Rass

As someone who frequented Moshulu until it closed - I agree with some of the above sentiments. It was very good as a club and a venue when I first started going into town (2005-ish) and you would see proper metal heads, goths, punks and people who felt comfortable in that environment. Within a year or so, it seemed like they were increasingly abandoning their key demographic in favour of the things that happened to be popular at the time. Soon, the goths vanished, it was comparatively rare to see anyone in a band t shirt and the average hair length halved.

This proved a completely flawed strategy in the longer run as they lost their loyal customers and attendance soon dropped. Furthermore, both the Monday and Wednesday club nights were cancelled or relaunched without sufficient promotion or longevity. Any future owner would have to be a wee bit more willing to lose money on midweek club nights (at least in the short-medium term) in order to build up a loyal customer base and raise the profile of the business in the longer term. Preferably, they would be competent enough with promotion to build up attendances and not lose money. When I first turned 18, the Wednesday Rock Kareoke in the Basement - followed by a clubnight in Moshulu was extremely well attended. The two parts were linked and I think that is key to their success and decline.

When Barfly bought it over - they instantly booked a number of bands that interested me, upgraded the sound system but unfortunately cancelled the saturday air guitar night in favour of an indie night. This might be understandable considering what the Barfly specialised in (indie music) but this move, combined with many other factors, resulted in more of the key demographic feeling left out. I also recall that there was a move towards booking tribute bands. The basement generally suffered similar declines in attendance as moshulu, as the fate of both parts of it were inevitably linked.

It's cool you have so much to say about the place and i'm glad you remember it for the best part fondly.

Important thing I think you've missed here with regards to Saturday nights & Air Guitar. Moshulu didn't move away from their "Key Demographic", Air Guitar was not a well attended club night. It did well to start but after about 3 months it settled into getting 100 folk through the door most weeks. Saturday nights were always a tricky sell in Moshulu, especially due to the success of Bond*age on the Fridays.

I always find these discussions difficult as one thing I always admired about the RFR days in Moshulu/Bassment was how easy going and approachable all involved were. I remember the club nights being a really good atmosphere as a result. This was always the downfall for me though, the 'Alt' crowd is a fickle (and young) beast, one that the guys always tried to cater for. However on many occasions, no matter how often people would bray for a new night (be it Goth, old school metal, thrash, pop-punk), the actual demand was never there and the night would be canned within a few weeks/months.

I think it's a shame, but because the RFR guys were always so keen to cater to their Friday night crowd everyone would start to treat the place like a social club in someones garage, not a business.

Air Guitar's time had been up for a long time, it frequently didn't make money on a Saturday night, at the risk of upsetting the regulars, mixing it up and bringing in fresh nights had to happen eventually.

I guess basically what I'm getting at is, it's very easy to suggest Moshulu 'sold out' (especially when Barfly came along), but when your customers no longer turn up do you just keep opening week after week and hope they come back or do you make changes.

Cheers,

Ross

Hmmmmm....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZhnTY_tdeU&feature=share

So my launch 60 GB PS3 finally has given up. tbf i've had it for a good few years, 4 maybe?

I've rang playstation and they said they do an exchange (like for like) for about 135. :-(

Does anyone know if this can be fixed for much less than that?

Or i suppose is anyone looking to sell their PS3?

Good effort making it that long with the original beast, im on my third launch gen console now and both times i've shelled out for the reconditioned unit. My advice, if your feeling brave go with the unofficial but cheaper fix, otherwise i think Sony run some kind of program where they give you a newer slim PS3 for cheap in some kind of part exchange for the croaked one. Not sure if theres a problem with the reconditioned units or if its just those early PS3's being prone to cocking up, but i'm on my third one, JimmyB's on his 5th and I know of a few others in pretty similar situations.

Utterly freaking Awesome. The end of the single player just left me in stunned silence. Cannot wait to get back online and fire into the co-op! GLaDOS is still easily my favourite character in years, the writing is awesome.

Oh to answer JohnW, yes the single player is more like 6-8 hours rather than 2-4 of the first one.

Hate to be the asshole, but is it not just a 3D model projected onto a 2D screen? like at school but the screens made of glass and its projected from behind? Nonetheless, the vocals are pretty incredible, reckon they were prerecorded and the band played along or somehow performed 'live' by a machine/person?

Yo,

Go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced in iTunes, are the "Keep iTunes Media Folder Organised" or "Copy files to iTunes Media Folder...." options selected?

Basically, if the latter IS ticked then you'll already have two copies of everything, so if you delete it all from your iTunes Library (keeping files) then re-add everything you'll end up with duplicates ahoy.

Best thing to do is if you've got the time, ignore the iTunes Library for now, bung all the actual files in one place (on an external HD would do it, extra bonus of a backup) if you're completely certain you have everything, delete your iTunes Library in iTunes (select all your music, hit Del, keep files when it asks) then go and delete the contents of your iTunes Music folder (if you wanna save podcasts, they live in that folder, in a folder called Podcasts, so dont delete it if you wanna save downloading again).

Now you're clear of your library and all your stuff is safe, either untick both those selections i mentioned above, then just File>Add to library>choose folder containing all music.

OR

Slightly more complicated but you could create a folder called iTunes (or whatever you fancy) on your external HD, make it your "iTunes media folder location" under the advanced tab mentioned earlier, tick both those aforementioned buttons then add all the music to your library. Then it will copy it all and arrange it all into some kind of order whilst keeping it on your HD away from your computer, and every time you add music going forward it will copy it and organise it in the iTunes folder. - Only bugger with this one i found was if you unplug your Hard Drive on a regular basis and it gives it a different drive letter, it wont be able to find where your Library's stored and ALL your music will come up with the wee "could not find" exclamation mark. Pain in the ass.

Yeah, i get a bit Trinny and/or Suzanna with my Music Library.

Hope you get it sorted!

Was gonna say, they have a bar there already. Given the story is just a snippet I guess theres a bit more to it, maybe they were applying to allow punters to take their drinks out of the existing bar area and into the screens or something.

Have you uninstalled and re-installed iTunes? Tis one of the things it recommends on the Apple Support site. I vaguely recall many moons ago having a similar problem where one of my anti virus/spyware/whatever programs had pretty much crippled iTunes by doing something untoward with a working file or something. Give it a bash, if you've got space backup your tunes just in case, never know. Hope you get it sorted.

New owners/management at Reilys kicking off about it apparently.

that and they have always complained about it, can only guess that the new bosses are a wee bit more "pushy/persistent" when it comes to complaining...

The rent/lease was fairly high as well from what I remember.

Presuming your talking about the 'olden days' when it was run independently (like when you flyered there, that era), the rent changed alot and the building has changed hands at least once since then. I'm not even getting into your comment about running at a loss coz frankly it's my bad for getting so easily irked by 'know it all's.

When it was run independently as a wee bar with an interesting food & drinks menu open every day from 12-12 with an attached nightclub which operated 2/3 times a week it was in it's prime as far as im concerned. It changed hands for whatever reason and when it was touted as a 'Venue", focus shifted completely from bar with night club attached to "venue" with bar attached, new owners with no idea what to do with a bar let alone a kitchen.

And yeah, why they didnt soundproof when they refurbed is anyones guess though probably has alot in common with why they didn't re-enforce the dancefloor (which bent to terrifying degrees and was never built to have 400+ jumping on it in unison), because those things were very wrong with the place but very expensive to fix. End of day the cavernous hole wasn't built to be a venue and really needed gutted and built from scratch.

Anyway, grumpy rants aside I cant say im surprised, but i am incredibly sad that Bassment has closed as a result, I always felt it had a great deal of potential, and at least when i worked there, there were a great bunch of really committed guys behind the bar, an awesome atmosphere and a great bunch of regulars. Shame the way the building works it's not really possible to run Bassment as a separate entity from it's club/venue/albatross.

Beastin!

Sounds like the based his voice on Noel Fielding (badly).

Thought he sounded like Neil Morrissey actually, I wonder if Mike Patton will be reprising his role as "Anger Sphere".

If word is to believed that this is "the game" to Portals "proof of concept" i'll most likely be found damaging myself on a nightly basis awaiting it's arrival.

Steven left quite recently as far as i know, try giving the venue a ring, no idea who replaced him if anyone.

Holy shit. All the new gameplay elements look ORSUM.

Still not sure about the english orb, or at least i hope they digitize his voice at some point, doesn't really fit otherwise.

That's why the Before I Forget video was so popular, because they were demasked. They haven't demasked as a band before, it's always been for side projects. They would turn up to radio interviews with the masks on

They were all interviewed on the Voliminal DVD sans-mask except craig. Keep in mind they also said once upon a time they were only going to do 3 albums. I don't think the unmasking's such a big deal any more, especially given in this instance it's such a big 'occasion'.

Video was pretty heavy, glad chris managed to keep it kinda positive. Like Calum says, i dont see them looking at themselves as a band for a while tbh. Tho I think it's pretty cool that such a famously dysfunctional unit like slipknot managed to come together like that.

I'll be surprised if they do anything else as Slipknot personally. The personel/image/identity was always such a big deal with them, i guess they might do like a tribute show or some kinda RR United thing or something, but i'll be well surprised if we see slipknot again.

I don't think their website can handle the traffic. My mate tried to get tickets for the Glasgow gig yesterday at 9am when they went on sale, he said the website crashed and by the time he actually got back onto it the pre sale tickets had sold out.

Weird, I completely forgot about them going on sale, stumbled on at some point on Wednesday afternoon and got tickets no problem. Weird.

On a side note, just on the way back from seeing them in Blackpool, they did play the whole new album (except ...Quarry) but also played a good dose of old stuff, Jaggy Snake (with the vocalists from Rolo Tomassi) being a personal highlight. Didn't play that much from Puzzle except the singles really. Fucking blinding gig.

They're doing it through their website store, log-in to access it, im sure it will be doable somehow, but alternatively you just need to sign up to "Team Biffy" on their site which is free and takes 2 seconds.

Dare i ask, how much for the offspring?

Morpheus vs Agent on The Freeway

What's yours?

It is awesome, but I remember not being a fan of the "superman" ending to it.

I liked the wee Twin/s vs. Trinity scrap in the car just before it, but the best one's gotta be the total excess of the Smith vs Neo Endgame fight at the end. It's ridiculous and I love it.

A bit stricter with the IDing on the door. Too much young uns puts older people, who spend more money,off.

Quality of bar staff has gone downhill in recent years. It doesn't seem like a cocktail bar with proper cocktail tenders now, more just a regular dingy, slightly rocky pub. It's like it needs to decide what it really wants to be. It used to be well known for the quality of service, knowledgable barfolk and tasty cocktails. Like a classy bar in terms of drinks but for more alternative people who don't want wear moccassins and a cravat to go out.

Last few times I've been in I've been served by your typical studenty barmen. Smug 'banter' and in-jokes with collegues comes first over service and there was no care put into the cocktail at all... It never used to be like that!

To sum up, if you're gonna keep it as a cocktail bar do it 100%. Get trained cocktail tenders who give a shit about mixing drinks rather than just chasing fanny and looking cool. (I'm sure there are still decent barfolk at bassment, not saying everyone is like that) I'm sure all the different liquors and ingredients are a hefty expenditure, it seems a waste of money if all you are offering is a slightly improved version of triple kirks. If you want to go down the regular bar route that's fine too, lose the speed rails and most of the liquors, get everything on optics, speed things up, etc. At the moment it's straddling the two. IMO of course.

Bingo, nail on the head

Obviously im not gonna get into this too much, being ex-staff, but it does make me sad to see the nick of the Bassment these days compared to when i started many moons ago.

I know all the cutting back of cocktail menus havent been done willingly by people on site, but its kinda got to the point now where the cocktail menu is a complete joke (cheeky vimto... what the fuck?) and you really need to decide if it's worth clinging on to 'the glory years'.

As for nights, i dunno, all i'll say is every time ive been in recently the karaoke has been waaay too loud, maybe if the place was packed you could justify that volume, but sadly it rarely is.

I know it isn't what you asked Steve, but in an ideal world - Someone with a dose of cash needs to buy the place and separate it from the Club, and start running it like a wee independent bar again, as currently it feels like it's rotting away as the people who own it only know how to run venues, so are trying to run it like one, but in a half-arsed way keeping the things like cocktails hoping it will keep the old punters coming back. Oh and like i always said back in the day, fire all the staff and start from scratch, nothing personal to any of them but i think a breath of fresh air wouldn't hurt.

Trust me, if i came into a retarded amount of money, it would be the first thing i'd do.

Sorry, but i didn't mean to get into a ex-staff rant but really, i didn't spend 5 years there for the good of my health, i did it coz it's a great wee bar and almost find it embarrassing the enthusiasm i still have for it. Would be really good to see it rise from the ashes.

....oh and for the love of god find someone committed/brave enough to take on the kitchen and get that bitch open again!

seen as though you can't be arsed listing what you've got..

Apologies if im wrong but i get the feeling it was more 'not wanting to post the contents of his house on a public forum' rather than 'not being arsed'.

Just to weigh in, based solely on picture as i dont have any fancy pants audio equipment,

I concur with 300, the grainy filter is obvious and a wee bit distracting but the vistas and general 'epicness' of the whole thing make it well worth it. Both the Batmans, Dark Knight especially looks crisp as fook. And for some odd reason I do enjoy the Simpsons movie in HD mostly just because it's bizarre seeing the difference a good picture makes to a cartoon, you would obviously have to deal with the fact you're watching the Simpsons movie though.

On the plus side, I'm now cured of my 'girl with synth' fetish, I guess.

She looks like she's being forced at gunpoint to look like she's having 'fun'.

close, black and snakeskin

christ. is everyone on their period?

No, i just felt left out

though it does explain why craigy was curled around a hot water bottle gently sobbing at work the other day...