TimR

I think the thing to remember is that it only takes one person to see you pocketing a wad of cash after a gig to make a call to the TAX office. Then you are stuck with trying to prove that you haven't made any money. The onus is on you to prove you didn't make any money rather than on them to prove you did. I think it's still one of those rare guilty until proven innocent areas of life. The TAX office can look at your nice shiny toys, and villa in Spain and say well you only earn £x,000 from your day job and potentially you could earn £y,000 from gigging so you owe us £z,000. Pay up now! I think you get 30days or something ridiculously stupid like that. Your best defence is to keep a gig diary of every gig you do and how much you get paid. Then you'll get an idea of how much you're earning pretty quickly. Keep all your reciepts and write them in the diary too. Think this is how the caught Al Capone, so be careful, if it does start mounting up, pay the TAX. At least when they come knocking you have some evidence that you're not earning as much as they think. I can't see the point of trying to claim back a couple of hundred quid on your PAYE tax, I would rather try to stay under the radar and spend my time earning more money then messing around dealing with the TAX office. Anyone tried calling them lately? Their telephone options list is horrendous. Also, I always go into a back room or side coridoor when dealing with the money. I gave my drummer an earful once when he walked up to the stage at the end of a new years eve gig flashing around a couple of grand in used fivers and started counting it out and divvying it up in front of the people leaving the gig. Very Bad Form.

You only pay tax on profit. If you spend as much on consumables as you get paid for gigs you don't make a profit. However, if you buy an amp or bass. This is capital expenditure. You can only claim it as an expenditure after you sell it. If you sell it for less then the difference is an expense. If you sell it for more then the difference is income.

So. How did the conversation work out. If it's anything like the conversation I had, everyone will agree then you'll get an email the next day where someone has had a rethink and you have to explain everything to them all over again.

You have to show that you are trying to make money out of it. AFAIK if you fail to make a decent profit 5 years in a row they view it as a hobby.

I think you'll find it's for VAT reasons. If they're paying you cash they need to cover themselves. Don't worry about it. Just keep a copy. Unless you make £100 a week it's unlikely that you turn a profit from gigging.

Rather than ranting here or voting with your feet. Your best course of action would be to tell the venue what you think. That way another venue doesn't go down without knowing why people aren't going. Is it the venue? Or do they have an in house engineer who is no good? Or maybe they don't and should have an in house engineer?

Even more reason for the guitarist to buy the PA and hire it to the band/duo.

[quote name='ThomBassmonkey' timestamp='1337606722' post='1662613'] ... Taking money from gigs before it's been given to members, though essentially the same, feels different. As long as expenses are covered and the money's going towards getting better gigs, it shouldn't be an issue to take the money from band earnings. [/quote] This is what I've said from the start. If you agree to do a gig as a bass player for £40 and the band leader can get £250 for the gig then you're not missing that £10 are you? If you want £50 then the leader should quote £300 and not be quoting £250 and then asking you for the £10.

Or hire the band's one

A singer only needs a 300w PA. If the band is any louder than that you need to start micing other kit up.

That's the difference between being in a partnership and being a member. A partner has to be bought out by the other partners/new partner. A member just leaves.... The Market value is the important part there. Cables get lost, cones split, amps blow up. Just because you spend £5k on PA over 10 years doesn't mean you get £1k back when you leave. If the PA is worth £500 you get £100. Which is why I say write it off against gig money.

That's about the size of it. Although with 70 gigs a year you can afford to spread that increased cost across all clients. That way you have the same PA for all gigs and don't have all the additional worry and hassle that goes along with hiring. I still don't see why people think that they are paying or contributing towards the cost of the PA. This should be a basic overhead. Some gigs (like pub gigs) there won't be anything to pay the overheads as you need to pay the musicians, other gigs like weddings, there should be lots. It all stems from the musicians believing that they are entitled to 1/xth of the money that the band is going out for and it should be split equally.

70 gigs a year at £50 a gig is £3500. You could get a reasonable PA for that.

Ok. The PA isn't just used to make stuff louder. You have 4 vocals, need to be louder than amplified instruments and drums. You have guitar, doesn't need to be louder but putting it through the PA makes it clearer to people further back. Keys, same as guitar. Horn, again loud enough if you stand in front if it but you need PA to distribute it more evenly. Guitar and keys are fine through backline at small gigs but floor level amps won't carry to the audience at bigger gigs. In your situation you should agree a minimum fee (each) that you will play for. Then you add extra for PA. The duo get a loan and buy the gear and pay back the loan. That loan could come from you or the bank. After the loan is paid off the extra money goes into a pot to maintain the PA. If the band splits this money is split. The PA is owned by the band and is written off after it has been paid for. No one owns 'part' of it. The punter contributed towards it not the members of the band.

I think the main thing to establish is whether you are a band or whether you are just musicians supporting the duo. If it's the latter then the duo should be paying you a set fee to perform and taking money from the gigs to pay for their overheads. They should also be up front about it. That way when anyone leaves they're not owed anything and don't owe anything. The grey area is when you consider yourself a band with everyone on equal status. Which it never is. People's personal situations have a habit of suddenly changing when you least expect it.

[quote name='markstuk' timestamp='1337593459' post='1662318'] As a keys player, playing keys through a small PA makes as much sense as playing bass through one.... [/quote] Exactly. Which is why this is leaning towards a big PA and not just a vocal PA. 15"s or even subs....

For me it's the initial cost. Who is going to loan the band the money to buy the PA. It doesn't make sense for everyone to chip in a bit because then no one owns anything. As soon as the PA leaves the shop it's halved in value. The problem is that there is an 'illusion of worth'. A PA exists and so it must be worth some money. If everyone has the attitude that it's just a cost, like fuel, or advertising that has to be paid for it becomes a bit simpler. It's a pile of electronics that no one owns and the punter pays for. No one in the band is paying for it because it should be covered in the band's fee.

It's because as I said earlier. It starts off as just a vocal PA but has the potential to become a lot more. Already they want to put keys through it. The next step is harmonica or acoustic guitar.

Exactly. As I say. One person owns it. Anyone who benifits from it pays towards hire from it. Period. If I rented a house for 25 years and then turned around to the landlord and said well I've paid for it now, it's mine I think he would laugh at me. You may well start off using it as vocals only. Then the vocalist should buy it. Eventually though someone will want to put keys through it, then harmonica, then a bit of kick drum and ohh can I just put a bit of top end for my guitar and I think we could with some subs.....

If anyone complains about the £50 I just say fine you buy a PA and we'll pay you. You can store it and bring it to the gig, and put up with the wife complaining about the space it takes up at home.

%ages gets fiddly. I got fed up with hiring gear, reserving it, picking it up on gig day, taking it back next day, worrying whether itcwould work etc. I bought a PA. I hire it to the band. If it fails I fix it or replace bits. I add parts as time goes on. I charge the band £50 everytime. This is mainly justified by the extra time I spend loading, unloading, fixing bits, storage etc. After 10 years I now have a PA that should have paid for itself several times over but I suspect hasn't due to the bits I've added and replaced. Not including my free time I've spent fixing and ordering new cables etc. The one thing everyone forgets when buying a PA is all the bits. Sure, packages with mixer amp, speakers and stands look cheap but that's just basic starters....

It depends on what you mean by learn. Most bands I've ever played with have had chord charts to rehearse with even if they've insisted you play gigs without them. So a full knowledge of the tunes with charts to follow isn't exactly learning them but is 'knowing' them.

That's assuming that it was the bass guitar that was causing the 'bass' that was too loud. Ideally at every gig you should have someone wander round the audience to listen to the sound from different places. It's obviously not always possible.

Just illustrating the scale. If I'm doing a gig and my wife is out, I can drop my kids round at a friend's. Life is a huge compromise. If people are unwilling to compromise they shouldn't get married and they certainly shouldn't have kids.

That's not a skill. If you are a registered childminder there are all sorts of provisions you have to make. This depends on age of child and what type of care you are providing. For pre-schoolers this is everything from a basic teaching program to locks and catches etc That's not what is required here. Basic CRB for someone being employed but a family friend doesn't need to provide anything.