project_c

I do a regular small bar gig with a Genz Shuttle combo, the smallest one with the 1x8 speaker, works like a champ and the other musicians love the tone. I have no guitars to compete with but there's keys, drums and a horn section so it still gets relatively loud for a tiny bar.

I'm on a hunt for a 70's style jazz bass neck, and these look nice and they're cheap as chips, has anyone ever bought a neck from this seller by any chance?

British hip hop and rap. Gunshot from 1990 Task Force from early 2000s and Roots Manuva of course

Katie Hopkins has a 'craft'? What an incredible shining talent. I hope nobody kicks her in her enormous hairy balls. Also I think you're misinterpreting the overall tone of this thread. As I said right at the start, I know it's not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, sometimes it's just good to have an over the top rant about things which are annoying. It's funny. Even if it does open up the topic to things which have more serious implications, which are interesting to discuss. (Maybe not for 7 pages though. You've said I was old and bitter 842 times now). Anyway i'm off to Bingo to shout at people and wee myself, I'll leave you to enjoy your My Little Pony movie and Davie fretless djent slap videos.

I've got a gig with a jazz trio tomorrow night, I'm going to use that Korean lady as a source of inspiration and put on a pretty dress, and throw up a gallon of milk all over myself during my bass solo for "My Funny Valentine". It will add some much needed 'pizazz' to an otherwise mediocre performance.

Sure, making money has never been that easy. All I'm really saying is it's sad if the only people making money from music are children's party clowns, while all that music culture we value so much evaporates. I'll never get how that is a good thing. PewDiePie and his musical equivalents are not a cultural phenomenon, or an evolution, they're symbols of cultural decline, right up there with Kanye West, The Only Way is Essex, Katie Hopkins and every other shouty attention seeking knob head out there. These people should not be celebrated, they should be kicked in the balls. In my view anyway.

You're essentially saying that historically, creativity is not perceived to have any intrinsic value, which is not true. Societies have defined themselves through the arts for thousands of years. Have you ever been to a museum or gallery? It's full of 'art' things which people consider to be of immense value. Music is a form of self expression, and it's a complex form of communication, which we as a species tend to really like and find important. It's not quite the same as growing a big marrow, which is essentially just what it is, a big marrow. Without creative thinking to help us get ideas and evolve, we'd still be throwing our own faeces at each other in caves. (Some of us still do, and i'm sure it's a lot of fun). It's a common misconception that artists are just farting around like a bunch of fairies, while clever people make machines and houses. The fact is those clever but bland people need the ideas of creative people, and equally those creative people need the clever people to give them direction and make sense of their weird garbled ideas. When creativity is undervalued, you end up with unhappy and bland societies who are stupid and depressed. Artists make a valuable contribution to societies so I personally think it's better when artists are able to make a living and feed their kids.

Funnily enough I follow certain aspects of the electronic music scene very closely, because I used to be involved with it prior to playing bass. The problem is really not dullness - there is some crazy new electronic music out there, the problem is making a living from it. The whole notion of a group of friends or a small scene getting together and generating an income from making tunes, putting them out on a small home-run independent label and putting on nights to promote that stuff is so much more difficult now than it used to be. It's easier in terms of the technology, sure - making music is easier, getting your music and information to people is easier. Generating an income from that however - one that will pay your mortgage and feed a family - that is much more difficult than it used to be.

yeah sort of, although I was thinking more up the other end, like a small burp which unexpectedly triggers a belching gastric puke.

Just because I'm angry doesn't mean I'm angry because I happen to be older than you, that's just an overly simple and p!ss weak answer to this that obviously makes you feel better, but in turn I could turn around and say that everything you've said about this subject comes across as naive and misguided. People will love or hate any number of things regardless of age. If it sounds like a diatribe to you, i'm ok with that, I have no desire to persuade you otherwise. You carry on enjoying that thought, I'll carry on thinking these people are chumps. Next time you sit down to play your psychedelic progressive whatever, have a think about where that music actually came from, and whether any of the people that wrote your favourite music would even stand a chance to get heard today. I cant believe we squeezed so much out of this thread to be honest, it was only meant to be a mini rant.

I would respond to this but my arthritic legs won't let me get out of this mobility scooter to wave my walking stick at you. Also my colostomy bag has just burst and I can't remember where I live.

He would be fine. He is basically Kanye West.

ps. one more thing re the independent record labels of the 90s: the point was that you could do interesting things musically and live comfortably off of that. Reaching a global audience through the internet is great, but if you still have to stack shelves in Matalan to pay the rent on your damp basement flat in Slough, it's ultimately meaningless. Here's a recent article about how most current mid- and high-level bands having to rely on day jobs to survive: https://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/article/6x8qv3/our-favourite-bands-and-their-day-jobs

So as a 28 year old, you actually have zero actual personal experience of how music and culture worked in the pre-internet era, and have even less of a clue about subculture / diy culture etc, you're just here to defend YouTube dicks. I'm older, but I'm not gonna sh!t my pants about getting called old, just because I question the validity of something contemporary. I think these party trick clowns are twats, and they reflect the general twattishness of this era. For the record I spend half my life amongst people in their 20s because I teach at an art colllege, so I know there are good things going on culturally, but I also know that these YouTube chumps are no reflection of that. I am pointing out that they are dicks, because they are dicks. And believe it or not, lots of 22 year olds also think they're dicks. Just try to look at it like this: music as a form of culture used to be interesting and important (to me anyway), because it was weird, and angry, and rebellious, and creative, and progressive. And, more importantly, many of those weird, angry, rebellious people became successful, often through subculture and without the help of any mainstream involvement. And in comparison to that, I see this kind of arsehole show off behavior as incredibly lame and laughable and 100% disconnected with what I think of as actual music. That's all it comes down to really. (ps I have nothing against Ibanez, I just think "37 string Ibanez fretless djent slap shred" is funny)

Ok. Let's go through this bit by bit, because you're in danger of out-ranting my rant, and we don't want that. "What are you doing with your music? Who are you reaching out to? Are you happy and fulfilled as a musician? What do you have to say?" a. I don't have to justify that to you, but b. I'm playing music I love with a gigging band in central London, which is perfect for me. c. Yes I'm 100% happy and fulfilled as a musician, but I'll add that I'm not reliant on music for an income. "watch any video of a band from the '60s and tell me that there wasn't any sort of 'look at me douche baggery' going on" Sure, there was douchebaggery going on, music is performance art, it's unavoidable. There was douchebaggery in every genre, but there was also integrity and musical talent which balanced it out. I wasn't alive in the 60s, but the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's were also full of successful musicians who were not OCD idiots poncing around for attention. In the 90's, you could pay a mortgage and feed a family if you ran a small independent record label. Now the ONLY way to make money from music is to be a massive arsehole on YouTube. And you think that's ok. "You have to simply accept that in some capacity you are a bit bitter and probably musically obsolete etc blah blah." I'm 44, how old are you? I have zero bitterness about my own musical achievements, if anything I'm doing better than I thought I would when I first started playing bass. But I do have a thing inside my skull which is called a brain, which allows me to have a critical opinion about things. And you're allowed to do that regardless of age - in fact it could be argued that age and experience gives you a certain amount of authority to speak your mind, because you're potentially more culturally informed than some 17 year old Ibanez-rattling doofus. (Also by the way I hate Motorhead and anything to do with metal, I also hate pretty much 99% of the popular rock music of the 60's, so I have zero nostalgia for any of that). Anyway I'm off to the boozer, but happy to continue this discussion later.

Good point, my mistake.

If the 2 things are the same to you, you and I see music in very different ways. If you want to bring Yoda into this, we can take him as an analogy. On one hand you have the original Yoda, who was wise, powerful and mysterious. Then you have the 'new' Yoda, who is basically a bunch of artificial CG nonsense, doing fanboy-pleasing Yoda clichès, and prancing around the screen wiggling his sword around like a twat. To some, there's no difference, to others there's no comparison.

Not really no. I don't see how he's in any way similar to a teenager slapping some crap manga theme tune on a 36 string ibanez for advertising money.

Fair enough. If I think of him less as a musician and more as a modern day Edd the Duck, it makes me feel better.

This is exactly the point though - is this really how we want it to be? Kids used to get into playing because of the music - as a strong cultural / political force (and also to get girls) - but now we're stuck with having to put up with these clowns tapping Super Mario death metal on a 47 string Ibanez with nothing to say. Apart from "look at me". It's douche baggery on a global scale.

Well it's just a ligh-hearted anger fuelled rant really, it makes for a good discussion. I'm not actually sitting at my computer red-faced and screaming at the screen whilst watching YouTube. But it does bring up interesting issues on a wider scale, about how we see the future of music, and about how we quantify musical value in this age of stupidity.

Just to clarify - I don't watch, i'm just sick of seeing his punchable face popping up in every bass related yt search, like a slap bass goblin from a recurring nightmare. Read the start of the thread. I never said it was an earth shattering problem, just something that bugs the hell out of me. Same applies to the other showoffs. It's like wading through a festival of OCD.

Calm down, it's just a silly analogy. I'm just saying you can't judge quality based on whether it makes someone money or not. Crack is a lucrative business with lots of followers who find it useful, delicious and a tad moreish. If some guy is making millions selling it, it just makes him a clever entrepreneur, so jolly good luck to him?

Go and actually watch some of this stuff and then come back and tell me it's not horrible. Just because something is a 'source of income' it doesn't mean it's automatically good. Selling crack is a source of income.