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Still got the final shaping to finish, but grabbed a spare moment to do a few of the smaller jobs. I cut some swifts: Cut the control chamber cover from another offcut of the top wood: And fitted the tuners and bridge to pop on some strings, just tightened enough to straighten them, so that I can work out the exact positions of the PJ pickups before the scary bit of cutting the chambers: I will be sinking the bridge in so that the plate is flush with the top as I did with @Len_derby 's - but that and the pickup routs will wait a day or so while I make a bit more progress on @eude 's 6-er

good evening chaps, update went to rehearsal tonight,did not take any gear and was the last to arrive, normally I am first as I like to have a noodle just to get myself up and running, so when I walked in they all just looked oh dear, anyway,I said I need a few minutes from everyone and they all stopped, after explaining myself for a few minutes saying exactly how I feel and all the other things I said on here, everyone to be fair listened to all my points and agreed things were wrong,and that it would change,the guitarist got a bit arsey until he realised that the guys agreed with me,at which point he backed down and said he was sorry and had everyones best interests at heart, then said we need to speak more as a band regards all aspects of the music, how would I want to go forward,to which I said they need to have a conversation with me not there to discuss all my points, at that point I left and came home, picked up the fretless and played some john martyn nice thankyou all again for the advice it did help

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-46383617 What exactly do they imagine they are protecting it from, I wonder? "Other cultural traditions which made the list included a Spanish riding school in Vienna, a Mongolian camel-coaxing ritual and Czech puppetry." - If I told them once, I told them a hundred times, put reggae music first, then the Czech puppet show.

Fixed.

Does this mean that soldiers in blue berets are going to be dispatched to escort fat middle aged white blokes off stage for playing UB40 covers badly?

Boy George had lost his big hat.

Done and shipped to Hamburg. Big Ferrules! I procrastinated for a week before destroying a perfectly good finish. I'd done relics but on factory finishes and it was before I seriously started building. It was fun for a change but probably not something I'll do again.

Bedders has a great style, and usually pretty high in the mix. When we played The 100 Club Madness had been there the night before and their names were on the coat hangers - I simply had to hang my Harrington on Bedders’ coat hanger!

Are you looking for songs that will keep your band booked? Or bass lines that will keep you ‘challenged’? The overlap is minimal! Lol Si

Update This is not a cure for sticky flats, it was a shocking idea, my balls remained fresh and fragrant throughout the gig, however my fingers felt like they were playing sand paper all night, knacker lacquer is not for bass strings..... it’s for knackers....

I'm not aware of being able to apply more than one MIDI note to a footswitch, someone correct me if I'm wrong. There are ways round that though. I have a patch that I use to play the root and whatever additional pitch I select with it, all at the same time. Plays a two note chord from one note. Great with the Ebow. That uses the 'dual pitch' effect. Very easy to set up. I have it set to play the root with 4th, 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th. I don't know if that's what you mean. Anyway here's a vid of it in practice.

I really can't stand this kind of carry on. Mind blowingly unnecessary. They all seem to follow a pattern - simply ruin a track with meaningless orchestral flourishes where they detect there should be an accent. Taking old rock and roll, it's doing to it exactly what rock and roll wasn't! To me, it's like taking the Mona Lisa and drawing a dirty great 'tache on it, or worse! 🧔

oh well, I'm off to see Katrina (she, of The Waves) on Friday. A small theatre, walking (on sunshine) distance from my house

I was at uni with an Italian guy who was aghast the first time he witnessed someone making a cup of instant coffee.

Is it just me, or is Gibson's entire guitar range essentially just the same pickup configuration mounted on a different slab? I've had this conversation over on Guitarchat, where there seems to be some consensus that LPs somehow sound different from SGs with the same pickups, but nobody challenged the idea that nearly all their guitars are basically a neck humbucker and bridge humbucker with a 3-way switch. Very little variation, apart from the occasional triple-humbucker novelty. At least if you're collecting Fenders, the electronics are different between a Strat, Tele, Jag, Jazzmaster, etc. Apart from looks, why would I bother buying a Flying V if it's electronically the same as an SG? It seems a little ironic that there's more obvious variation in their bass pickup configurations (see T-birds, "SG" basses, Rippers - and surely the Grabber's sliding pickup was ahead of its time?). Such a shame that their refusal to build more five-strings just makes them look like dinosaurs who refuse to accept that fives are actually quite commonplace these days. The more recent EB designs seemed like a step in the right direction, and if Mike Lull can stick a low B on a Thunderbird shape, what's stopping Gibson? Monkey Steve (see above) can't be the only potential customer this has cost them!

The hat was doing another gig elsewhere. It's actually more famous than George.

I quite like the “penny” finish...

How important?!?!?!?!? As the song said - 'If you have to ask, you'll never know'. Yes, I am that bass player that stands BEFORE the bride at the buffet.

This is all very posh. I play pubs not functions or weddings. The only time I've been fed was at a rough pub in Linwood (struggling, de-industrialised place outside Glasgow) where it was a teenager's funeral. Halfway through the night they put a board over the pool table and covered it in boxes from the chip shop - sausages, random kebab meat, spare ribs, pizza and about half a ton of chips. They told us to tuck in and we did. Second set was snoozy and greasy, but we were happy. Later that night two middle aged women started knocking lumps out of each other. We just played on, and loaded out later through a haze of blue lights - the police had the place surrounded as a precaution at chucking-out time.

Depends whether they cater for vegans.

Depending on whether or not it's an agency gig it's sometimes in the contract but the first thing we try to do before we've even brought anything inside is to chat to the bride & groom to let them know that they can relax knowing that the evening's entertainment is sorted etc. This not only puts their minds at ease but also gives them the opportunity to invite us to beast into the buffet later on I think last year was to be the year of the hog roast. This year has been the year of cheese. Luckily I love cheese and there have been many wedding cakes made out of various cheeses Unfortunately the traditional fruit wedding cake seems to have vanished which is a shame I considered myself to be quite a connoisseur of them Coffee varies from tasty to pretty ropey We've never had any issues with joining in the buffet queue with the other guests as we always like to have a laugh with them in the queue so they're happy for us to be firing into the potted hough and vol au vents or whatever that night's culinary treats are

Yes - especially if you can dodge carrying the bloody thing during load in/out as its in a flightcase too 😉 The shed builder bought it mainly to use at smaller gigs to limit the volume a bit but we've ended up using it all the time now because it tightens the sound up nicely. Gonna get some stick on Garfields to put on the outside where he can't reach them.......

Our guitarist goes for a beer when we play Figure It Out

I dont like to sit around twiddling my thumbs so as well as planning this I'm doing a couple of refinishes one on my P bass ready do the new neck Santa is bringing me (vintage style maple block and binded) and I'm refinishing my 'Tropia' 5 string bass as I didn't like the gloss finish on it so that having a new coat if Danish oil and I'm fitting a preamp in it aswell......... 😀

Ooh, starting to look the part! Lovely,

Aah - that was before it ran off with the Space Cowboy!

If they did a five string Thunderbird I'd buy one

I used to bass for a Ceilidh band and there was a set of clients that insisted, in the Scottish tradition apparently, that the band ate first. A meal I remember with particular fondness is Eastor Castle banquet hall, all to ourselves, roast pork with sweetbreads and all the trimmings. Delicious!

That 's a thing of beauty! I totally get the worry about roughing up a perfect finish, but I guess the customer is always right? Well some of the time anyway Eude

I’m not keen on the whole relic thing either, but that does look cool! Those pickups appear to be the same size, yet one has a surround that the other does not. Why? Also, is Rudolph Rock the model, or something specific to your customer?

It was a very long night. Probably the worst 4 hours of my life. Yeah, and why would she want us back. Blue

It's just wrong... like incest or morris dancing is wrong. ☹️

Gibson Brands - New Board The Nashville Post has revealed the identities of the Board of Directors of Gibson Brands, the company which owns Gibson Guitars. The revitalised board will - one supposes - offer direction and support to the previously announced Guitars Division management team. But who are Gibson's new Corporate Overlords? Joining the previously mentioned Chairman Nat Zilkha (of Gibson's majority shareholder, hedge fund KKR) are: Nathan Hubbard: Former CEO of Ticketmaster and latterly head of Twitter's 'commerce division' (sic) JC Curleigh: Gibson Guitars CEO, late of Levis Jeans Nancy Ford: Works for KKR, also a director of - er - Nature's Bounty, and Cardenas Lemonade Matthew Ross: Another KKR drone Brian Kushner: FTI consulting ( a DC-based 'global business advisory firm' with 4,700 employees and t/o of $1.7bn) Morgan Neff: Senior Portfolio Manager for Wilks Brothers It's the last name as is the most interesting: Morgan Neff works for brothers Farris and Dan Wilks, a pair of billionaire Texan businessmen with connections to GOP Senator Ted Cruz. The Wilks brothers made their stash out of fracking. Having sold their business in 2011 for $3.5bn dollars les freres Wilks embarked on a land buying spree, securing ownership of hundreds of thousands of unspoiled acres in Montana, Idaho, Kansas and Colarado. Readers might speculate as to why Texan frackers might be buying undeveloped land in mostly rural Western States. Not satisfied with bending Mother Nature to his will, it is reported that brother Farris Wilks is closely involved with the Lord Almighty. Farris's foundation allegedly donates to Religious Right groups and to the Koch brothers’ political network. It is also said that Farris Wilks funds a network of “pregnancy centers” that refuse, on principle, to talk to single women about contraception. (Married women need to check with their husband and pastor). The American Prospect website alleges that Farris "saw Barack Obama’s re-election as a harbinger of the End Times and he believes God will punish America for embracing homosexuality". So that's the Gibson Brands board, then: a collection of vacuous hedge-fund stooges, a ticket-scalper, a 'business consultant' and the bagman for some God fearin' Texan oil folk. What could possibly go wrong?

Any function bands I've played in and there have been many, the perceived success of the evening is generally directly related to the quality of the buffet!

We have a picky eater in our function band - the drummer is Italian, and has very forthright opinions about English food. Like all picky eaters, we just shrug and ignore him... 🙂 For a wedding gig, we have it in our contract that we are fed and have one drink, and I don't recall any client who has objected. As for the order of buffet access, if the client wants us to go on immediately after the buffet, we politely request we get an early run at the buffet so we're done in time. Again, we've never been refused. The hardest part is maintaining a facial expression of delight when the fifth client in a row announces proudly "We've got a hog roast!" Oh goody... 😕🙂

I tend not to even bother anyway tbh. I'd rather sit somewhere quiet, have a cup of coffee and read my book.

A white or chrome cover, a lipstick or bronco type PU would have been nicer IMO.

UPDATE: A tube of this stuff arrived today nice and early from amazon, since my next gig is not until next Friday I thought I’d give this cream a go for it’s intended purpose, whilst I didn’t purchase it for this, it seems appropriate to see how it performs. So after my morning shower I liberally applied a pound coin sized quantity of cream to the happy sacks, there was a definite initial tingling sensation followed by a definate warming, I was a little concerned that this was going to be like applying deep heat muscle rub, however it soon plateaued to a rather pleasant warming feeling. So far so good, it smells fresh and has applied well, we shall see if it also performs on the fingers.

You are - of course - entitled to your opinion but I would in all friendship counsel you against expressing it in public. The consequences would be insupportable.