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Whenever I hear the words Rolling Stone I reach for my revolver. I'm not entirely surprised a magazine whose founder allegedly blocked The Monkees from the Hall of Fame and not once but twice stiffed Dr Hunter S Thompson turns out a list of songwriters with Bjorn and Benny at the bottom. No single publication has done as much to 'explain' - and in consequence suck the f**king life out of - popular music than that bloated, self-satisfied rag, begotten as it is of a lethal cocktail of filthy old hippies, pencil-necked pseudo-academics and unrepentant fans of Hootie and The Blowfish. With any luck, next time 'widely respected' Jann Wenner is visiting the Rolling Stone office his frankly colossal haemorrhoids will explode and blow the side off the building, killing everyone who works there in a cataclysm of fire and bloody havoc. Selah.

We'd never be able to agree on the cabinet, though. 2x12? 1x15? 4x10?? The possibilities (and arguments) are endless!

I dont get my panties bunched up over something like a subjective opinion from a stranger over something inifinately trivial

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For anyone interested in a report on the progress of FAP, I am entering the third day of the first week, in which the cyle of fourths is applied across the whole fretboard as major triads in three fingerings. Very basic so far but none the worse for that as a back-to-basics reprise. Polished production, made a good deal more digestible by a rather good and slightly hypnotic backing track which is much nicer than working to a metro gnome. A faintly surreal note is imparted by a video lighting issue which makes Scott look as if he only has one eye.

Glitch in the matrix I think. @Dad3353 please bring @warwickhunt in for questioning. I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding that can all be ironed out with a good beating.

Somewhere in the Peak District? 😛

Apparently, Kanye West is a 'better' songwriter than Bjorn/Benny AND the Bee Gees. Ooookay then. I see your revolver, and raise you a sniper rifle and a tall building.

If only he could randomly suck and blow into a harmonica, he'd have been in with a chance.

As Mrs T reminds me regularly, there’s no prize for coming first.

I ceased buying Rolling Stone in 1982 after an egregiously breathless editorial which opined that the band A Flock Of Seagulls were the future of rock 'n' roll. Not long after I commenced a guerrilla campaign against the magazine and its ownership which continues to this day. The high point of my initiative was the covert introduction of catering-strength chilli powder into Mr Jann Wenner's underpants immediately prior to the 2010 Emmy Awards whereat he was a nominee for an award. The camera dallied only briefly at Mr Wenner's table but even this short glimpse was enough to reveal the excruciating agony on his face as the fiery capsaicinoids interacted with his nobbies. Rolling Stone Founder Jann Wenner Ah, you say, but Jann Wenner no longer owns Rolling Stone, having sold it to media tycoon Mr Jay Penske. Me, bothered? Is it not enough that Wenner birthed the Frankenstein monster that tore the limbs from rock music, added wheels and turned the form into a hostess trolley designed to ferry around his progressive notions as if they were cucumber sandwiches and butterfly cakes at an old biddies' tea party? But, you cry, why has not the Stone's new owner Mr Jay Penske become the focus of your white-hot though entirely justified animus? Well, hasn't he, I counter, a sly smile playing about my lips. What of the recent incident when a wheel mysteriously came off little Jay's electric golf cart and caused a high-speed accident on the links which nearly wiped out not only Mr Penske but his tee partners Pres. B. Obama, Sec. M. Albright and Mr Jay Leno? The fight goes on.

My mate calls them “scratch guards”. Makes me feel sick. My wife also calls the glove compartment of a car The drop down. Also makes me feel sick. And when Chocolate is shortened to Choc. rancid. I generally use pickguard.

Well, the Eurovision song contest started in 1956

MAPLE ROAD THIS SATURDAY July 11th!! Still some tickets available! 2 hour Vista King Concert Cruise on beautiful Lake Michigan! Boards at 8:30 pm sharp and your first drink is free! Join the party! Guys, I'm concerned about this gig. They have cut the capacity in half for distancing but I'm still considered.I plan on staying away from everyone

Surprised to see Chuck Berry way down in 4th, "My Ding-a-Ling" is an absolute classic

It's a "prize competition". https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/for-the-public/Fundraising-and-promotions/Commercial-schemes/Prize-competitions.aspx If you have any doubts whatsoever about trustworthiness, why not instead use a big-name online casino and stick £5 on the roulette wheel; keep going until you lose, or you have won enough to buy a bass.

Yes all I need are your bank details, and if you give me your login information for said account I can make the transfer happen really quickly. Looking forward to your correspondence.

If you play with your fingers and call it a pickguard then you are part of the problem.

If anything it’s worse. You can send the hulk for that. Nasty. Dirty boy.

Thats pretty bad. No, nothing that ends with a y, like chocky or biky or something like that. Unless you are 5, then it is ok. Still, nothing is as bad as people in the last 5 years using the term Glasto for glastonbury. That is punchable.

“Tofunk” by Glou Glou

She’s an English teacher too. It baffles me. ”it’s in the drop down” - WHAT?!

Final touch...custom logo arrived. Just wanted a similar logo as Rockbass has, but instead of Rockbass is Popbass (my nick name is Pop).

I have in the past looked around for info on the switches as it wasn't initially clear to me whether the "lowest", "low", "high" etc related to frequency or boost. On the Ken Forums he only says something like the bass, mid and treble controls are set to "some frequencies that sounded nice but I can't remember what they are and I think I have them written down somewhere"! I then found a sheet on the Smith site for the PAPA outboard preamp that has the same dip-switches in and he talks about them adjusting the basic frequency of the unit. From this I gather that the bass, mid and treble controls give you cut and boost and the dip switches are there to "fine tune" the frequencies. Currently mine is set with the New configuration but I feel a "twiddle" coming on to check again what they do in practice 🙂 My current Fusion 25th and the 6'er I traded for it.

But....... but........ but they're not the same 100 I'd have chosen. Oooh I feel so outraged. [Flounces off to put the kettle on.]

Rolling Stone know their audience...

That is very true indeed!!! But that in turn does very bad things to me as I suffer from terminal G.A.S!! Imagine having to give back a bass you really want to take home! 😂

Of course it would have to be the US-centric, waste of paper / atoms in cyberspace that is Rolling Stone but their list of 100 greatest songwriters has Abba's Benny and Bjorn at 100, below many of whom are unfit to kiss their stacked shoes. Bacharach & David are at a lowly #32 when anyone knows they should be a shoo-in for top 5. And putting Lennon & MacCartney - as separate writers - below Dylan at #1! What?!! Here's the link .. https://www.rollingstone.com/interactive/lists-100-greatest-songwriters/

But... but... what's the lion going to do tonight, then?

And so to the top bracing. The Bouzouki is based on an OM acoustic guitar and the bracing pattern will be identical. And it's all a bit precise. Legend has it that Martin in the thirties (?) did a bracing pattern that just, well, worked. And from that point 90 odd percent of acoustic guitars have been, and still are, made with the exact same bracing pattern. I may well have my facts wrong but my philosophy is that - like banging dustbin lids to keep the elephants away - it works so that's what I'm going to continue to do! So, for those who haven't seen an acoustic build before - a flat-topped acoustic generally isn't flat. Most have a spheroidal shape of around 25 feet radius for the top and 15 feet radius for the back. So you have to make (or buy) a 25' and 15' radius dish, you have to curve the bottoms of the braces and then you have to press the braces into the dish to force the flat top into the final spheroidal shape. The process will become clear soon (probably tomorrow), but today I was cutting the braces blanks for the top. This is a straight piece of spruce sitting across the 25' radius dish: It's subtle. But the bottoms of the braces have to be planed and sanded into a curve - and because it's a sphere, the actual curve needed is different depending where each brace is going to fit. First is the well known 'X' brace which is two pieces curved underneath and locked together: And here it is in position on my home-made MDF 25' radius dish. Difficult to see, but both lengths are now completely gap free on the dish: The braces will have a LOT of work done on them, but it makes it a lot easier to remove some of the bulk by starting to cut them to side profile, especially in terms of the positions (again, very precise) of the peaks you can see below - the 'nodes'. Here we now have all of the braces for the top, rough-profiled but finish-fitted on their under-sides to suit the radius dish at each of their respective positions: And tomorrow, these will be glued and pressed into the radius dish to form the basic top shape. I might do some work on the cross-sectional profile of some the braces before they are glued in...I'll have a think about the best way round to make the access for the final shaping of the braces as easy as possible.

Ahem ... £159 is the reserve so he actually wants more for it.

Weird. I voted, entirely confident it would show me 90/10 in favour of scratchplate. Genuinely stumped me, that has.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=GB&q=pickguard,scratchplate

Be careful if they're paying you peanuts. The old folk have probably sucked the chocolate off them.

I’ve played loads of baseball bat necks and owned a few. The best sounding-basses I’ve ever played/owned have very slim necks. I wouldn’t worry about it.

According to the RS readership, Taylor Swift, Bjork, R Kelly, Morrissey & Marr, Kanye West and Notorious BIG are greater songsmiths than Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Cole Porter. Well, we live and learn eh?

I'm bringing a mask , hand sanitizer and gloves. Blue

Yeah, Lennon & McCartney, right pair of chancers.🙄 I will never get Dylan. I’ve tried and tried and tried. Still, I feel more or less the same about Joni Mitchell. Fleabag’s got the right attitude when it comes down to it though. It’s only ever people’s opinions, wherever you stand. And you know what they say about opinions being like chocolate starfish. 😉

I could play a straight bat assuming it doesn't have any kinks in it I could go with: "Hardly Bent-One"

We must always remember. Whatever we buy, however hard we work, 99% of audience members and other musicians will not notice. I've told this sorry tale before but i'll tell it once more. Played a gig, which was going down a storm, My Eden 8x10 combo (God I loved that rig) failed with a few songs to go. When i say it failed, it began responding to the bass with horrendous farting distortion - not anything even close to resembling 'tone' . I had no back up so I looked despairingly around at my bandmates who just blithely carried on. Rather than do nothing I played on with this horrrible noise where notes should be. At least it was in time. No one. Not a bandmate, not one person in the crowd, not even my mate who was there to watch me, no one noticed. I learned a valuable lesson that day. Whatever we do is for our amusement only. So buy basses you like, amps and cabs which please you. Nobody cares.

I like sending and receiving cardboard boxes

Well, today was surgery day. I have a big old hole in my bass now. The little nibble on the top right is leftover from the old bridges ground wire, not a router disaster So far I don't think I've destroyed/ ruined/ killed anything, but won't know for sure for a while yet.

Superb! I got into Amon Düül II in Munich in '71, and picked up on Gong through that crowd. Hillage hadn't joined yet (still BL of Khan), but he fit right in when he did. I've spent a LOT of money on Hillage's work, through 777/System 7.

A bass demo:

Basses aren't boring. Bass players can be.