TimR

Unless you are in ill health 60 is very early to retire. IMO. Most people I know are semi retiring at 65 but still working at least part time at 70. Depends what your job is I suppose.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1350547471' post='1840233'] ... Anyone with high interest credit card debts and a low interest mortgage on a house with sufficient equity should be thinking about increasing the mortgage to pay off the credit cards. [/quote] That's not very good advice IMO. If you still have many years to run on your mortgage you could end up paying more. If you do this you should increase your mortgage repayments to a level that makes this advantageous. Do the maths first.

Your drummer looked a bit excited.

You're right. No one notices the bass player, until he's not there. Which makes networking even more important. Getting yourself noticed as a bassplayer is either standing up front doing slapfest (and no one really wants to see or hear that) or locking in with a drummer who likes playing with you and recommends you whenever he gets a gig.

[quote name='ahpook' timestamp='1350392288' post='1838146'] ... like he doesn't know the song ! [/quote] Maybe he didn't. How much time did they take between writing and recording? A story I heard about David Bowie when recording under pressure. When the band went out to lunch he asked to hear Freddy's vocal line. Then joined them for lunch. After lunch they all went back in and Bowie did the song in one take, harmonising perfectly with the 'previously unheard' Freddy vocal. Freddy was astounded at how good Bowie appeared to be. So no practice with the band even before visiting the studio. Just turn up and record something....

Good question. Just rotate. If you're the only person standing near the gear you wait until the next person gets there before leaving with a bit of gear or going back to get some more.

[quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1350298090' post='1836864'] TBH I would rather not gig than do that gig, but that's just me, I wouldn't enjoy doing the cliche party band cover repertoire. Also I played with a group of 10 for three years so 8 would be a bit of a step down anyway. [/quote] Yes, I think everyone's done 'The Commitments' thing. Any combinations of the play on words with souled and sold says Avoid Avoid Avoid to me. Good luck to them, I've just looked at their pics, they could do with a bit of styling, I think I can see just from the pics that they won't be getting hundreds of pounds for gigs.

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1350296119' post='1836830'] .. Try, premiership football on telly in pubs is killing the gate take at your local footy club and you'll be closer. [/quote] Fair enough. Analogies never really stock up do they. Wayne Rooney being affected by a kick about is like saying Bruce Springsteen being affected by a jam night. The 'pros' we're talking about aren't big famous local musicians either, just your average Joe trying to make a living playing other people's music. Look at the theatre world. If an amateur production want to put on a show, they have to ask the publisher for permission. They won't get that permission if the show is being toured by a pro company.

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1350288936' post='1836721'] There's a sequel: Everybody on the island was so jealous of the fisherman, they started doing the same thing. Eventually the market was flooded with fish, and the fisherman lost his only source of income. He retrained in IT support, and now works in a local call center. [/quote] Kind of what I was thinking. The story is a reminder not to lose sight of what you are doing and why you are doing it. The fisherman is doing it to feed his family, not to make loads of money. It's not relevant because in our case the other "fishermen" are throwing the dead fish back and their family are eating burgers because it's more productive for them to rear cows and go fishing for fun. This leaves only dead fish for the fisherman to pull out of the water. Oar not.... The answer is for every musician to work in IT and become weekend warriors. Which I think is happeneing already in the main. Although some must be very greedy to want to be paid for having fun at the weekends while earning loads of money during the week

[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1350246073' post='1836388'] I have found that rather than paying for tickets to watch premiership football, i can nip down the park and watch a bunch of kids playing the same game for free. I got a letter from Wayne Rooney telling me to stop supporting them as they were doing him out of a job, </fatuousjoke> [/quote] I think that analgy doesn't stand up at all. Try: I like football so much that I'm going to go into pubs and provide them with free satellite football so they don't have to keep paying Sky. All the equipment, programs and maintenance absolutely free, just so I can go down whenever I'm not doing anything else and watch with my mates.

[quote name='skidder652003' timestamp='1350240917' post='1836259'] ive yet to meet a "free" band thats sh*t hot, week in, week out and if they were trhat good, wouldn't realise it and start demanding a fee for thier services, thats just fantasy IMO [/quote] I think you're right. Unfortunately the converse is often true.

Packing down one night, with the iPod still running through the mixer, I unplug a mic to hear a huge pop out of the front of house speakers. WTF! Some drunk was playing with the faders on the mixer. I walk over to ask him what he thinks he is doing. "It's alright mate." says his friend, "He knows what he's doing, he plays in a band." ?!

[quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1350232594' post='1836064'] Crikey… this thread is still rumbling on!? Surely this debate is just about economics and market forces. .. [/quote] As I said a few pages ago. It isn't. It's not a free competitive market. There are some bands out there whose members earn enough doing other things that they have no intention of ever getting paid. You can't compete with that, no matter how you try. When a guy earning £30k+ in his office job 9-5 can afford to buy whatever PA, lighting, drum, guitar he wants. What can you do as a musician that's better? That the public will notice. Some of these guys are incredibly good.

I imagine that the track would have been compressed, EQ'd and had drop ins on the flakey bits and all sorts done to it. But the point is, all the fretbuzz and clacking gets masked by drums. So making your line as clean as possible is a good thing, but listening to it in isolation gives a false perspective of it's fit for purpose. How many of us, if we'd played like that, would have listened back and wanted to bin it. Queen had years of experience of multitrack recording, I guess they knew what was required and what would work.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1350231280' post='1836044'] PLI is largely the venues issue but that isn't to say that bands should completely abstain. Festivals, in particular are very keen on PAT and PLI...so you can knock yourself off that bill if you don't have them, IME. If your light rigfalls over..?? who is liable, venue or band..?? grey area..?? maybe. I can see hearing loss being an issue somewhere down the line... does the user claim against venue..most probably as it will be a cummalative effect so not any one band...but factory bosses are having to contend with this issue now... so I expect to see it at some point in the future, possibly, regarding venues..but maybe you would have to proove you worked there for 20 years or something..?? [/quote] I've seen a person deafened in one ear due to careless use of a fader.

My house insurance covers me for non commercial legal stuff. But I suspect you've really got to show that no money changed hands and there was no intention of any money changing hands. Which in a band in a pub is going to be hard.

Yes, cause I can just see the brewery's insurance company saying, don't worry, someone just got electrocuted by your amp. We'll pay.

I can now do the load in for my gear in one trip. I guess the real thoughts behind my op was that it stops being fun when other band mates take the fun out of it. When you're carrying other gear, setting up lights and PA and they either haven't arrived or have gone straight to the bar. Then again at the end when they disappear leaving you to do it all again. In my latest band there is none of that so I was just wondering whether it was really time to pack it in or whether it was just time to change bands like it was for me. A change is as good as a rest.

As I say, there's nothing wrong with playing for fun or hardly any money. Particularly just pub gigs. Just bear in mind that you can very easily commit yourselves to something that ends up bring very expensive. How many of you playing for free are fully insured and PAT tested? Could become a very expensive hobby if someone gets injured (deafened?) or worse.

I was only referring to HMRC comment that it was an expensive hobby. Comparing it to motorsport is not exactly the same is it?

[quote name='redstriper' timestamp='1350222841' post='1835918'] No, we're all too stupid or rich to care [/quote] As I suspected.

[quote name='Count Bassy' timestamp='1350221127' post='1835883'] ... I have a friend who was was shopped (we think) to HMRC about his playing in a ceilidh band. After HMRC interviewed him and did some quick sums they told him that he had a very expensive hobby. ... [/quote] I do wonder if people playing for free realise how much they spend on gear, rehearsals, transport etc...

I read on another thread that someone had become tired of doing gigs because of the hassle of turning up early, setting up, disappearing for 5hours, then reappearing near midnight, playing to a half empty floor, packing down and getting home a 3am to unload. Ok so, the wedding & function band route is very lucrative and probably a young man's game. So at what price point/age do you sub out all the set up and pack down and save your back and fingers for playing and get home afterwards for some proper sleep. Or do you just keep going until one Saturday afternoon you look at your amp, feel your back and think I really don't want to put that in my car ever again!

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1350154193' post='1835305'] ... Wouldn't actually blame these bands for closing the place down, but maybe they aren't any good at getting to the whole point of the exercise..which is to entertain people. ... [/quote] This, I suspect is the main issue. Bands aren't necessarily there to entertain the people. I've seen bands who've been having a great time, playing tunes they like. The crowd, however, have not.

That probably highlights what has gone wrong with music recently. Obsession with getting the cleanest most note perfect recording then adding loads of effects to try to make is sound 'real'. When it sounded better left alone in the first place.