flyfisher

[quote name='Damonjames' timestamp='1416213610' post='2607878'] I guess I am "moaning" as you so abruptly put it, is that we had edible some gigs under £200 to get a foot in to a venue, and we have been offered more for the subsequent gigs (so I know we are a good enough band!), to play for less smarts a little. Yes I know it's our fault, we should have double checked the fee and there is no excuse, but had they offered that we probably wouldn't have taken the gig [/quote] I didn't mean "moaning" in a critical sense, more as an observation of some bands being dissatisfied with their situation. It sounds like your band is specifically aiming to make some money from gigging (and fair enough) and have been upset that you can't always make as much as you'd like. It seems to be a common complaint of bands that expect to be paid to play, and I can understand why because it DOES cost money to so this stuff - but, as pointed out elsewhere here, all hobbies cost money and many of them are more expensive than gigging! So I guess it all comes down to motivation and if the motivation is to make money then it's a tough business to crack.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1416217326' post='2607912'] hmmm sounds like an acceptance of the concept to me.. Also............ anyone tried to buy a concert ticket of late..?? it seems that people will pay £20 for relatively unknowns ( in a wider sense ) for a night out. Tribute bands are charging £40... so a decent local band stands a chance at £10 a ticket IF you have a show that you don't give away for free ( £300 ) down the local too often. I put on special events for a pub type set...but geared towards a festival and we charge 3 times a pub rate. For that money I can put the players on for £100 plus a man and get in 7 or so people.. These can be amongst the best gigs of the year. [/quote] What concept? The idea of getting paid for playing? Of course I have no problem with that concept, but frankly I ( and the rest of the band) can't be arsed with all the aggravation of the commercial side of things. We just want to play live music. We don't want to negotiate hiring a venue, hire a sound guy, sort out some lighting, pay for advertising to publicise the gig, do all that social media stuff, pester all our friends and family to come along, travel all over the country . . . . that all sounds like hard work to me - in which case I'd definitely want to be paid I'm in this music game for my own pleasure. I'm not trying to earn a living or forge a career. I enjoy playing with others rather than alone at home, we write our own songs and enjoy gigging mixed original/cover sets, which we do about once a month on average. When somewhere like the Hertford Corn Exchange offers a free opportunity to play a decent local venue with PA, engineer and lighting all supplied, then why not? I'm not advocating that all bands should be like us, far from it, just trying to point out that there are all sort of motivations for playing live music and not all of them involve money.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1416174950' post='2607701'] Good point, however I still don't understand how your taking advantage of the venue if your contributing to the sale of alcohol. The owner goes home with a pocket full of cash and you go home with a pocket full of love. Hmmmm ? maybe it is a win for you. [/quote] I'd say it's a win-win situation, but it's more like bartering. Everyone gets what they want from the deal; the bar owner gets more sales, the band get to play live to an audience, the audience get to hear a live band. Everyone is happy - if they were not, then they wouldn't bother would they? No one is forced to play/sell beer/go to the pub.

[quote name='deepbass5' timestamp='1416172916' post='2607658'] Town pubs make a lot of money we are not talking country local pubs with just three punters on bars stools and a dog in the corner, If i was playing pubs I would be getting in touch with the other bands in Town and work together to raise the fee. You have to set £50 / man as a minimum to cover expences even if you treat it as a subsidised hobby. [/quote] I appreciate some people might want to but they don't HAVE to! I take your point - my musical hobby costs me money, I get that, but so do my other hobbies but no one subsidises them, so what makes music so different? I played a 50 minute mixed set of covers and originals today to about 60/70 people, together with 3 other bands. Admission was free, the bands were not paid, everyone had fun, it was 4 miles from home. That'll do me for this month. I'm happy. Edit: I was standing exactly where I saw Norman Watt-Roy play a blinder of a gig with the Blockheads two days ago. I'm guessing he got paid, but then he is a bit better than me . . .

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1416171000' post='2607628'] Well, that sounds fine, but there's another piece to your analysis. Playing for free because you love playing is one thing but ad to it that some venues are using you and taking advantage of your love. For those who say, I'll play for free because I love it, i have a question; Do you also love being taken advantage of? [/quote] Again, it's a matter of perspective. You won't play without being paid (fair enough) so will have a tendency to see people playing for free being taken advantage of by the pubs and bars where they play. However, because I play for enjoyment, I need somewhere to gig . . . so perhaps I'm the one taking advantage of a venue that will let me play there? In the UK, the pub business is dying on its feet (not because of music) and pubs are closing down at an alarming rate. If I'm happy to play for free and can tempt a few people into a local pub to listen to some live music instead of sitting at home drinking their supermarket beer while watching TV and the pub makes a bit more money as a result and can therefore remain in business, then I suggest that could be a win, win, win situation - I get to indulge my hobby, people get to hear live music in a social setting and the pub gets to stay in business. The alternative is that the pub goes bust and everyone loses. Of course, this doesn't apply to all pubs or to all bands, so happily there is room for all. But what's interesting about these regular discussions is that it's the bands trying to get paid that are the ones always moaning. The bands playing for the pure love of the music and the performance seem to be pretty chilled. So how are the 'pro' bands going to persuade the hobby bands to change their ways and take on all the apparent angst and aggravation of gigging for money? I don't think they can because they are inhabiting different worlds - not better or worse, just different.

[quote name='merello' timestamp='1415824161' post='2604243'] His bass is unplayable by all of us on here because we can't get our grubby mitts on it! [/quote] According to this, even [u]he[/u] couldn't get his grubby mitts on it for quite a while . . . . [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_3Jc54k1Es[/media]

I wonder how many people on here who admire Guy's playing would find his bass is 'unplayable'? Or anyone else for that matter. Surely it's obvious that such a characteristic is only relevant for the person doing the playing? Reference has already been made to Jamerson's famously 'badly' set up bass and I can just imagine BCers coming across it in a pawn shop and thinking that such a pile of crap is not even worth a tenner Makes 'signature' basses a bit of a joke doesn't it?

Yep, always worth searching for old electronic components on the web. There are loads of specialist companies out there for this sort of thing. But even if you can't find the identical part, it should be easy to find a suitable alternative. Even if it doesn't fit on the PCB, a relay should be easy to mount somewhere else and then wired up accordingly. Good luck with the repair - it's nice to hear about such things being fixed rather than thrown into landfill.

Lynyrd Skynrd were all big rugby fans and named their band in the Welsh tradition of not using vowels.

Graham Parker might be reforming his 1980s band, but it's only a rumour.

Caravan gave up touring after all the constant ridicule by Jeremy Clarkson on Top gear.

Genesis had big ambitions for England, but only managed to sell London Bridge - though they did get more than a pound for it.

Ian Anderson invented the agricultural seed drill.

Freddie Mercury only got the Queen gig after Brenda refused to wear her crown and stormed out. Fortunately, freddie has no such misgivings. [attachment=176159:mercury.jpg] And still on the Queen theme . . . . Brian May's mum hasn't spoken to him since he ruined her best knitting needles for his Red Special.

[quote name='owen' timestamp='1415610680' post='2601849'] I have no idea how I define pop-art . . . [/quote] Nor do I really, but would guess that anything by Andy Warhol might be a good start. Though why anyone would want a can of soup on their bass is beyond me.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1415534034' post='2601180'] I would say the stickers are there not because of potential between sockets in that area as any property with 3 phase has that potential especially once an extension lead is introduced but more likely that the wiring for another ring main on another phase is contained within the socket box. Most industrial installations are done that way rather than running three conduits all the wires run down one so when you remove a socket face you are exposed to all three phases. [/quote] That makes sense, but do the regulations require that sockets/conduit containing three phases have such warning labels? After all, it's not exactly 'normal use' for someone to open up a socket so if the normal users of such sockets cannot be exposed to three phases by simply plugging in a standard plug why bother with warning labels at all. After all, by definition, it's only qualified electricians who can be expected to properly understand what such labels actually mean in practice.

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1415500513' post='2600994'] It's a bit of a moot point really. It is unusual to find adjacent feeds from a three phase distribution board in venues that most of us perform in. They're generally only adjacent if there is a specific need for them to be so, and the areas where that would be the case are generally not areas you'd be performing in. [/quote] Yes, but 'unusual' and 'generally' suggest that it's not really a moot point . . . . as the existence of this thread attests.

Do you mean some models are intrinsically unplayable or that some individual examples are unplayable? I'd be surprised at the former (unless it was a 'toy' bass) and would like to think that the latter could be sorted if properly set up. I take your point about good players not bothering though.

I'm not disparaging people who buy high end gear, regardless of whether they can play or not. Their money, their choice, no problem. I'm just suggesting there is no correlation between gear and talent and that a great player will sound great pretty much regardless of what gear they happen to use.

I'm sure that's true, but I doubt they are good players [u]because[/u] they've got high-end gear.

I can see how an originals band could develop a following but how does a covers band achieve the same thing, especially if they are gigging every week in a smallish geographical area. How many people really want to see the same band time and time and time again - especially if they are playing 'classic rock' covers all the time? Isn't it really just a case of playing to whatever audience happen to turn up on the night for an evening of music rather than playing to a pack of baying fans who will follow the band to every gig?

Exactly. All the gear available today is good enough for anyone and great players will always sound great whatever they play. Look at Macca and his 'cheap, crappy' violin bass In fact, pretty much any of the gear used by the best players is available to the committed amateur player so all this agonising over the quest for 'perfect tone' is nonsense really. My suspicion is that there are two basics in this game - gear and talent. We can buy the gear, then change the gear, then mod the gear, then buy custom gear, but continually blame the gear while all the time it is the talent or application that we really lack to be a great player. Still, I guess that always focusing on the gear helps us to forget our shortcomings in the talent department. If only it were possible to buy talent as easily as it is to buy gear!

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1415470231' post='2600728'] It really depends on what you're trying to achieve, having different phase supplies near each other can be advantageous [b]if[/b] used sensibly. [/quote] IF indeed - which is unlikely in what is probably a public venue. How many jobbing bands have qualified electricians setting up their gear for them? How many people would understand what precautions to take when using sockets labelled '400V'? How many people would just plug in anyway and hope?

Yep, wise precautions. I carry one of those plug-in mains testers in my gig bag and I try to ensure everything is connected to a single mains socket, albeit through loads of plug-blocks. I can understand a large venue requiring sockets fed from different phases, but I'd be a bit surprised if different phase sockets were mixed very closely together. Better to confine different phases to different areas whenever possible.

Yes, could be almost anything . . . Even a daft prank by someone with a bunch of 400v stickers. Not worth risking though - ask the venue to sort it out.