NancyJohnson

In the various bands I've played in, we've tried to run a merch table. It honestly made me sick to my stomach when a punter would come over and ask, 'Have you got any vinyls?' Vinyls. Collective noun, plural. Vinyls. I mean, you simply wanted to walk around the other side of the table and beat the guy to a pulp. "Look, we have t-shirts, little cards with Soundcloud/Spotify links, free stickers and a pile of signed CDs that we've all been burning for the last few days, but do you see vinyls? No. F*ck off!" Your average punter has no idea how much hassle it is to get records pressed, and yeah, we don't have vinyls because nobody will buy them and they'll haggle us down because they won't pay enough to cover our pressing costs. I've spent days in the studio refining these recordings, why should I have them pressed on a format that sounds like we were eating Rice Krispies during the mastering process. Vinyls.

I've avoided RSD like the plague. I went to our local record shop for one about six years ago, organisation was a shambles, the shop was ticketing people and not limiting purchases to a couple of records; guys were coming out with bags and bags of stuff, god knows how much if that went on eBay the same day. The place was full of dozens of blokes who looked like they'd never stepped into a record shop in the last 30 years. Thing is, I'm of the belief RSD started out with the genuinely good intention of trying to engage the public and getting them into small, independent record shops, but it's transcended that now; in my opinion, if you're a stadium filling band or on a major label, it shouldn't be for you. If you're just rehashing something under the guise of 'first time release on vinyl' or remix stuff, it shouldn't be for you. And so on. By way of a similar analogy, we attend cheese festivals once a year (om-nom); at an event in Cheltenham, Tesco were set up with a big money corporate stall extolling how they supported British cheese makers. Their stall was dead. Nobody. Elsewhere, independent makers were selling tons of stuff. It's just blind ignorance; Tesco or big labels. Stay away.

A few years back I popped into Andertons and spent an hour noodling in the bass room. Most of the stuff was a bit meh, usual mix of knackered/poorly set up Ps and Js etc. They had a Schecter in there, set up wasn't great, but honestly it was the best bass in there. I'd never buy one, but it was just a decent guitar, well built, well finished, sounded nice.

I always recall reading that James Honeyman-Scott had threatened to quit The Pretenders because of Farndon's drug use; Farndon was fired and, ironically, James Honeyman-Scott was dead of a drug overdose three days later. Just say no, kids.

That's quite an interesting instrument - I can see the appeal from the other stuff you have. I shall enjoy putting a dent in it playing it at the Bash.

I ran an old Precision bass for years, this went through several pickup configurations and arguably the best was when I just wired a 1/4 Pounder pickup straight into the output jack. Not pots, just pure signal; this fed a POD (and later a BDDI), then into the effects return of whatever amp I was using. Lovely. End of the day, I always play with everything open; this just takes it a step further. We obsess too much - just let the bass ring and let your outboard kit and amp do what they're supposed to do; shape and amplify.

The big problem with UK-centric radio is the inconsistency; I detest with the whole BBC playlist model of music-for-the-masses thing, where I simply wouldn't hear one song of merit in a day of output. Add into this commercial radio and, well, no. Services like TuneIn and myTuner open the world to you musically. My go to station is W-EQX, an alternative rock station that broadcasts from Manchester, Vermont. It's just a wonderful thing. No song repeats, great music. https://www.weqx.com/

I'm all out of Gibson Thunderbird love, but own Spector, Lull and Hamer versions, plus a Lull Thunderbird NR (which, let's face it couldn't be any less non-reverse in shape). As I've posted elsewhere, Thunderbirds are like a magical fountain of youth elixir, you just strap one on and you're 18 again. I've no idea how this works, but it does.

I've owned an early Warwick Streamer and a couple of Spector NS-design models (Euro LT and a far east 8-string); the body shape is a tad small for my liking, but the shape/rounding/body-arch is very comfortable, very organic.

While it's not possible to quantify a design I detest, it would be fair to say I'm drawn to the Thunderbird body shape and everything else strikes me as a bit meh. I often used to chuckle internally when people waxed lyrical and obsessed about the love of car brands like Porsche; this blind faith in whatever Porsche made was 100%, when clearly this isn't the case. Same goes brand loyalty for guitars and basses; while I've owned several, I don't really like Fender stuff at all. Yes I know, 70 years and millions of units sold stands for something but the business is based around reinvention/reinterpretation rather than innovation now. Same goes Gibson. While I love my Lulls, I would never consider any of the Lull P or J clones that they make, even if they gave me one.

Buy a Lekato unit. Unit can charge both sender and receiver beforehand and just jack the receiver into the front of your signal chain. Battery life is five to six hours. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07TWQL2JS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I've got Uni-Pre units in three of mine and have fitted them to other basses previously. Great units. John is a top bloke; I've contacted him direct a couple of times and his after service has exceeded expectations in both instances.

After I posted this, I was desperately trying to remember something I'd heard years ago that had made it onto an album that related to this. Quite simply, it was a track called 'Discount List' off the album Feel It by Californian pop/punk band The Penfifteen Club. The track is a 90 second expletive-ridden answering machine recording left by a female fan who had attended a couple of band shows and now pretty much expected discounted or free entry to shows; sadly the track did not get upped to streaming platforms.

Truth is, nobody cares, really. There, I've said it. Nobody cares. Your circle of friends don't care and your circle of friend's friends don't care. Hurts to say it. You might get 5% turn up once out of curiosity, but that'll be it until such a point as you may be playing a big room, then there'll be this expectation of free tickets etc.

From a safety perspective, treat yourself to a cheap wireless setup.