Rock'. No messing, straight down to business, did the homework, knew the forms and was a pleasure to have on board. Solid. Sorted. So on behalf of the band we would like to give Ben our Love Junkies 'thumbs up'. Not only that, but he helped with packing up all the equipment and didn't naff off at the earliest available opportunity (those speakers are damn heavy you know).

What have we been up to this last few days, what's caught our eye? Friday's gig at RAF Odiham was a smashing Christmas Party. Of particular interest was the fact that a Triumph Bike around £6k was first prize in the raffle - we didn't ask how much the tickets were but Dave was sorely tempted.

Saturday's wedding of Tammy and Seb was at The Grove in Watford. Lovely hotel, very smart and a tad on the flush side if you know what I mean. Apart from a strange spot of the wedding party storming the stage, taking our instruments and doing that mock rock star stuff (see other blog - ere my mate can play, let 'im have a go'. Nice to see the Bride go straight for the Bass guitar though - interesting, and I for one wasn't going to er, convince her to put it down. High point was getting the groom onto the stage to do a Bongo solo in 'Play that Funky Music'. We don't normally go in for this ritualistic humiliation stuff but he was most insistent - and in the end, he wasn't a bad player - although meanly we did extend the song to about 8mins. LOL.

Finally, yesterday's gig was at Le Meridian, Picadilly through our agents Prelude. The event was great and the co-ordinators really looked after us. However, minus points go to the staff who weren't greatly helpful. A warning to fellow bands, this place has a very long get in involving 2 lifts, numerous stair cases and 3 different (all long routes). You can't go through the front by the way, you have to access from the back, so allow at least an extra hour set-up time. I spent a while yesterday trying to find out if there were any special loading instuctions of which the reply was no, come round the back. Pah!

On behalf of the band we wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

Is it right to charge to learn a new song?

Here's one that I'm going to put out to the function band community. Is it right to charge for learning a new song for, say a wedding? A song that you're very unlikely to play again and is not in keeping with the rest of your set.

This issue is salient for the hirer also.

The reason I pose this question is simple. I am a little annoyed as I think we've just lost a gig because of this very issue. I will not name names here, but the gig was through our regular agents Function Junction. Now, let me make it clear that we are absolutely not knocking our agents here, We like FJ very much as they have provided us with a good lot of gigs through the years.

We had been booked for a function in April when Paul at FJ asked me if I wouldn't mind talking direct to the client over a few details. This was absolutely fine. I spoke direct to the hirer and it turned out that she wanted us to play a medley of sixties songs (mainly for her parents). This was all fine as we have about a good few sixties songs we can play, at least half an hour - early Rolling Stones, early Beatles, Smokey Robinson, Dusty Springfield, Kinks etc. The phone call was going well until the curve ball came. Can you do a Blondie song for our second dance?

Well, I replied. "We don't actually do any Blondie in our set, but we are prepared to learn this song for you as a one-off request. We do charge £150 for this service though as it is likely that we will never use this song again in our set". The phone went dead for a while, then the hirer came back on a little shocked I think. I added further, "...we are also happy to play any songs you want over the DJ service for free, that would give you a second option". Fine I thought, all bases covered, she left the phone call saying she would let me know but was pleased that we could do most of her sixties requests.

A few days later, we learn (through the agent) that the hirer no longer requires our services for her wedding.

Now, as a matter of course function bands get involved in this sort of thing - it goes with the territory. Some bands are happy to learn and play songs for free, i.e. to learn parts, discuss instrumentation, meet-up, rehearse and then play. Some particular function bands are even happy to just 'busk it'. Others, religiously stick to their set list and refuse to take requests.

The Love Junkies don't really fall into any of these camps and have always looked at this issue from the point of view, that we are prepared to take requests, but if the songs are not in our set and are never likely to be used in our set again, then we will charge a fee to learn them. Are we mercenaries? Are we despoiling the hard fought reputation of our trade?

No, we don't think so.

In fact, we think it's fair that we should get some recompense for learning a new song. We don't like to appear all grumpy though, so let us explain why.

If you look at what goes into learning a new song, a fee to learn of £150 is actually not bad value. If you realise it takes each member a minimum of 2 hours to learn their part, get the form down, practice at home, write the dots, program the patches, etc; and then you factor in travelling to rehearsal, spending an hour or so going over the song; then extras like the petrol to get to the rehearsal, wear and tear and the hiring of the rehearsal studio. We reckon for five musicians you are looking at a minimum of 3-4 hours playing time each (20 hrs), plus venue hire and travelling time (5 hrs). You total this up and £150 is not now so much. In fact after reharsal space hire (around £50) we are lucky to get the minimum wage for our song learning efforts.

So, are we just a bunch of curmudgeons who are out to ruin everyone's fun? We'd like to hear what you think. If you are hiring a band for your event, do you expect them to play any request you throw at them? If you are in a function band, we'd love to hear what your policy is (and decorum please - don't use this as a forum to drum up business for yourselves ;-)

The love and pain that goes into a new website

The first website we produced for The Love Junkies was back in 2002. It was a small affair which fitted nicely into a 640x480 pixel screen. It was red, had a nice logo and got to the point.

The point of course, that we are a great band who should be hired by you - the function band demanding public ;-). The old site had a gig list, a contact form and some audio samples, job done. People would occassionally comment on how easy it was to use and how it spoke volumes about the band. More to the point, we certainly got lots of gigs and enquiries from it.

Fast forward though, to 2009 and the need for the band to produce a new site has been stronger than ever. With the new social networking revolution sweeping the internet, viewers are used to swankier websites and slick user interfaces. They won't stand for second best, they want the moon-on-a-stick and they want it now.

Of course for bands like us, well, you have to have a Facebook fan page, a Twitter feed and a Blog at the bare minimum. You've also got no excuses to not showcase your stuff for people to listen, watch and find out about. Given all that we simply had to update the site. So with a tear in our eye we say goodbye to the 'old red' site and welcome it's more colourful and dynamic replacement.

Our new website is here. It's been nearly a year in the making. Let us know what you think.

TV Presenters, Somali Pirates and The Love Junkies

Rox meets Andy Day from CBeebies. Hero worship ensues...

Last night's gig at Fanhams Hall in Ware was the wedding of Laura and Warren. The gig came through our singing buddy Doug Quinn. Doug is also in Speakeasy and joined us in the second set for a few tunes - we like when Doug sings with us. He has a set of lungs, but I shouldn't really swell his head too much so I'll leave it at that.

We were pleased to see that one of the bridesmaids was Beth from Channel Five's Milkshake. Dave spotted her first, having kids who are at the age where Milkshake is the coolest kid's programme around (mind you any channel that screens Peppa Pig is alright with us). That set us thinking about other weddings where we'd played to celebrities. Just a few we could remember were Derek Underwood, David Coulthard, Mark Durden-Smith, Pam St Clements and some girl from QVC. Other gigs we could remember where we've been the backing band to Shaun Williamson and Peter Hepplethwaite.

However, by far and away the most impressive (well in Rox's books anyway) was a wedding where Andy Day, the CBeebies presenter was in the crowd. She just had to get her photo taken (above).

The weirdest thing on the night though came when we found out a friend's wife's Aunty and Uncle had just been kidnapped by Somali pirates. During the gig we found out that the ransom demand had been set at a cool $7 million. Celebrity or not, you can't make that stuff up.

Nice little touches

It's the little touches that make all the difference. Last Friday's gig saw us back at Tewin Bury farm for the wedding of Elizabeth and Paul.

Generally when we come across something we like at a wedding, something that's a bit out of the ordinary we like to carp on about it. This wedding had two unusual side shows.

The first - and this was something I liked particularly - was provided by the Powder Puff girls. On hand to service the needs of the female contingent of the wedding (well, mainly), freshening faces and touching up make-up to help guests back to feeling 100%. A really nice touch and something none of us had seen before. The boys liked the girls too, I shall say no more ;-)

The second gimmick that caught our eye that night was the Booth Box. What that, who he, how so? Imagine if you will a photo booth, transported out of its usual seedy location and plonked into the middle of a function roon. Imagine this booth being completely free with the instruction to be used at the guests discretion.

Ah, nothing beats the old school fun of making silly faces with mates in a photo booth. And all without having to find £3 in loose change. Absolute genius.

Waxing lyrical

Ah, Madame Tussauds. It's been absolutely ages since I've been there and was wondering if the old place had changed at all? The answer to that as I found out was well, yes and no. The celebrities are still in force, only they're not the same as in 1979. Well, apart from the historical figures but maybe cleaned up a little bit.

On Tuesday 27th Sept, The Love Junkies had the interesting fortune to play Tussauds. A gig through agents, Prelude. The event was a typical corporate function but in a much stranger setting. Surrounded by dignitaries from the G8, not to mention Churchill and Freddie Mercury the band set up on the main stage.

Dave was flanked by Amy Winehouse and behind by Marc Bolan, pulling a typical guitar hero pose on both knees. Rox on the other hand was getting close to Beyonce. All this in a room filled with pop icons, Michael Jackson, Kylie Minogue and a recycled Tom Cruisealike in the form of Gary Barlow - curious.

The weirdest thing was packing up. I remember helping to get the gear out and just having the strangest realisation that the room was entirely silent, yet eerily still populated. I for one, couldn't wait to get out of there at that point. Nice though the gig was and the staff were! Cheers to Gemma and Marcus who were on call.

Shame old JK had been demoted to our changing room. Still nice to see the old fella again. We owe a lot to him.

Hats off to the band

Sometimes, articles just speak for themselves.


If the wedding's over-running by an hour, the band happen to be twiddling their thumbs and are holed up in a changing room, they might just get creative...or likely, just start fooling about a little.

*The Love Junkies would like to make it clear that no hats were harmed in the making of this blog post.