peteb

I used to work in housing policy and still am involved in the sector (domestic energy). I think that between the two of you, you have accurately summarised most of the issues affecting, what I would say is, a dysfunctional housing market in the UK.

I'm spending about £2.6k on running the car (this is an 'all in' figure for normal mileage - not counting additional diesel costs for long haul gigs, but including Green Flag cover) plus maybe about a grand or so on servicing / MOT / repairs.

I've just been to a friend's birthday last night and was talking to his and his mate's 20 something sons (one of whom is working on tours with household name acts as a lighting engineer). They both prefer the music that I grew up with - If anything, the younger one seems like music that was a little bit before my time...!

Unfortunately, this is true. Gone are the days when you could pop on the ferry to Holland or Belgium (or even Spain) at a moments notice to play a weekend / week of club and / or bar gigs and come back with a few grand in your pocket. The visa is the least of your problems. The carnet, taking merch across borders and other restrictions all add up and generally make it untenable.

No one is doubting (assuming that they have a clue about the world) that it is much more difficult for kids these days compared to when I was young.

I don't dispute what you say, yet I am running a 2l diesel estate for not much more than half your £5k figure. The main difference is the depreciation - I tend to buy highish mileage cars in good condition for around £5k, run them for ten years or so and then sell them for a grand. These days, it is perfectly possible to run an OK car reasonably cheaply.

I think that you're seeing the world through your own rather singular life experience again. One of the few positives about the past few decades for the average working person is that the cost of motoring is much more affordable than it used to be when I was young and you can buy a perfectly decent secondhand car for a few grand. I run a perfectly good car (an old hi-spec Volvo V50 estate) that gets me to gigs up and down the country for a lot less than £5k a year.

Seriously, I doubt that there will be a problem in the next year or two - if nothing else, Russia has pressing issues elsewhere. We can only hope that it will remain so in the long-term. I'm not normally interested in these type of events, but this looks pretty good for the money and in the town looks great. We have already booked a couple of trips this year, but we really liked Estonia and have thought about going back - I reckon I could even sell this to the missus...! Who knows, maybe next year...

I went to Tallin about ten years ago and it was very reasonable, both to get there and spending whilst out there. An interesting place. Also, the Russian border is only a 40 minute drive away from the venue for the event, which could be interesting in the current climate...!

Ain't that the truth...!

An underestimated, yet vitally important requirement for anyone playing in a band...!

For some reason, all too often the advice on here is to threaten to walk every time there is an issue. If the the other guy is a founder member and the OP is by his own admission 'not the greatest bassist the world', there is only going to be one winner and the band will be looking for a new bass player. A better idea would be after playing a song in rehearsal where he particularly struggles with the BVs, say to the singer or BL (NOT the guy you have an issue with) that you're not sure whether the harmonies in a particular section of the song are working and get them to go over and over the vocals that he is struggling with. At no time are you having a go at the founding member, you are just trying to work on the vocal arrangement. Once you have gone repeatedly over a section that he is not singing properly (preferably a cappella, i.e. just the vocals), then see if he is so keen on calling out every minor mistake that you make?

I had been playing Warwick basses for many years up until about 15 years ago, when I started getting more blues type gigs and decided that I wanted a 'super jazz' that would work better with that genre. Of course, what I wanted was a Sadowsky, but I couldn't afford one at the time. I bought and sold a few different basses until I got an Xotic active jazz. This rather cured me of the Sadowsky itch, because as great as I am sure they are, I couldn't see how much better they could be than an Xotic or a US Lakland, etc.

What pedaltrain is that?

There is quite a big jump up in technique required for those on the Grade 8 list compared with Grade 7.

Out of interest, do you know what songs make the list for Grade 8?

Keys player from Little Angels?

Indeed! I was umming and ahing about getting one before my next run of gigs in February and then I noticed that Bass Direct seemed to be selling out of the things. I wondered when they would be back in stock and how much they would cost, so I pulled the trigger. I rang up and apparently, I got the last one they had in at the time (Marcus said that there had been a bit of a run on them)! However, I noticed that they immediately re-stocked and have them back on sale at the same price...

Just bringing my bigger board back again to use my new Caveman BP1 Compact (as well as my not so new Xotic BB pedal)!

Sub Mars Cowling then! 😃

Why, did Rutger claim to have played on loads of hits with famous performances by other well known bass players?

I was joking, three of the more famous bass players I could think of who have a reputation of not being very good (rightly or wrongly)! I was actually trying to support your point that if you can only have thirty players on the list, then you can't include everyone's individual favourite.

What I want to know is why Gene Simmons, Adam Clayton and Sid Vicious are not on the list?

It seems pretty solid.