TimR

@BigRedX The Irish governement decided. You applied and if you met certain criteria you were given one of the 2000 trial places. It worked, or at least it reprotedly has worked. It seems to me to just be a shift in 'benefits' to low paid workers, but it does allow them to be productive and examples given show the artists are generating more revenue for other people than they're recieving themselves.

I think we are getting away from my point. Artist Universal Income has been introduced to subsidise artists because attendance has dropped off due to the effects of the pandemic. A lot of my friends play in London. A lot of people would stay around affer work for a meal, a beer and a gig. Now, if you're working from home, its a trip to London after work into London. Only very keen people are going to do that. That's not limited to London, that is going on all over the country.

Normal - what most people do. At one time everyone bought lunch in the works canteen and sat around talking instead of sitting working at their desk eating a sandwich. (Which is also now normal behaviour) Not everyone has to buy lunch every day. It's a numbers game. But if everyone is working from home, no one is buying lunch and all the money is going to the big Supermarkets. Fine, if you all want to sit at home, not spending money and isolated from social interaction, do that. But don't complain that people aren't comming to your gigs, because sitting at home on your own is habbit forming.

That's certainly not normal. 68% of people commute by car amd the average commute time is 28minutes... Figures for September 2025 show lunchtume dining up 5% and up 7% on Fridays. People are slowly coming back.

As far as I can tell, a lot of people in their 50s decided that they don't actually have to work anymore and retired early, and downsized. There are also huge numbers of people injured by the pandemic who mentally and physically cannot work. There are also people working from home - at least one day a week. This reduces income to all the support workers - cleaners, coffee shops, sandwich shops, transport. Evening entertainers and pubs who would busy all week are quiet on Fridays. This ultimately affects the country's productivity. If you can guarantee someone some kind of income regardless of how much work they do, then you move them from being on benefits and they become a productive member of society. People who don't work are a net drain on society. This is the aim of the Artists Universal Benefit, to keep them performing and drag the arts back to where they should be following the pandemic. It needs to be done in conjunctuion with tax breaks to venues, and support for them, until people start coming out of their homes again. Its the tech giants who have manipulated people to be addicted to smart phones that need to be put in check, not only are they making obscene profits, but they're destroying the 'community'.

There is a lot more information here. Essentially it's not a Universal Basic Income scheme. https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-and-sport/campaigns/basic-income-for-the-arts-pilot-scheme/ https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-and-sport/publications/basic-income-for-the-arts-pilot-scheme-your-questions-answered/

Sounds just like a more efficient way of subsidising the Arts. The artists still have to apply for a 'grant', but that effictively cuts out the large, possibly wasteful*, organistations. *Assuming you don't consider the government as a large, wasteful organisation.

Yes. I was just more concerned for their dummer's health...

They all died in horrific on-stage accidents. Just sayin'.

Sounds very much to me like you've joined a real life version of Spinal Tap. What's their turnover of drummers like?

That would have put me on my guard from the off. Better off adding to their ever expanding list of ex-bassplayers.

There's a big difference. The Crown Court can impose harsher penalties and you will be up before a Judge as opposed to someone volunteering from the community with little to no previous grounding in law.

The SM58 was standard because touring bands could get one from the muisc shop in the nearest town the next morning. The Sennheizers are much more transparent. I have a pair of E... can't remember exact model. I suspect most vocalists are used to how their voice sounds through an SM58, regardless of how good they sound through other 'better' mics. We did an A/B comparison in the band I was in when I first bought them, but didn't do it blind. The singer preferred the Sure.

Quite. That's the whole pupose of the rehearsal. Although, as @Stub Mandrel alludes to above regarding skills a dep requires, altering what you're playing to fit the 'talents' of the other members is a skill we all should have if we want to play in bands. We are musicians, being able to 'paint by numbers' doesn't make you a musician. Even classical orchaestras have to rehearse and change what they've 'practiced at home' to fit what the conductor wants and they have specific charted out parts.

Is there a shoe forum I'm missing where people with no shoes who want to learn how to walk go?

I guess some of us are more altruistic than others. I have freinds who would only sell things for market value, there are no friends in business. I have other friends who would give away things. Its really only a problem to me if I 'gave' something to someone beliveing they would look after it and care for it, only for them to sell it next day. I lent one friend something I'd used twice it was effectively brand new and still in the pristine box. When he (eventually after a lot of nagging) returned it, it was scratched and scuffed and the box was lost. I won't be lending him anything ever again.

Only under very severe cicumstances. Death or hell freezing over being the main two.

Morally it is wrong. Selling on BassChat means you're selling the bass to a fellow bass player in the (mistaken) idea that they're buying it to play. In a lot of cases you're prepared to let it go for a lower price as you're fairly confident in the above. If the market place begins to get inhabited by people flipping basses then the bargains will disappear and as a community we will be worse off for it. Name and shame and don't sell them anything again. However, if you've said it needs work and have lowered the price to reflect that, the buyer spends a morning sorting electrics, neck relief, action, cleans it, sticks new strings on it and then sells, where anyone else may not have the skills or time (like you didn't) to fix those things, then there's no issue. In summary, it depends why you let it go for less than the market value.

Often you'll get a call in the morning to play the gig that evening. You're not getting a rehearsal, you'll be lucky to get a set list. If the band says "We do this exactly as the original,", nine times out of ten, you'll have played it with a band before who also play it "exactly as the original", and neither bands will.

They would say that wouldn't they. Anyway, it was June 6th 2025, and I missed it, so I'll wait until 2035 now.

Were you coming along to a band where the arrangements were already sorted? Did they give you charts or a recording of the band playing their versions?

It's unrealistic. Every band I've been in that's tried that comes unstruck rapidly and I've been playing in bands for 40+ years. Even depping you will come pretty unstuck if you've learned the tunes off rote and expect to play the line you learned at home, or played in a previous band. See my post above. It's why live music is so much better than recordings.

Until you rehearse something, you don't know what needs work. That's the whole object of a rehearsal.

We play modern pop/rock but we just have singer/guitar/bass/drums. No brass, strings, keys etc. So we have to be very creative with the arrangements and usually just keep the chord structure, form and signature parts. It means that often the guitar and bass aren't playing what's on the reference recording. So initially we will listen to the reference and pick out what we think will work and the first few band practices will be just jamming round the chords to see what works. It's not feasable to learn the parts or practice them at home and then hope what you have learned fits what the rest of the band are playing. Rehearsals are different to practices. They're when we have nailed the parts and are ready to gig them. A gig is worth a thousand rehearsals. I have played in bands where everyone has gone away and 'learned' their part from the 'orginal recording' and it's been a very frustrating experience, espescially if one member insists other players aren't playing it right, or I've spent hours learning something exactly as per the record only for it to just not work with the band and be shelved.

We have a gig 15th November. Last time we played together was at last gig on 7th June. We have a rehearsal tonight. No idea what we will do. Hopefully run through the first set and make notes of what might need revisting before the gig.