peteb

My go-to in these types of threads is always the Pat Travers live album 'Go for What You Know'. The bass playing of Mars Cowling is nothing short of astounding - I'm still trying to nail some of his parts 46 years later! The rest of band aren't too shabby either, elevating what otherwise might be seen as pretty standard groove based blues rock! The 1972 Donny Hathaway Live album, featuring Willie Weeks on bass, is pretty good as well...

Even in the 00s, decent cover bands were packing out pubs. These days, if you get anywhere near half full, the landlord will talk about it being 'full' and the best night they've had for months! I was talking more about the 80s / 90s original bands, when if you put on any reasonably credible rock show you would expect a couple of hundred paying customers (more in many places). Unfortunately, those days are long gone, due to a mixture of changing fashions, more alternative forms of entertainment and (above all) people having less disposable income to spend on going to see bands. You still can get decent attendances in some places (especially in more affluent areas), but it needs to be more of an event and tends to favour certain genres or tribute bands of one kind or another.

It wasn't thirty years or so ago!

That's a frightening thought and almost certainly true. We are now living in a post capitalist world and the new world is a scary place.

You seem to completely miss the point! Yes, we all know how the housing ladder works, but what about those who for some reason haven't built up equity over the last 20 years? This is generally younger people trying to get on the property ladder, but can also affect other people, for example like me who earn decent money but had a chaotic personal circumstances in their 30s. The fact is that if you haven't been able to build up equity, can't get help from the Bank of Mum and Dad, don't have significant inheritances to come or are not otherwise independently wealthy then just putting a decent roof over your head is very difficult (if not impossible) and can leave you in very insecure circumstances. No wonder mental health issues are so common these days. No one is labelling house owners as wealthy and looking to tax them, quite the opposite. We need to help people afford a decent home against the backdrop of stagnant wages and a delinquent housing market. It is ridiculous that a person living on their own on the most common salary is condemned to living in poverty and that a couple living on twice that amount would have a very insecure lifestyle and struggle to bring up children. I agree with you about minimum wages and encouraging businesses to invest and employ more people, and yes, there are plenty of empty nesters who are worth a lot of money due to the value of their property, but may (or may not) be cash poor. The issue remains that wealth is flowing to the very rich, stagnant wages, the middle class is getting poorer and poverty is going up. It's not surprising that fewer people are going out to gigs, especially in the less affluent parts of the country!

There is certainly a lot of money still in this country, but the problem is that it is increasingly flowing from the middle class to the extremely rich. They are then using it to buy more and more assets, thereby pricing them out of the reach of ordinary people. Obviously, this is particularly important with housing. Add to this, an increasing problem with poverty. Twenty years ago, food banks were virtually unheard of by most people - now they seem to be ubiquitous, with certain sections of society reliant on them. What you say about house prices is evidently true. They make a lot of people feel rich, but you don't make money on the house you live in. At best, you just provide additional funds for the end-of-life care home you will probably end up in!

I live in Bradford, which I believe is one of the cheapest cities in the country to buy a house. Even so, we couldn't afford to live in the suburb where my wife has lived most of her life and where I went to school. Bear in mind that this is a pretty middling town, certainly not the poshest part of the district, and that we have a combined household income of around three times the average.

That's hardly the 'bigger picture', that's just your own personal small picture that you think is more important than that of other people.

At this point, the bands that I am in only ever rehearse if there is a point, i.e. if we need to learn new material, or if we've got gigs coming up and we haven't played together for a while. No regular rehearsals or anything like that. If somebody wants to get together for a jam session, then I'm happy to do that (depending on who it is) as long as it is understood that is what we will be doing.

This was very common with Fenders, especially from the 70s that were not thought to 'vintage' until relatively recently! I've got my 78 P bass on a stand next to me right now. These days it has a Badass bridge, a different p/up, new pots and (I think) a new nut. It's also had a re-fret and the back of the neck now has a satin finish. The only original things left are the wood, the scratchplate, the knobs and the tuners, which still work great. It looks, sounds and feels like a 70s Fender, just it's had a few tweaks over the years to ensure that it plays and sounds how it should!

Triggers? How very 90s! It's a long time since I've seen anyone use a set of triggers on an acoustic drum kit, although I'm sure that it must still happen on some bigger productions. Yes you can get good result with mics on bass and snare and a couple of overheads (especially in smaller venues), but the norm these days is still very much individual mics on each drum.

To be fair, I think that the music scene in most areas tends to be 'cliquey'. Musicians tend to get hired based on their reputation / who they know and people will recommend or hire bass players that they trust to not let them down and who they have a good relationship with. The trick is to build up your reputation and network to the point where you become part of the 'clique' that gets offered the best gigs! The second part of the trick is maintain your reputation so that you stay part of the clique and your place isn't taken by someone else!

Remember, these days there are lots of lightweight options for amplification for bass players. Personally, I'm not convinced that some of these options are as good as the gear we used a few years ago, but if it allows you to carry on gigging as you get a bit older then that's great.

I think that as you get older, you have to be careful that you don't talk yourself out of the game. I'm currently playing with three guys who are in their seventies (in two bands) and they all have different attitudes. There is the keys player in the tribute band (70), who has been a pro all of his life, who thinks of himself as semi-retired but still carting his full touring rig around and still quite busy/ making money. The keys player (75) in the blues band will take any gig in a variety of genres, but just carries round one keyboard and a laptop. The issue really is with the singer in the blues band (71) who has started to lose confidence in himself. He hasn't got the voice that he used to have, and the days of him belting out Child In Time are long gone (he used to be in a really good Deep Purple tribute), but he can still handle Freddie King numbers with the best of them. But he is starting to get overly nervous about gigs. For the sort of band you are doing, I wouldn't think that age is a big thing, as long as you still keep the same belief in your abilities as a player, even if you have to start thinking about things like the gear you use, etc where before you wouldn't need to.

Unfortunately, loyalty is generally not rewarded in music / bands, just as it isn't in the wider employment world. When I look back to my twenties, I think that I was way too loyal in certain situations, just as some of the guys I played with were. A couple of them could have gone onto bigger and better things if they had made the move. When you look at (for example) Ozzy's guitar players / band members, how many of them were in other bands when they got the call for the big gig? The answer is all of them. I think that usually, bands are accepting of guys moving onto a higher profile gig. What annoys them are when people are unreliable, or if they leave a project for no good reason or for something that they should have been aware of when they joined the band!