cheddatom

Melkweg was incredible, the crowd were crazy. They don't know us at all but they were moshing and shouting along from the off. The best sound we've ever had too.

Ancienne Belique in Brussels last night was amazing, the biggest stage I've ever seen! Lunch in the canteen before load in was great. They had guys to help with the load in, and everything was put onto a section at the front of the dance floor that rises up to stage level. Sound check was faultless and then we got to chill for a few hours and enjoy some of the local beers. Dinner was awesome too! The set flew by. We seemed to win over the crowd, all except for the very front row who were all clearly camped out waiting for Steve Ignorant to come on. Their grumpy faces amused me anyway Ace set, loads of compliments, and loads of beers afterwards! We're on the way to Amsterdam to play Melkweg tonight

Dusseldorf last night. 5 minutes before we went on there were 2 people in the room. When we walked on it was more like 200! Quite the shock! Smashed it again, went down well, loads of compliments and we sold loads of vinyl

Hamburg was awesome. It was sold out, but they're there to see Crass. We went down really well, people were singing along from 3 songs in so we must be doing something right! 4 hours sleep last night so I was hoping to get some sleep in the van. Unfortunately our bassist has some godawful dad rock playlist blasting out the stereo. We just had Come On Eileen 🙃

You'll be glad to hear he smashed the set last night and I got to hear some top end from the bass for once!

Hah, he likes dull strings! He is actually amazing on bass, he's been playing 40 years, just a disgraceful oversight!

He's got some. Now he's staring at the pack looking a bit confused and complaining that they sound too bright 🤣

Hafenklang, can't wait!

Yeh I think they're calling it Steve Ignorant's Crass, his band are from his Steve Ignorant's Slice of Life band, plus Jay on drums.

SO36 in Berlin last night supporting Crass. The first night of our tour and it was crazy! I didn't expect so many people, or for us to go down so well with a crowd who don't know us. They were there to see Crass who are a lot more Punk than us but they loved it! Our bassist broke a string in the last song. Great timing as he's come on tour without a spare bass or any strings! What a pillock Hopefully tonight in Hamburg will be as good!

I've been giving him plenty of abuse about it. He reckons he's never broken a string before but that's no excuse is it? Anyway, we're on the way to a shop in hamburg now

Thanks very much!

I'm on tour in Europe and our bassist has broken a string. He has no idea what strings he has. Can someone tell me what strings a 2017 American Pro Fender P is shipped with? If we can get the right gauge it should save us a full setup

Pointing out the fact that property was easier to buy is not a slight at all! No-one is saying boomers don't deserve what they worked hard for. My parents also worked hard for 50 years, however, they don't take the fact that property was easier for them to buy as a personal insult. It's just a fact of life. If a woman points out to me that my gender has made it easier for me to earn more money than them, I'm not going to take that as a slight, because I'm aware that it's a fact.

I don't see any blame being apportioned. It seems to be imagined. Similar to those who don't acknowledge their own privilege, the mere mention of them having it slightly easier than other people is taken as a personal slight, as though they are personally to blame for other people's difficulties, which is not the case at all.

I was interested to see if I'd been hoodwinked by the media into thinking property prices had risen much faster than salaries. The current figures are easy to find from the ONS: Average weekly earnings were estimated at £601 for total pay, and £565 for regular pay, in May 2022 Older figures are harder to come by.. At October, 1970, the provisional figures of average weekly earnings of full-time manual workers were £28 Os. 11d. for men aged 21 years and over, and £13 19s. 10d. for women aged 18 years and over. I found an "old to new money" converter online. I've no idea if this is correct, hopefully some members can tell me? It's saying £28.05 for men, £13.49 for women. I don't really have time to find out how many women worked etc. to find the true average but to be generous let's say £28 So pay has gone from £28 to £601 from 1970 to 2022 or a 21.5 fold increase Trying to find house prices... At the start of the 1970s the average house price was £4,057 ... And now in June 2022, house prices have reached a record high of £271,613 So a 67 fold increase, or more than triple the increase in pay. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1971/jan/28/average-weekly-wage https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/averageweeklyearningsingreatbritain/july2022#:~:text=Average weekly earnings were estimated,(COVID-19) pandemic. https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/uk-house-prices-are-65-times-higher-today-than-in-1970/138813/ Like I said, I really don't begrudge anyone's success in the property market. These are the facts and it's not a personal insult to anyone.

Obviously individual circumstances differ, but the facts as EBS_freak alludes to are there for us all to see. It may have been "less easy" for you, but it was easier for boomers on average. I don't think anyone begrudges the boomers' success in the housing market. I certainly don't! My parents did very nicely.

Saying that property was easier to buy for boomers is not the same as blaming them for the current financial woes

I've never done a proper tour before. There'll be a lot of travelling time between venues so no doubt I'll be on Basschat a lot!

The Rigger in Newcastle-under-Lyme on Saturday. We'd capped it at 200 and it sold out. The sound check took a full hour due to never ending broken cables and channels. I think the venue need to spend some money on the gear! Then when it was time for us to go on, the two DIs had been moved so the guitarist didn't know which guitar to plug into which DI. It's always frustrating sitting there behind the kit, raring to go, and having to wait for other people to get their sh*t together! The supports were both ace and well received, but the crowd went crazy for the whole of our 1.5 hr set. Middle aged moshing never looked so dangerous and there were a couple of moments I wondered whether I should stop playing, but apparently no-one was injured The band's called Headsticks and we're going around Europe with Crass starting this week

We'd left by then, long drive home, glad you had a good one!

I've been a bit lax with this thread lately but Friday's gig was ace. The Great British Alternative Festival at Butlins in Skegness. I've never even been to a Butlins let alone a festival at one so the whole thing was pretty bizarre to me. We were first on at 4pm on the 2nd stage, and after a 3.5hr journey there and feeling pretty ill, I didn't have high hopes. The venue was not what I was expecting at all, like some sort of giant shopping centre food court or something, but the stage was plenty big enough. The sound was ace and we went down well. There must have been 1000 people there

Good advice there from Dr J. I like to set up my bass drum, attach the pedal, sit on my stool with my right foot on the pedal, then put the snare directly infront of me, and the hi-hat under my left foot. The rest just fits around that. I tend to end up with the bass drum angled slightly to the right, so I have to bare that in mind when setting up live. If I don't rotate the bass drum I end up looking to the left of the stage, instead of directly ahead at the audience.

We played Whitwell Festival on Friday. I wasn't expecting much but a massive crowd turned up from somewhere! Awesome gig! Our bassist even got on someone's shoulders in the audience for half a song. I've never seen him do anything like that before so that was very cool

very cool