peteb

4 hours ago, tegs07 said:

A combination of the attempt to regulate private landlords combined with the spike in costs of debt repayment is reducing the rental stock significantly and pushing up rents at an alarming pace. 

 

Once inflation is brought back under control the UK needs a good hard think about how treating homes as assets is crippling the young causing unprecedented inequality and stymying economic growth.

 

I doubt if anything will change though.

2 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

 

Agreed. The biggest problem (imho, of course) is that we don't have a healthy public/affordable housing sector any more, since many publicly owned properties were sold off. A healthy public/affordable housing stock acts as a counterbalance to the cost of private rented and owned housing, because people have a choice and aren't compelled to pay ridiculous prices to rent or buy privately. The crazy increases in the cost of private housing has coincided with the decimation of the publicly owned housing stock. If you suggest doing anything about it, people start frothing at the mouth about "socialism", etc.

 

I don't think anything can be done about treating homes as assets. Put simply, they are assets. That would be true even if they cost a fraction of what they do. Property prices are a simple consequence of demand massively out-stripping supply (in areas where people want or are able to live). People have no choice other than to pay the prices demanded if they want to live a realistic distance from where they work. The only ting that will change that is a massive increase in the supply of housing, but land is in short supply in populous areas, so where do you put the new homes?

 

Population growth isn't helping, too. Afraid I don't think anything will change, either.

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. 

5 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

 

Are you really motoring for £2.5k a year all in? As Tim points out, motoring is one of those drip-drip expenses that builds up to a tidy sum over the months without you realising it. £5k works out at only £100 per week. As an all-up cost, that's not a lot. If you're covering some miles in a 2 litre estate, how much are you spending on fuel? My car is 2.4 petrol and I live in the country, so I use it quite a bit. I'm spending at least £50 a week on fuel, often more.

 

Like you, I buy old cars for cash (so no loan repayments), do my own servicing and keep them on the road as long as I can, but even then it works out at around £100 a week all in by the time I've factored in insurance, VED, repairs I can't do myself, etc, which is the figure Tim stated.

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. 

31 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

My adult kids tell me that current pop music is excellent.

 

Seems it might be subjective.

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...! 

5 hours ago, gjones said:

My niece has her own Indie band. She's been in the UK charts but makes very little money from selling her music (Her music has streamed ten million times on Spotify in the last 10 years but the annual income that has produced is the equivalent of the average salary of a lollipop lady). She can't play in the EU any more due to the visa restrictions and legal hurdles Brexit created, therefore she's had to apply for Irish citizenship (her grandmother was Irish) so that she can play gigs in the EU in the future (her band will have to stay at home because they only have UK passports).

 

Making an income from original music is very difficult these days.

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. 

5 hours ago, TimR said:

Many EU countries have exemptions for artists. Check the Musicains Union. 

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. 

3 minutes ago, la bam said:

What I meant by starting off is starting off completely from scratch. Ie straight out of school with nothing. 

 

So, for one, car insurance or van insurance..... Costs thousands for a youngster nowadays, and I mean literally thousands. 

 

A van or car, (I was thinking the old style 'band van') are ridiculously expensive since covid. Have a look around at van prices. 

 

Mortgage, forget it. They need thousands in savings to even apply for a mortgage. 

 

Rent? Hundreds a month, most cost more than a mortgage. 

 

Council tax rising all the time. Food and drink spiraling. 

 

So, starting with nothing, you (in my opinion) you really can't give being in a band a go with all your effort, or even Potter around the country staying in digs whilst gigging. You can't even doss around in b and bs etc on any kind of 'band' income. What's a hotel now? £80 a night minimum? 

 

Therefore so many who may have been able to give it a go, don't. Which is a shame. 

 

 

 

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. 

6 minutes ago, TimR said:

 

 

I had a car for 2 months recently. My insurance alone was over £50 a month. The VED - £15 a month. MoTs are close on £50 a year now.

 

An oil and filter change, even if you do it yourself is going to be close on £200 a year. 

 

Then you are losing money on depreciation that you need to put away into savings ready to buy your next car. 

 

I really don't think people realise how much they're spending on their cars. It's one of those slow drip things.

 

HMRCC allow 45p a mile for a reason. 

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. 

5 hours ago, TimR said:

 

I'm not sure this is true. It's very difficult to keep a vehicle running for less than £400 a month. However you slice that pie, £5k a year seems to be about the rate money disappears on any vehicle I've ever owned. Insurance, tax, MOT, servicing, repairs, depreciation etc.

 

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. 

1 hour ago, Henrythe8 said:

I was there last end of August, no worries nor problems were had.

I honestly diud not realize until my Brother told me I was crazy 🙂 

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... 

On 17/07/2023 at 11:53, Henrythe8 said:

the main issue is that Estonia is a long way and makes it expensive to go there, although the price for the Bass Oasis itself is quite low, with 5 days accommodation and meals... Plus playing on stage with some big names and learning A LOT of stuff 🙂 

 

 

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...! 

1 hour ago, chris_b said:

 

It's my experience that the guys playing music for a living have a much better attitude to playing, other musicians and gigs.

 

Many of the problems posted on Basschat seems to relate to hobby bands.

Ain't that the truth...! 

1 hour ago, SumOne said:

Honestly, I'd say perhaps consider growing thicker skin.

 

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

11 hours ago, Supernaut said:

A simple proposal will do the job:

 

Stop the unprofessional comments or I walk. 
 

Speak to your other bandmates before speaking to the problem child. They may share a similar opinion. 

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? 

5 hours ago, Gwilym said:

Lastly, they were possibly the original "super jazz" brand, but there are so many other equally good options available.

 

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. 

7 minutes ago, asingardenof said:

Larger board acquired. Much more pleasing.

What pedaltrain is that? 

13 minutes ago, MacDaddy said:

 

https://www.trinityrock.com/instruments/bass/grade8

 

 

9 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

I'm quite surprised NIB by Black Sabbath is grade 7. It's a lot easier than anything else on the list. Even the bass solo at the start is dead easy.

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

12 hours ago, MacDaddy said:

 

According to the examining board:

GRADE 7

STEVE VAI The Crying Machine

MUSE Hysteria

BLACK SABBATH N.I.B.

LEVEL 42 The Sun Goes Down

GREEN DAY Welcome to Paradise

 

KATE BUSH Babooshka

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS Higher Ground

THE JACKSON SISTERS I Believe In Miracles

IRON MAIDEN Phantom Of The Opera (TF)

TOOL Schism*

STEVIE WONDER Sir Duke

RUSH The Spirit Of Radio

KAJAGOOGOO Too Shy (TF)

FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD Two Tribes (TF)

 

https://www.trinityrock.com/instruments/bass/grade7

 

 

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

1 hour ago, SteveXFR said:

 

That's the badger.

Keys player from Little Angels? 

1 hour ago, LukeFRC said:

You went for it!

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)! 

17 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

Phil was Jamaican 😄

Sub Mars Cowling then! 😃

37 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 

Btw great shout adding Rutger! ... I kinda feel he's a spiritual successor to Carol Kaye - any merit in that thought?

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

I've just gone and bought one of these new, because there were none available second-hand. Shame you didn't put it up a month or so ago! GLWTS

4 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Cos we've 30 slots only alas.

 

Which of the greats would you drop to make way for them?

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? 

2 minutes ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

That's great to hear it's doing the job for you. Fingers crossed the adhesive is strong enough that it doesn't ping off during an energetic performance!

It seems pretty solid.