Deep Thought

Line 6 G30. Had it for must be knocking on ten years, apart from replacing the cable a couple of times, never had a problem.

Grant Hart of Husker du. The first member of one of my favourite bands of my youth to die. Brought me up short for a while.

JJ Burnel often does lead vocals. I’m the lead singer in our lot too. Some songs take more work than others to learn, and I often find it easier to sing over fast, busy bass lines than slow ones which require more attention to timing-‘Human ‘ by Rag and Bone Man being an example, although I’m getting the hang of it now it was a struggle to start with. Some songs I don’t think I will ever be able to sing and play-REM ‘s ‘Losing my Religion ‘ for instance. We’re currently re-introducing ‘No one knows ‘ by Queens of the Stone Age, which takes some doing.

Looks like a bloody strawberry!

When I was trying out an Ibanez Artcore years ago, the chap in my local shop said ‘don’t hear many Stranglers basslines these days’, as I was playing ‘Nice’n’sleazy’ as I often do, probably the intro to ‘5 minutes’ as well, amongst others.

He’s not sounding too bad these days! I’d love one of the Carbonlites he plays now, but I don’t have that kind of money, or indeed the need for it. Mine does me fine for what I do.

No, apparently not.

This is the exercise my physio gave me (I was told in the early stages to ‘help’ lift the weight with the other hand, and to lower it slowly on its own, until I had built up muscle strength). This, and forearm tendon stretching sorted my tennis elbow out, I had several months off work with it, but I found if I did this exercise first thing, it made a huge difference. It never bothers me now, but if I get a twinge some stretching does the trick.

Blimey my original post isn’t far short of ten years old now! I’ve now seen the Stranglers 21 times, and I did in fact buy a Shuker JJ mk.1 (no. 006) in 2009 which I still have. Still love seeing them live, will be seeing them in Bristol again next month. Although it’s a shame Jet isn’t with them live any more, I think Jim McCauley does a superb job. The green 60’s P bass wasn’t nicked, it got smashed in Sweden, but Jon Shuker repaired it and JJ still has it. In fact it was the black one which was the heaviest, but it had the better sound-the green one was lighter but lacking in the sound department-JJ’s Shuker signature model is meant to be an amalgam of both basses.

This hits hard for me, first Grant Hart and now Mark E Smith. The bands I loved in my younger days are starting to die off. Granted, the last time I saw them he was a shambling mess, like an old man with dementia let loose on stage, but when I saw them when he was in his prime, they were unstoppable. Unique.

I’ve had one for years and been very happy with it. True, the battery door is hard to latch, but I’ve always managed it. I saw somewhere that somebody put a cable tie around the transmitter and slid it on and off to open and close the door, but I’ve never felt the need for that. It seems easier now I’ve had it a while. I made my own leather pocket for mine so have never really used the clip. I bought a longer, better quality cable for mine off Ebay. It doesn’t like cheap batteries, but Duracells from the pound shop have significantly greater longevity. All this being said, everyone seems very happy with their Smoothhounds, and I would probably replace mine with one of those if mine died.

This probably my favourite ‘On the whole I’d rather be in Philadelphia’ TOTP moment. https://youtu.be/otZ8Bq7lXag

Yep, Dunlop Max-grips are my favourites too, although any of the Dunlop nylon jobs work well. I can’t remember the last time I dropped a pick either.

Well our toilet went crazy yesterday afternoon The plumber he said ‘never flush a tampon’ This great information cost me half a week’s pay And the toilet blew up later on the next day Frank Zappa

I had the metal box version, a second hand, scratched copy bought off a mate, it was a sod to get the discs out to play them! Picked up an old PIL best of album a while back, forgot what fantastic stuff they did, especially the mid/late 80’s stuff like ‘Home’ and ‘Seattle ‘.