TimR

10 still in I think. 

No one can afford to buy the house they're living in based on their salary. No one, orher than a few could.

I couldn't afford the house I live in now based on my salary at the time.

Mainly because of the housing ladder.

I bought a very small house in the late nineties on the back of the housing crash. I lived there for 20 years. The equity due to property price rise added to the equity from paying off the mortgage meant I only had to get another mortgage based on my salary.

I also have had salary increases due to promotions.

People also have inheritances.

When you look at people who live in expensive houses you are not seeing the last 20+ years of the work they have done to get there. They're not magically rich people who have suddenly found £500k behind the sofa or are all on £120k a year. 

There is a danger of labelling house owners as wealthy and taxing them, instead of looking at why companies who are making huge profits are getring away with low pay. And a higher minimum wage doesn't help if it's a blanket measure as it disprotionatly affects small struggling busunesses and disuades them from employing more people. 

However, there are lots of people living in big houses whose children have left, who are still working and are cash rich.

It's disengineous to generalise. 

The mode salary in the UK is £15k, the median £37k. This means that people on the Mode salaray are living in poverty. Technically anyone with a household income below £22k is living in poverty but most households with 2 incomes will be on 2x£15k. 

Although I don't know how much tax avoidance affects those below £15k and skews these figures I know plenty of people who only earn £12k a year but seem to have very luxurious lifestyles. 

So some people must have a lot of money. Around 64% of households do own a house.

Yes. It's unequal and getting worse, possibly. Maybe it gets better as you get older, it should, otherwise what's the point of saving and investing? 

Ironically if people's earnings were more equal, more people would be below the poverty line as it's a 'relative' measure. Ideally we are all pretty equal when 1 in 3 are in poverty. 

I guess it depends on your interpretation of my use of 'loads' - that's obviously relative as well. Loads more people are above the poverty line than below it.

None of this explains why people are staying at home and spending money on pizza and takeway and watching rubbish TV while surfing the internet.

26 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

Don’t believe loads of people are poor?

 

Crikey.

Look at the disposable income of the groups. 

https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/

As @tegs07 will probably explain. Produtivity and a nation's wealth depend on people spending money and paying taxes. 

If people stop spending the money they earn (I don't believe loads of people are poor) then they're not paying the taxes.

The government will then have to raise income tax...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8g6kdgzelo

The banks will be giving the government statistics on savings. 

10 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

minimal interest in watching unknown artists.

The world is flooded with mediocrity on Social Media. 

The bands that know how to use social media get people to their gigs. Sponsored posts targeted at the town you're going to be playing in for a start. 

Playing loads of gigs of the same material in your local area because band members don't want to travel is not making the most of your band, and having the same bands play the same venues isn't going to make your venue attractive to an audience looking for fresh bands. 

In an ideal world mininum wages would be linked to a companies profitability or at least all employees should be guaranteed a bonus based on companies results. 

No more giving directors and shareholders a preference on dividends. 

@BigRedX The Irish governement decided. You applied and if you met certain criteria you were given one of the 2000 trial places. 

It worked, or at least it reprotedly has worked.

It seems to me to just be a shift in 'benefits' to low paid workers, but it does allow them to be productive and examples given show the artists are generating more revenue for other people than they're recieving themselves.

1 minute ago, tegs07 said:

The problem with this approach is it’s too broad brush. Plenty of jobs have to be done on site. Office jobs can benefit from some on site presence. HR, IT support, any creative industry. Flexible working makes more sense though. Not everyone needs to be in every day.

 

Many people are realising that if they want career progression then full time work from home is a dead end so are going into work.

 

I guess the city centre has lost out on footfall, but most people I have with who don’t bring their own lunch tend to get a meal deal from a Supermarket anyway. 

 

I think we are getting away from my point.

Artist Universal Income has been introduced to subsidise artists because attendance has dropped off due to the effects of the pandemic. 

A lot of my friends play in London. A lot of people would stay around affer work for a meal, a beer and a gig.

Now, if you're working from home, its a trip to London after work into London. Only very keen people are going to do that. 

That's not limited to London, that is going on all over the country. 

Normal - what most people do.

At one time everyone bought lunch in the works canteen and sat around talking instead of sitting working at their desk eating a sandwich. (Which is also now normal behaviour)

Not everyone has to buy lunch every day. It's a numbers game. But if everyone is working from home, no one is buying lunch and all the money is going to the big Supermarkets.

Fine, if you all want to sit at home, not spending money and isolated from social interaction, do that. But don't complain that people aren't comming to your gigs, because sitting at home on your own is habbit forming. 

That's certainly not normal. 

68% of people commute by car amd the average commute time is 28minutes...

Figures for September 2025 show lunchtume dining up 5% and up 7% on Fridays. 

People are slowly coming back. 

As far as I can tell, a lot of people in their 50s decided that they don't actually have to work anymore and retired early, and downsized.

There are also huge numbers of people injured by the pandemic who mentally and physically cannot work. 

There are also people working from home - at least one day a week. This reduces income to all the support workers - cleaners, coffee shops, sandwich shops, transport. Evening entertainers and pubs who would busy all week are quiet on Fridays. 

This ultimately affects the country's productivity. 

If you can guarantee someone some kind of income regardless of how much work they do, then you move them from being on benefits and they become a productive member of society. People who don't work are a net drain on society. 

This is the aim of the Artists Universal Benefit, to keep them performing and drag the arts back to where they should be following the pandemic. 

It needs to be done in conjunctuion with tax breaks to venues, and support for them, until people start coming out of their homes again. 

Its the tech giants who have manipulated people to be addicted to smart phones that need to be put in check, not only are they making obscene profits, but they're destroying the 'community'.

There is a lot more information here.

Essentially it's not a Universal Basic Income scheme.

https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-and-sport/campaigns/basic-income-for-the-arts-pilot-scheme/

https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-and-sport/publications/basic-income-for-the-arts-pilot-scheme-your-questions-answered/

Sounds just like a more efficient way of subsidising the Arts.

The artists still have to apply for a 'grant', but that effictively cuts out the large, possibly wasteful*, organistations. 

*Assuming you don't consider the government as a large, wasteful organisation. 

3 minutes ago, Geek99 said:

I know, but @Sean and his predecessors aren’t actually dead as a result so I felt the spinal tap reference worked better with his situation in mind …. 🤷‍♂️

Yes. I was just more concerned for their dummer's health...

2 hours ago, Geek99 said:

 

I guess they didn’t get the memo about proper spinal-tap behaviour being changing drummers like they change underwear and went for bass players instead 🤷‍♂️

They all died in horrific on-stage accidents.

Just sayin'. 

2 hours ago, Sean said:

No,  I'm not. There are only 3 left before the band folds.  1 is the one where I was told to stand down, then there's the other one and then there's the big final bash with the ex-bassists. It is being billed as "a night with some of the bassists we sacked and some of our favourites." 

 

The final gig has been arranged where all previous bassists have been invited to play and 5 or 6 of them have agreed.

 

I was recently told on arrival at a venue that my tone is too "trebley". I said that I can dial in whatever's needed at sound check only to be met with being told that we don't have time for things like that. 

 

I also get "told off" if I turn up early. I then get made to feel like I'm in the way.  I'm always at least 10 minutes early with everything, I plan ahead, build in contingency and am very rarely late to anything. I was second car to arrive at the SW Bash as an example. I'd rather sit outside on BassChat for 15 minutes than be stressed and rushing to be on time. 

 

All of this stuff is like mental abuse and puts you in the wrong state of mind, and it isn't conducive to playing your best. You spend the whole gig wondering/worrying about things you shouldn't be instead of focusing on entertaining punters and enjoying your passion. 

 

I'm off.

 

Edit: for context and those that don't know me, I've been in all sorts of bands for 40 years.

 

 

Sounds very much to me like you've joined a real life version of Spinal Tap.

What's their turnover of drummers like? 

6 minutes ago, Sean said:

referring to the large number of bassists they've had

That would have put me on my guard from the off.

Better off adding to their ever expanding list of ex-bassplayers. 

On 25/10/2025 at 07:21, Downunderwonder said:

Original case was to be heard in the Magistrates Court. That's like the difference between going for lunch at The Ritz, or McDonalds. 

There's a big difference. The Crown Court can impose harsher penalties and you will be up before a Judge as opposed to someone volunteering from the community with little to no previous grounding in law.

The SM58 was standard because touring bands could get one from the muisc shop in the nearest town the next morning. 

The Sennheizers are much more transparent. I have a pair of E... can't remember exact model. 

I suspect most vocalists are used to how their voice sounds through an SM58, regardless of how good they sound through other 'better' mics. We did an A/B comparison in the band I was in when I first bought them, but didn't do it blind. The singer preferred the Sure. 

16 hours ago, Sean said:

This really chimed with me. 

This came up last weekend, where I was told that the part I've played in one of the songs needs to be changed. I've played it the same way, as per the record about a dozen or more times, but they've never liked it. We don't rehearse and no one is able to articulate what they'd like me to play instead. 

This is the sort of thing that could be worked out at rehearsal. Sadly it's not going to happen and I'll be in a different band very soon. 

Quite. That's the whole pupose of the rehearsal.

Although, as @Stub Mandrel alludes to above regarding skills a dep requires, altering what you're playing to fit the 'talents' of the other members is a skill we all should have if we want to play in bands.

We are musicians, being able to 'paint by numbers' doesn't make you a musician.

Even classical orchaestras have to rehearse and change what they've 'practiced at home' to fit what the conductor wants and they have specific charted out parts.

Is there a shoe forum I'm missing where people with no shoes who want to learn how to walk go? 

I guess some of us are more altruistic than others. 

I have freinds who would only sell things for market value, there are no friends in business. I have other friends who would give away things.

Its really only a problem to me if I 'gave' something to someone beliveing they would look after it and care for it, only for them to sell it next day.

I lent one friend something I'd used twice it was effectively brand new and still in the pristine box. When he (eventually after a lot of nagging) returned it, it was scratched and scuffed and the box was lost. I won't be lending him anything ever again.

5 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

Wait ... you can sell basses?

Only under very severe cicumstances. Death or hell freezing over being the main two.  

Morally it is wrong. Selling on BassChat means you're selling the bass to a fellow bass player in the (mistaken) idea that they're buying it to play. In a lot of cases you're prepared to let it go for a lower price as you're fairly confident in the above.

If the market place begins to get inhabited by people flipping basses then the bargains will disappear and as a community we will be worse off for it.

Name and shame and don't sell them anything again. 

However, if you've said it needs work and have lowered the price to reflect that, the buyer spends a morning sorting electrics, neck relief, action, cleans it, sticks new strings on it and then sells, where anyone else may not have the skills or time (like you didn't) to fix those things, then there's no issue.

In summary, it depends why you let it go for less than the market value.