peteb

No, not at all. I've had a few cheaper basses over the years (usually as a spare), but I always moved them on for something better after a few months. Like Chris, I bought my first Fender Precision as soon as I got my first job (working backstage at a theatre as an 18 year old). It was a really nice mocha brown P bass with a maple neck. This travelled up and down the country with me for 6 or 7 years (acquiring a pretty crappy 77 Precision as a spare along the way), before I sold it when I first discovered the joys of active basses back in the mid 80s. Bizarrely, my old brown P bass came up for sale a few months ago and I ended up buying it back for five times what I sold it for 24 years ago! It has seen a bit of life since we have been apart, belonging to a couple of session musicians, doing loads of soul gigs, living in a recording studio and apparently even being used to settle a drug debt several years ago! But now it's back with me, been cleaned up and wearing an old badass bridge that I've had in my spares box for years as wellas a bart pickup and still sounding as great as ever. Sounds and feels like a proper Fender (to me at least). So my oldest bass is one I bought a couple of months ago, which was the first really good bass that I owned...!

If Chris is involved I'm sure that it will be kosher! I bought a couple of tickets last night.

That is arguably true, but I used to deal with those actually in government. They never used to be this amateurish (e.g. not reading a very important report related to their portfolio because they were organising a nativity play! That is inexcusable and would never have happened 20 years ago). I am not talking about whether you liked the politicians or agreed with their policies, but how they implemented them.

Not at all, I used to have to deal with politicians and can tell you that there has been a very definite decline.

To be fair, that isn't the reason. There were always career politicians, but the ones in power were more capable and got to where they were because they good rather than their connections or views on a single issue. I know a lot of people are very reluctant to accept this, but there are still plenty of capable politicians on both sides of the house, but unfortunately they are not in the cabinet now.

If she had bothered to read it she would have found that they had capitulated on fishing, even after all of the fuss that they made about it! The level of incompetence of government in this country over the past decade has been staggering. It never used to be like that (both parties were pretty capable at governing the country, whether you liked them or not).

Other tributes online from Mike Portnoy, Carmine Appice, etc. Apparently he died of cancer.

His Wikipedia page has said that he has died, but no there is mention of cause of death or whatever.

Just seen that @Crawford13 has started a similar thread - mods, please can you lock this thread or merge with the existing one

Just seen on Facebook that Chris from Alpher Instruments is offering a chance to win an Alpher Mini Mako 30 inch scale bass for just £10 and help musicians struggling as a result of the pandemic. This raffle is available worldwide with shipping included. It costs £10 per ticket, with all proceeds going to helpmusicians.org.uk Here’s the link to the tickets: https://alphershop.com/.../products/raffle-ticket-mini-mako Nice one Chris - a great gesture...

British bands definitely have an allure for European audiences as many of the world's biggest bands came from these islands (from the Beatles to Black Sabbath to the Clash). However, support for live music is stronger in most European countries than in England these days (maybe not so much in Scotland & Ireland) and there are plenty of good bands over on the mainland. UK bands not getting gigs in the EU may well mean more gigs for them. I don't think that the EU wants to exclude British acts, hence the offer in the first place, but it will have to be reciprocal. I wish that UK Govt cared as much...!

BBC website (yesterday): Pressure mounts on UK government to resolve EU touring visas for musicians https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55616860?fbclid=IwAR0IbSqB7guSxvx2WxSQd9DESLX5JG8MUS96JytEjZXESKlrWNhic9RGA3Q

I think that you are being as hopelessly optimistic as ever going for May, but the vaccine roll out will eventually pay dividends and hopefully we will be gigging at some point before next winter. Some friends of mine who were supposed to get married last year but put their wedding back to this May, have already been told by the venue that it is unlikely that they can have the full wedding reception / party. I do hope that you are right about May as the only gig I have in the diary that hasn't already been definitely cancelled is in May.

That could be the understatement of the thread…! This was never going to stop established ‘bigger’ bands from touring. For bands selling out theatre level venues, it is just another touring expense. Of course, they need to keep this additional expense down, so they are much more likely to use EU based crews rather than British guys. There are already UK based production companies who will only employ British techs if they have dual passports. The real problem is for musos who rely on smaller scale live work in the EU to make a living; be it on cruise ships, sessions, holiday seasons, a band tour or promo work, or often freelancers playing multiple tours / odd dates with a number of acts throughout the year. Multiple work permits, carnets, different visa requirements, VAT issues for merch, etc all add cost to make it almost impossible for to work in the EU.

My understanding is that although the City has lost some jobs to EU financial centres, it is not as many as expected and as you say, they may have created new jobs unrelated to Brexit. A lot of money has left the country to find a new home in the EU, but I am sure that the City will continue to prosper, just perhaps not quite as much as it would have done. Your point about AI is potentially massive for the finance industry, as well as for many others.

To be fair, this is an issue that is going to affect many people here, especially pros who depend on playing in the EU to make a living, but also semi-pros like me. Also, it is something that has come about as a direct consequence of Brexit, which obviously makes it difficult to discuss without talking about Brexit.

No idea if there is a similar petition process to ask the EU parliament to consider holding a debate, although you could always have gone to your MEP to ask them to put your case forward for such a debate.

Good God, that thread would last for twenty years!

Ironically, when I shared the petition on Facebook about half the people who signed or commented on it had openly voted Leave. This included the most vociferous supporters of the petition / critics of the Government’s handling of the issue. Of course, they all knew what they were voting for…

I've got a Samson unit in my live rack that looks very similar to that (except that it has kettle lead inputs rather than 3 prong plug ones). It does it's job well enough - gives a bit of protection and keeps things tidy.

That is correct. The visa offered to British musicians and turned down by the government would have got around these issues.

I understand that there may be a similar agreement in place with America? Certainly, my mate who promotes a big English blues festival has no problem getting acts from the America, but always seems to hit insurmountable visa problems the couple of times he has tried to book acts from the far east.

Very different genre, but basically the same thing

I am currently in two bands that each have a deal with a German record company to sell an album in Northern Europe / Italy (one a licensing deal, another a distribution deal). The only reason either of these bands exist is to sell very specific genre CDs to an existing market in Germany, Sweden and Italy. In previous times, if an album started to get a bit of traction then we might have hoped to be invited to play a festival and a few club dates in Europe. This would hopefully have broken even financially for the band and resulted in quite a few more album sales and raised the band’s profile. A good friend of mine did this a few years ago and did quite well out of it (as indeed has the guitarist / songwriter of both of these bands). This would be quite cool thing for someone who normally plays pubs and the tribute circuit, but it is lot more serious for a lot of my pro muso mates who regularly make money from playing small scale tours in Europe. Essentially this is make or break for them.

As Doctor J has just pointed out, this will also apply to those of us who work cruise ships, holiday seasons and other longer term residencies, etc.