peteb

I'm pretty sure that Bobby is still with us!

I'm not so sure about that. It is kinda like 'Need Your Love So Bad' (for example), but not quite. You would need to finesse it a bit from the way the OP describes to get it to work (of course, that might be what he means, but didn't quite express it correctly / how I understood it).

I think it depends on exactly what you mean. I've just tried to play through what your suggesting and I'm not entirely convinced. I'm sure that if you are playing as a three piece with the guitarist playing a solo, then you could probably make it work. If you have a keys player or another guitar player, then you would most likely need to tip them the wink on what you are intending to do, to ensure that they can follow.

The reason I signed up to Basschat in the first place, was to enquire over the value of a cab that I did eventually buy! Initially, that was the whole point of BC for me, as it is to many members to this day!

Prices from £265 from London...

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.