ambient

I thought you could leave feedback for someone on Gumtree? I can’t see how to now, but I know you used to be able to.

Someone mentioned the new rules affecting businesses. Keeping it music business related, a friend shared this on Facebook earlier. This is yet another of the things that makes me incredibly sad - both for the buyers of the records, and obviously the seller/artist. For these small labels it’s all about the music, they don’t have a massive turnover - probably consider themselves lucky if an album’s sales are in double figures, so losing even a handful of sales is bad news for them. This won’t be the only person that stops buying from them for this reason.

It’s the gift that just keeps giving. Still, like I said elsewhere earlier, at least the fish are happy, nobody’s bothering to catch them.

Yes, and as above it’s not duty but VAT they pay, so it depends on the VAT rate in their country.

Plus the VAT on the merchandise at each border. That would be quite an outlay, and probably the biggest financial drain on a tour. You pay it upfront on every t-shirt, CD, cassette, poster etc, then claim back what you haven’t sold at a later date. There was a time a few years ago, that the sale of merchandise was what ultimately made the tour financially viable. I don’t know if that’s still the case. The last time I performed in Paris I took cassettes with me, the sale of those paid for my Airbnb. It mostly seems to be this and the carnet that artists - including well known artists - are complaining about. It’s not just the artist that I have sympathy for. There’s a few people I follow on social media, who are quite openly saying that it’s going to seriously impact their foreign touring - someone on Facebook shared a post from Fish, the ex-singer from Marillion. These artists have a very loyal fan base, the highlight of their year is often - for a variety of reasons - seeing their favourite artist on tour. It’s extremely upsetting for them too. So it’s not just us, the musician that’s affected by this.

That was to do with quotas and other things. The problem they’re facing now is selling what they catch - we sell 70% of our catch into Europe. It used to be that it was caught one day, and would be in the foreign fish market the following morning - all nice and fresh. Now it’s caught one day and spends the rest of the week sitting on a dock. If you see my post above suggesting a mass bass solo outside Parliament, that’s inspired by a guy who’s threatening to dump hundreds of tonnes of rotten langoustine outside parliament. Scottish trawlers aren’t leaving port, there’s no point.

When the minister for fish admits that she was too busy organising a nativity play to read the trade deal - bearing in mind that fishing was a big part of this whole malarkey - then what chance does an industry that they don’t care about got?

Nightlife? The only thing around here that currently has a nightlife is my tabby cat. The local rodent population is rather wishing his was as curtailed as that of the human population.

I’m of no help to you I’m afraid, but I find this 3D printing thing fascinating.

Oooh, fishy. This guy is threatening to dump tonnes of rotten langoustines and other seafood outside the Houses of Parliament, unless the UK government solves the industry’s Brexit exports crisis. It’s actually this kind of thing that might work to help everyone. With Covid restrictions in place, people are obviously limited to how they can protest. Maybe when the restrictions are lifted, musicians could arrange for a hundred or so bagpipe players to play outside number 10 from 6am every day? From 9am it’d be the bassist’s turn, 100 bassists joining in with a mass bass solo. We’d keep the mass drum solo in reserve - kind of a nuclear option.

You need to read what a lot of quite successful artists are saying about it. The visa aspect is just one part of many other things that now need to be done. Plus it’s a separate visa for each country. As far as I’m concerned - and many others - we simply won’t be able to perform abroad anymore. The events we played at simply can’t afford the extra expenditure, or hassle. It’s an extremely selfish act, and to my mind at least, utterly pointless.

For me and a great many I know, it’s just been a case of jumping on a Eurostar - that’s for friends coming from mainland Europe too.

I suspect the fat controller is loathe to do anything that allows people from other countries to have freer access to the U.K. Which is what would happen if he implemented what was previously proposed.

A socially distanced, mask wearing Shadows tribute.

Though I’m guessing that by the time May rolls up, we’ll have the fat controller and the daily Mail screaming at us to get back out there, regardless of how many new cases are being diagnosed each day.

I guess May might be on the cards, as long as every member of the band is over the age of 80, and you’re playing to audiences also over the age of 80. They’ve put back the second vaccination to three months, so my parents who received their first jab today, will just about have received their second dose. I seriously doubt many of those who either play or attend gigs, will have even received their first vaccination by May. Social distancing will undoubtedly be with us long into 2021.

I’m not sure I’d risk a plastic one. Have you asked them what kind of weight it will carry? I just bought this. I think it’s fantastic, it’ll certainly take the weight of even the heaviest bass. I just need someone to fix it to the wall for me.

The head of the CBSO was saying similar on TV a while ago. Of course a symphony orchestra doesn’t travel alone, like a rock band they have all manner of support staff travelling with them. There’s also opera companies, ballet companies too. They’re not sitting at home when they aren’t performing in London or Birmingham. These various cultural enterprises have a fantastic reputation abroad, they’re ambassadors for the country. What a sad loss if they’re prevented from continuing.

I have it on good authority, that you can use sovereignty as a substitute for any other ingredient in a recipe.

I believe it’s partly a culture war - I’m not the only person saying that either, I’m reading more and more people saying similar - they hate the arts, they don’t like artists, and they really dislike musicians.

https://www.ey.com/en_uk/news/2020/09/ey-financial-services-brexit-tracker-fs-firms-continue-moving-staff-ahead-of-brexit-deadline

I believe from what I’ve read elsewhere, that you need to apply to each country that you’re visiting. It wouldn’t solve the carnet issue, neither would it solve the VAT issue - payable upfront on entry to each country on merchandise.

This was reported in most papers last week. https://www.irishtimes.com/business/markets/eu-share-trading-flees-london-on-first-day-after-full-brexit-1.4450561?mode=amp