KingBollock

There are albums that I adore but can't listen to because they remind me of other times and make me sad. Björk's Debut album, along with white musk incense, always makes me feel like Christmas.

Worth knowing if I ever needed cheap components that I wanted to put together myself.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1400097463' post='2450812'] Ha! I knew it would be something interesting or disturbing! This is both!! [/quote] Bugger, you replied before I edited my post to better satisfy you!

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1400096787' post='2450792'] Don't like that explanation. It sounds far too reasonable. [/quote] All right, you've got me! I have a terrible compulsion to eat soap every time I swear, having been forced to do so as a child, and my wife likes me to talk nasty in the bedroom.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1400094530' post='2450742'] Should I ask why you ordered £300-worth of soap? A particularly dirty weekend, perhaps? [/quote] It was fancy craft soaps, with petals and stuff in them. They come in large bricks which you cut up and sell. My wife had a stall selling that kind of thing.

In the last house we lived in we had problems with parcel deliveries because it was difficult to park near the house and the road was too narrow and busy to just stop in the road for any amount of time. They would pull up, jump out and just stick a card through the door without knocking. I actually answered the door as one of them stuck the card through the door. He looked suitably shamed, having in turned bright red, he went and got my parcel and not a single word passed between us. It was quite funny. Fortunately we were only there for six months. We don't have the same problem here. We have a drive that they can pull up to (though they don't pull right onto the drive, even though it is actually illegal to park across the entrance because there is a zebra crossing right there). They don't bother knocking, they just put everything in the utility room, accessed at the side of the house, where it is safe. The worst delivery we had was back when we lived in the Midlands. We had £300 worth of soap delivered, but they didn't put a card through the door and hid the parcel under a bush behind the wheelie bin in the front garden. It was there for two weeks before we found it. It had been a very wet fortnight and the soaps ended up as one huge lump. Fortunately the place we bought it from replaced it without fuss.

You've got me interested in it now, didn't even know it existed before. This video might help with your questions: http://youtu.be/wbTX9CNbzDo I think it looks ace, but I'm like a moth when it comes to colourful lights and twinkly things.

Sometimes Bass is the easier (not easy) option, but only because I believe some people are more naturally inclined to a particular instrument. I started on Bass and I think I got lucky in finding the right instrument for me early on. I have been playing guitar for only a couple of years less than Bass, but, even though I use chords, I still play it like a Bass player. I am the same with Banjo and Ukulele, too. I get told I even look like a Bass player. I will never forget the time a mate of mine, a ridiculously naturally talented guitarist, picked up my Bass for the first time and had a go. A few minutes later he handed it back, shaking the pain out of his hands... "Not as easy as it looks, is it?". I had no idea he even thought it was easy in the first place.

It has been proven that ear candles don't work, but could it actually be worse? Other than the obvious fire hazard. How warm does your ear get when you set fire to something stuck in it? Surely making the ear warm would cause the ear wax to flow in the direction of gravity? Isn't this likely to cause a worse blockage? Unless it stays warm enough to slop back down to the bottom of the ear canal when you sit up.

I was really hoping that no one would mention ear candles. Massive con, as has already been said, and a real risk of injury. I have to confess to being naughty in my ear cleaning. When I am in the shower I direct it into my ears, where the warm water softens the wax. I then use a little scoop, actually designed for the job, to get most of it out. Then gently mop up any residue with cotton buds. I use a NeilMed sinus cleaning kit, which is really good, and they do an ear kit, too. I will get one and try it at some point. Of course, real men use a car key.

I can't imagine meeting a BassChatter in person and having a dull conversation. There are quite a few I really would love to meet, many of whom are owed a beer, but being the shut-in that I am... I'd also love to go to a BassBash but I'm not sure turning up with a BC Rich Warlock in a Coffin case is the done thing... And if I accidentally wondered into the nursery school nextdoor, they would still all be better than me on Bass. Even if it was nap time. The closest I've got was my wife meeting another BassChatter's wife.

I have always used furniture polish. It's what we used to use when I worked in a guitar shop. Lighter fluid for white guitars, because everyone bar me smoked like a chimney, and polish for everything else. I gave my Warlock a good setup and clean yesterday and, thanks to this thread, decided to try Flash, it worked a bloomin' treat! It's a glossy black finish (gonna have a crack at dulling the neck at some point. I have a dodgy left thumb and sometimes it gets strained when sticking while moving around on the neck a lot), I wish there was a way to keep dust off it. It always seems that as soon as I have finished dusting it it needs doing again (like painting the Golden Gate Bridge). I always thought furniture polish was supposed to be anti-static, so able to repel dust, but not for my Warlock, apparently. I use a large, soft makeup brush for final dusting, but it seems glossy black abhors a dust free exterior.

I keep trying but I get frustrated with my own writing limitations far too easily. Feeling like I will never be able to finish anything because I can't sing or play lead guitar or keyboard, saps my will. However, to try to get into it I rather cheated. The thing that daunted me the most was programming drums. So I found a song I liked the drums for on Guitar Pro, that included the drums tabs. Then I wrote them into Hydrogen and wrote different stuff to go over the top of them. By experimenting I was able to gradually change the drums to be unrecognisable to the original. The one I started with was quite complicated, for me anyway, The Vision Bleak's Secrecies in Darkness. http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/v/vision_bleak/secrecies_in_darkness_guitar_pro.htm I don't seem to be able to get much further at the moment, but I will in the future, hopefully. I thought maybe this tip might help.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1399556026' post='2445270'] I've floated many times and it's brilliant. The tank has speakers built-in. I never actually get round to taking a CD with me and they usually play a bit of bloody new-age music, but only for the first part of the float. Then you're into the sensory deprivation bit, which is a real trip. I think you'd enjoy it, with or without music. Er... I can't tell if the speakers are connected up with expensive silver cables or not... [/quote] I didn't realise they had speakers. I like new-agey, twinkly type music. A nice soothing CD, burn a pleasant scented joss stick and just lie back and relax. Normally with a ton of painkillers, paracetamol, ibuprofen and dihydrocodiene, otherwise, even lying still in the most comfortable position I can, I hurt all over. I would love to try a tank. The stand up comedian, Joe Rogan, talks about them a lot on his podcast, which is how I became interested. Maybe I'll get to try it one day. Though I do have one problem... I'm afraid of the dark. Actually, more specifically, I am afraid of waking up in the dark. I am fine being awake in the dark and I can happily go to sleep in the dark, but I panic if it is dark when I wake up. I actually have a night light in the bedroom because of it, it's actually a wall mounted bug zapper, so it serves two functions during the summer. This only started three or four years ago, and I have no idea what caused it. Edit: I've just remembered what it was that triggered my fear of waking up in the dark. It was a hallucination. It was so vivid it was incredible, but it was so obsured that I knew it couldn't be real. I tried closing my eyes, but it was still there when I opened them, I tried turning away but it persisted when I turned back. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, turning away and pretending it wasn't there, even with the implied threat. The oddest part, though, is that even though it triggered this fear of the dark, it happened in broad daylight, no shadows or anything, it was just there. If I was more credulous, or gullible, I might well believe it was a ghost, but I know it wasn't. Oh, and there were no drugs involved, I put it down to stress.

Here's a genuine question... What part can smell/scent play in the enjoyment of music? I know memory is strongly linked to smell. I often burn certain scented joss sticks to go with certain music. This can help by reminding me of good times, it almost feels like deja vu. But it can backfire, I have albums that I absolutely adore but I can hardly listen to anymore because they remind me of sad times. Sometimes they remind me of really good times, times that I miss, which ends up making me feel sad, too. I can listen to Björk's Debut album, while burning white musk incense, at any time of the year and it always makes me feel like Christmas. An odd one, not related to smell: I love Megadeth's Countdown to Extinction album, but I can't listen to it while lying down else it makes me feel sad. When I got the album I had just moved away from home, which was rather abusive, and moved in with my fiancé's brother and his girlfriend, both of whom I got on really well with. It was a glorious summer and I was finally in a place where I wasn't constantly in fear of being assaulted at random. I was really, really happy, for the first time in my life. I had no worries and the future looked bright. I would lie on my bed with the windows open and the sun blazing and listen to that album. Bliss. If I try to do that now it tears me apart. I'm fine if I am in my armchair, at my computer or in the car, but I can't listen to it while lying down. I sometimes wonder if because smells can trigger responses, such as the smell of rotten food, smoke (ironically) or even the presence of a predator, by filling the room with pleasant smells, does it help in being able to relax and enjoy the music more, because it removes a potential worry? One day I would love to try a sensory deprivation tank (the kind where you float in/on salt water the same temperature as your body, so while it supports you you can't actually feel it), but rather than deprive all senses, use it to listen to music. Eat a pot brownie and float away into the music. Perhaps use it to experiment with sound and smell combinations. I am not sure how you could listen to the music, though. I can't imagine a tank being terribly good acoustically, but head/earphones would have to make contact with your ears. Perhaps a specially moulded set that was really comfortable and light?

I came really close to buying a Cort Curbow, but then the bass I had been gassing for for twenty years came up at a price I couldn't turn down. I would still love one, though, but it ain't gonna happen unfortunately. I once saw a photo of a fretless one in piano white and it was gorgeous, I haven't been able to find the picture since though. I do love that they are largely synthetic, the bass I ended up buying has an ebony fretboard and I sometimes feel a little guilty about that. When we were kids my brother had a Columbus guitar with an ebanol fretboard and it was lovely to play, so fast.

He has to be a Poe, surely? Or a criminal or mentally ill.

Now, to completely muddle threads up with pseudoscience and drugs, I shall add religion! I can't remember who said it but it was an exchange between an atheist and a christian. The atheist said that they were both atheists but the atheist just believed in one god less. This is how it seems to be with all this audiophile nonsense. Things like the teleportation con seem so ridiculous that you'd think no one could fall for it, but I bet people do. It's even pushing at being a Poe. Stuff like the power cable are [i]equally[/i] as daft. But how far do you go? How much will/can you let yourself believe?

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1399461007' post='2444404'] That is true, and why I would never recommend them to anyone, of course. [/quote] Of course! I would never think such a thing! Incidentally, I saw a reference to the drug Molly, I didn't know what it was so I looked it up, turns out it is MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy. Well, that's what it is supposed to be, but apparently only about 13% of the stuff found actually contains MDMA, the rest made up of synthetic crap. According to a CNN article about it anyway. This is from that article: [quote]Molly is dangerous because of the toxic mix of unknown chemicals; users have no idea what they're taking or at what dose. Unlike MDMA and other illegal drugs that have known effects on the body, the formulas for these synthetic drugs keep changing, and they're manufactured with no regard to how they affect the user.[/quote]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1399456845' post='2444334'] Legal highs? [/quote] I have tried a few but none of them ever seem to work for me. The most useful thing I used them for was to replace tobacco in a spliff, because I gave up tobacco 13 years ago. I prefer to use a bong as a filter so don't need the extra stuff anymore. I still have a drawer full of legal stuff, on the very rare occasion that I crave a cigarette and want to struggle to breathe for a couple of days, I stick some in a pipe and smoke it. Proper grandad pipe too, makes me look wise. The stuff I have tried is all plant based. Most of them are based around wild lettuce. Some of the chemical experimental stuff looks scary, even though I used to enjoy a bit of whizz occasionally. I even tried a really strong salvia divinorum once, but that didn't work either. Some legal highs can be a bit dodgy, not having a proper history behind them so you can't know all the side effects. This is yet another problem with making safer stuff, that we have proper knowledge of, illegal. A bunch of festivals are banning the sale, by stall holders, of legal highs this year. Something I regret not trying when it was all the rage in the 90s is LSD, mushrooms, too. Apparently listening to music while on those is just a whole other level.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1399409694' post='2444046'] Sounds about right, which is why plenty of people think they play better when they are pissed and why others like to listen to their favourite tunes while stoned. [/quote] I only ever played while drunk once, it was just a jam with mates, not a gig. I remember thinking that everything was really fast at the time, but when we listened back to the recordings the next day it was all just a really slow dirge. I'd never play a gig under the influence of anything (except love, but I'm a gret big soppy git). Listening to music while stoned is nice, though. Why did I move 160 miles away from the people I know who sell it? Having my wife get a job with the police hasn't helped, either.

Right, let's see if I've got this right... To hear things that aren't there and to not hear things that are, all you have to do is [i]really believe[/i] it? If we take this to its logical conclusion, you don't really need a hi-fi system or records/CDs at all. Blimey! My favourite bands will never write a duff album again! Unless I'm in a really bad mood when I imagine it...

Is that the Revenge Warlock? The main reason I didn't buy one was because of the hardware, chrome is just wrong on it. Also the headstock, I wanted the Widow version. I ended up with the NT which has double Ps and an ebony fretboard, my ideal bass in fact. It cost me £265, but that was second hand (including postage and a Warwick coffin case). But, if I ever get the opportunity to buy another guitar, the guitar version of the Revenge comes in a gorgeous trans purple with white binding, that's what I would go for, and they're less than £300, usually around £220.

[quote name='bagsieblue' timestamp='1399235346' post='2442355'] Ouch!!! [/quote] That's what he said...

For future festival gigs you'll have the benefit of being able to think "Well, it can't be as bad as last time!". Hopefully...