Jean-Luc Pickguard

Giving away your service for free sets the perceived value of that service. I bet they wouldn't ask a plumber to unclog a toilet for free giving the reason that they're short of money.

Don't Arse Me — Ian Dury

Lift — Love & Rockets

Mickey The Mumbling Midget — The Residents

Cut Across Shorty — Eddie Cochran

Bald Head — Professor Longhair

Lovey Duvet — Carla Thomas & Otis Redding

Jeebus!

That's a phrase I didn't expect to read on BassChat

Bacon The Chain Gang — Pretenders

After being greatly impressed by Zpor's vocal effects in Henge, I ascertained from a live video that he was using a Roland VT-4 Voice Transformer and its forerunner, the VT-3 to transform his voice. I found that the latest model in this line appeared to be the E-4 Voice Tweaker so I picked one up secondhand. Unfortunately I found it rather a phaff to use, so I also got a VT-4 which arrived via the bay of E this morning. My initial impression is that the VT-4 is much more accessible with better I/O options & phantom power on a balanced mic input, although the E-4 does have some cool features not included in the VT-4 — it can be used as an audio interface without drivers, it has a built-in rechargable battery, and the looper & scatter feature are interesting and warrant some experimentation. Not sure whether I will keep both, but I'll do some recording with them and see how I get on.

Old Man — Neil Young

Ziggy Stardust — Bauhaus

I was excited when I first heard about this pedal in the dim and distant past, however I've now decided not to bother. On my all-boss gigging pedalboard I have an AW-3 which makes a wide range of funky sounds, and my recently acquired HX effects has a pretty decent sounding model of a mutron III that I have been having fun playing with.

Filthy McNasty — Horace Silver

Moron TV — Primus

The Pillage People The Gay Band The Bee Pees Donna Bummer The P.O.S. Band KC & The Sunshite Band Harold Melvin & The Blue Noses Sister Sludge

Conway Twatty (one for the teenagers!)

Ebay has now brought in a stipulation that sellers will be required to use the shipping method booked through ebay, where loss or damage is covered as part of the service. I wonder how this will work for guitars/basses that turn up broken?

I'm not a fan of backing tracks or bands that use them. It can turn something advertised as a gig into something more akin to karaoke.

Sienna sunburst is the best colour for the player series mustang, and one of the few colours that comes with a maple fingerboard. I'd been wanting one for a long time when I finally managed to acquire one last year. I made a few tasteful changes to mine — including shielding with copper tape, new loom, hipshot HB10 lollipop tuners, thumbrest (in 70s position) and a Hi Mass Bridge. The Pickups sound fantastic to me so I had no reason to upgrade them. I thought about replacing the switch with a blend pot but decided I preferred the simplicity of a switch, however the stock switch was a bit temperamental and I discovered an annoying issue where unless the volume was at 100%, rolling down the tone also affected the volume. To fix these issues I replaced the loom using a more suitable circuit, building the loom using new components — CTS pots, Orange drop cap, puretone socket, and switchcraft switch.

The Oak Of Golden Dreams — Harold Budd

The lovely guild acoustic guitar I bought recently came with a rather smelly gigbag, presumably due to a previous owner smoking. After a wipedown the guitar itself has no residual odour, but after wiping down the bag and using febreze, the bag still whiffed a bit so I left it with my daughter who offered to steam clean it for me in an attempt to get rid of the pong. I'll have to ask her whether she's had any success. It would be a shame if I have to junk the bag due to the smell as it looks brand new.

The body and pickups look very much like a Yamato 70's japanese bass I had, but the neck does not look like it goes with it, but came off something like a woolworths 'satellite' or similar. As each bass has a different scale length it is likely to be impossible to intonate, and if this is the case it would be pointless to carry out any restoration if the aim is to have a working instrument.