Is the cost of living crushing music?

[Lozz196]

16 minutes ago, Bassfinger said:

My Daughter's music teacher is called Mr Starr.  I expect he's heard all the jokes.

Hamster sandwiches?

[peteb]

5 hours ago, TimR said:

 

I'm not sure this is true. It's very difficult to keep a vehicle running for less than £400 a month. However you slice that pie, £5k a year seems to be about the rate money disappears on any vehicle I've ever owned. Insurance, tax, MOT, servicing, repairs, depreciation etc.

 

 

I think that you're seeing the world through your own rather singular life experience again. One of the few positives about the past few decades for the average working person is that the cost of motoring is much more affordable than it used to be when I was young and you can buy a perfectly decent secondhand car for a few grand. I run a perfectly good car (an old hi-spec Volvo V50 estate) that gets me to gigs up and down the country for a lot less than £5k a year. 

 

[TimR]

16 minutes ago, peteb said:

 

I think that you're seeing the world through your own rather singular life experience again. One of the few positives about the past few decades for the average working person is that the cost of motoring is much more affordable than it used to be when I was young and you can buy a perfectly decent secondhand car for a few grand. I run a perfectly good car (an old hi-spec Volvo V50 estate) that gets me to gigs up and down the country for a lot less than £5k a year. 

 

 

 

I had a car for 2 months recently. My insurance alone was over £50 a month. The VED - £15 a month. MoTs are close on £50 a year now.

 

An oil and filter change, even if you do it yourself is going to be close on £200 a year. 

 

Then you are losing money on depreciation that you need to put away into savings ready to buy your next car. 

 

I really don't think people realise how much they're spending on their cars. It's one of those slow drip things.

 

HMRCC allow 45p a mile for a reason. 

Edited January 7 by TimR

[la bam]

What I meant by starting off is starting off completely from scratch. Ie straight out of school with nothing. 

 

So, for one, car insurance or van insurance..... Costs thousands for a youngster nowadays, and I mean literally thousands. 

 

A van or car, (I was thinking the old style 'band van') are ridiculously expensive since covid. Have a look around at van prices. 

 

Mortgage, forget it. They need thousands in savings to even apply for a mortgage. 

 

Rent? Hundreds a month, most cost more than a mortgage. 

 

Council tax rising all the time. Food and drink spiraling. 

 

So, starting with nothing, you (in my opinion) you really can't give being in a band a go with all your effort, or even Potter around the country staying in digs whilst gigging. You can't even doss around in b and bs etc on any kind of 'band' income. What's a hotel now? £80 a night minimum? 

 

Therefore so many who may have been able to give it a go, don't. Which is a shame. 

 

 

 

[peteb]

6 minutes ago, TimR said:

 

 

I had a car for 2 months recently. My insurance alone was over £50 a month. The VED - £15 a month. MoTs are close on £50 a year now.

 

An oil and filter change, even if you do it yourself is going to be close on £200 a year. 

 

Then you are losing money on depreciation that you need to put away into savings ready to buy your next car. 

 

I really don't think people realise how much they're spending on their cars. It's one of those slow drip things.

 

HMRCC allow 45p a mile for a reason. 

 

I don't dispute what you say, yet I am running a 2l diesel estate for not much more than half your £5k figure. The main difference is the depreciation - I tend to buy highish mileage cars in good condition for around £5k, run them for ten years or so and then sell them for a grand. These days, it is perfectly possible to run an OK car reasonably cheaply. 

 

[peteb]

3 minutes ago, la bam said:

What I meant by starting off is starting off completely from scratch. Ie straight out of school with nothing. 

 

So, for one, car insurance or van insurance..... Costs thousands for a youngster nowadays, and I mean literally thousands. 

 

A van or car, (I was thinking the old style 'band van') are ridiculously expensive since covid. Have a look around at van prices. 

 

Mortgage, forget it. They need thousands in savings to even apply for a mortgage. 

 

Rent? Hundreds a month, most cost more than a mortgage. 

 

Council tax rising all the time. Food and drink spiraling. 

 

So, starting with nothing, you (in my opinion) you really can't give being in a band a go with all your effort, or even Potter around the country staying in digs whilst gigging. You can't even doss around in b and bs etc on any kind of 'band' income. What's a hotel now? £80 a night minimum? 

 

Therefore so many who may have been able to give it a go, don't. Which is a shame. 

 

 

 

 

No one is doubting (assuming that they have a clue about the world) that it is much more difficult for kids these days compared to when I was young. 

 

[OliverBlackman]

1 hour ago, SumOne said:

^^^

Music is still on the curriculum. 

 

"Music forms part of the national curriculum from key stage one to key stage three. This means all maintained schools must teach music from the ages of five to 14." 

 

(and past that, can do it as GCSE) 

 

https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/access-to-music-education-in-schools/#:~:text=Music forms part of the national curriculum from key stage,ages of five to 14.

I stand corrected. Here’s hoping that doesn’t change. 

[peteb]

5 hours ago, gjones said:

My niece has her own Indie band. She's been in the UK charts but makes very little money from selling her music (Her music has streamed ten million times on Spotify in the last 10 years but the annual income that has produced is the equivalent of the average salary of a lollipop lady). She can't play in the EU any more due to the visa restrictions and legal hurdles Brexit created, therefore she's had to apply for Irish citizenship (her grandmother was Irish) so that she can play gigs in the EU in the future (her band will have to stay at home because they only have UK passports).

 

Making an income from original music is very difficult these days.

 

Unfortunately, this is true. Gone are the days when you could pop on the ferry to Holland or Belgium (or even Spain) at a moments notice to play a weekend / week of club and / or bar gigs and come back with a few grand in your pocket. 

 

5 hours ago, TimR said:

Many EU countries have exemptions for artists. Check the Musicains Union. 

 

The visa is the least of your problems. The carnet, taking merch across borders and other restrictions all add up and generally make it untenable. 

 

[PaulThePlug]

King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizards...

Brighton @ £35... Son (15) is a fan and won me over with weirdness... £70, 'Spoons Dinner and a Pint £25, Petrol... and not gonna do all that and say no to a T Shirt for him... Gotta have some fun!.. but just can't do it as often as i would like. SO good to have these times with him.

[TheGreek]

Isn't this the same for anybody pursuing a dream? Athletes, footballers, sportsmen in general have to invest in themselves. Some make it, some don't. Nothing has changed there. Loads of people have stories of being skint musicians.

It's never been easier to be a musician - promoting your own wares is simple compared to pre Internet - producing something that will sell , now that's the trick.

[la bam]

42 minutes ago, peteb said:

 

I don't dispute what you say, yet I am running a 2l diesel estate for not much more than half your £5k figure. The main difference is the depreciation - I tend to buy highish mileage cars in good condition for around £5k, run them for ten years or so and then sell them for a grand. These days, it is perfectly possible to run an OK car reasonably cheaply. 

 

 

Not if you're young. Insurance is a nightmare. Then there's tax and this ulez thing for older cars too. 

[la bam]

5 minutes ago, TheGreek said:

Isn't this the same for anybody pursuing a dream? Athletes, footballers, sportsmen in general have to invest in themselves. Some make it, some don't. Nothing has changed there. Loads of people have stories of being skint musicians.

It's never been easier to be a musician - promoting your own wares is simple compared to pre Internet - producing something that will sell , now that's the trick.

 

It probably is the same. And that's a shame. The fact most are even put off before giving it a go is the biggest shame of all. 

 

The rising costs of everything, and the dramatic decrease in what bands on the circuit get paid. 

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

Elvis will always be gigging 

[fretmeister]

My adult kids tell me that current pop music is excellent.

 

Seems it might be subjective.

[ambient]

2 hours ago, SumOne said:

^^^

Music is still on the curriculum. 

 

"Music forms part of the national curriculum from key stage one to key stage three. This means all maintained schools must teach music from the ages of five to 14." 

 

(and past that, can do it as GCSE) 

 

https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/access-to-music-education-in-schools/#:~:text=Music forms part of the national curriculum from key stage,ages of five to 14.

 

Indeed, but it's surprising the number of students I meet at work who didn't study music at secondary school. 

[TimR]

23 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

My adult kids tell me that current pop music is excellent.

 

Seems it might be subjective.

 

Was always true. 

 

Looking back at the 80s, I'm kind of wondering why all the fantastic music we used to listen to sounds like utter rubbish now. 😁

[peteb]

31 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

My adult kids tell me that current pop music is excellent.

 

Seems it might be subjective.

 

I've just been to a friend's birthday last night and was talking to his and his mate's 20 something sons (one of whom is working on tours with household name acts as a lighting engineer). They both prefer the music that I grew up with - If anything, the younger one seems like music that was a little bit before my time...! 

 

Edited January 7 by peteb

[Dan Dare]

1 hour ago, peteb said:

I don't dispute what you say, yet I am running a 2l diesel estate for not much more than half your £5k figure. The main difference is the depreciation - I tend to buy highish mileage cars in good condition for around £5k, run them for ten years or so and then sell them for a grand. These days, it is perfectly possible to run an OK car reasonably cheaply. 

 

Are you really motoring for £2.5k a year all in? As Tim points out, motoring is one of those drip-drip expenses that builds up to a tidy sum over the months without you realising it. £5k works out at only £100 per week. As an all-up cost, that's not a lot. If you're covering some miles in a 2 litre estate, how much are you spending on fuel? My car is 2.4 petrol and I live in the country, so I use it quite a bit. I'm spending at least £50 a week on fuel, often more.

 

Like you, I buy old cars for cash (so no loan repayments), do my own servicing and keep them on the road as long as I can, but even then it works out at around £100 a week all in by the time I've factored in insurance, VED, repairs I can't do myself, etc, which is the figure Tim stated.

[peteb]

5 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

 

Are you really motoring for £2.5k a year all in? As Tim points out, motoring is one of those drip-drip expenses that builds up to a tidy sum over the months without you realising it. £5k works out at only £100 per week. As an all-up cost, that's not a lot. If you're covering some miles in a 2 litre estate, how much are you spending on fuel? My car is 2.4 petrol and I live in the country, so I use it quite a bit. I'm spending at least £50 a week on fuel, often more.

 

Like you, I buy old cars for cash (so no loan repayments), do my own servicing and keep them on the road as long as I can, but even then it works out at around £100 a week all in by the time I've factored in insurance, VED, repairs I can't do myself, etc, which is the figure Tim stated.

 

I'm spending about £2.6k on running the car (this is an 'all in' figure for normal mileage - not counting additional diesel costs for long haul gigs, but including Green Flag cover) plus maybe about a grand or so on servicing / MOT / repairs. 

 

[Dad3353]

When I started playing, mid-late 60's, I had no money (as an apprentice; £6 a week...). I was given, free, a run-down Thames 15cwt van, which I got running from the scrapyard, and went several years with no insurance, road tax, MOT or what-have-you. Obviously I was very careful to not get caught, but the old bus wouldn't have reached 'speeding' speeds, anyway..! I built my own SS amp from electronic magazine schemas, buying speakers and stuff from Tottenham Court Road and Exchange & Mart. We had no money but made 'our' music as best we could. Happy Daze. 

[Lozz196]

Looking back to the 80s when I started playing and when I got into my first proper band in 87 at the age of 21:

 

Bass - Yamaha BB1100s. Cost £450, on HP.

Amp - Laney 1x15 Linebacker. Cost £260, on HP.

Employment status - Fully employed, salary was £4750 so £400 a month before deductions.

Living status - at my Mums.

Transport - car at the time was broken and couldn’t afford to fix it. Used to get to rehearsals & gigs with the band leader doing a round-robin and picking us all up/dropping us all off in a van that was probably unfit for even the scrapyard.

 

It was a great time.

 

 

 

[JoeEvans]

It would be a bad year for my car to cost me £2.5k ex fuel. I reckon on more like £2k a year for MOT, service, repairs, VED and insurance. No depreciation for me, the car was very cheap five years ago so nothing left to depreciate ... 

[tegs07]

The biggest problem is the cost of accommodation. Low rent areas in most cities have been gentrified and even really dodgy areas are expensive. In many cities that have a creative hub even those earning a decent income with secure jobs have difficulty paying their rent until they have several years experience and a couple of promotions. 

Edited January 7 by tegs07

[tegs07]

10 hours ago, Burns-bass said:

I’m lucky to live in a city like Bristol where live music is everywhere. The costs of living here are insane. 
 

To illustrate, the cost to rent a single room in a shared house on my street (£600) is equivalent to a mortgage payment when we bought the 4 bed house (in 2013).

 

Couple massive demand from students and young professionals with a buoyant BTL sector and you get a housing crisis - which is what Bristol is experiencing at the moment. 
 

Yet they’re still out there doing it and I’m massively impressed.

 

From the young people I meet doing gigs and who I play with, music isn’t ever going to be a full time career. Arguably they’re much more commercially savvy and less egotistical than (from what I’ve heard) musicians were in the 70s and 80s. And if my mates are playing in a band, I’ll still go (don’t like lager)
 

To the young music makers: I salute you!

 

Yep. Remember when St Werbergs, Montpellier, Southville etc were cheap rent? Same with Kemptown, areas around The Level in Brighton or Camden Town or Nottinghill in London??

 

Same pattern throughout the country. 

 

[Burns-bass]

8 hours ago, tegs07 said:

Yep. Remember when St Werbergs, Montpellier, Southville etc were cheap rent? Same with Kemptown, areas around The Level in Brighton or Camden Town or Nottinghill in London??

 

Same pattern throughout the country. 

 

I’d obviously read about gentrification and how it erases existing communities and replaces them, now I’m seeing it first hand - and it’s pretty crazy here.

 

It’s the paradox of it, too. People (like me) came here because living costs were low, there was always a party going on, and the city was full of artists and interesting people.

 

Now it’s becoming one massive middle class paradise. On one hand, I still love it, and on the other feel a bit sad.
 

Of course, that’s an indulgence as I’ve massively benefitted from the process of gentrification (and obviously played my part).