chriswareham

It can be bad. The former owner of the company I work for would maximise profit so he could then pay himself the biggest dividend possible and pay the least tax, sacrificing the ability to invest and grow the business. As the majority shareholder he did this against the wishes of the other shareholders (who were also founders and worked at the business). Thankfully he wanted to sell the business at the end of the COVID shutdown and our new owners are much more pragmatic.

MC4 were our local heroes when I was a teenager and I used to drink in one of the pubs the band frequented, the brilliant Tumbledown Dick that was was a haven for punky, gothy, crusty or otherwise alternative folks in what was otherwise a very violent town. The first gig I ever attended was MC4 and the equally brilliant Senseless Things at Camberley Town football club. Went on to see both bands countless times, especially at the West End Centre in Aldershot. Sadly Wiz of MC4 and Mark of Senseless Things were taken from us far too early, and the historic Tumbledown Dick pub - a rare example of a 17th century "posting inn" - was turned into a f*cking McDonalds.

There was a Dead Boys tribute in the US, and when Cheetah Chrome was persuaded to restart the band he recruited the tribute act's singer to replace the late Stiv Bators. That guy rage quit last year, and now my band's lead guitarist is fronting them on their current world tour. Cheetah is the only original member, although I think the original drummer was involved at one point.

The lady I described in my comment is an objectively awful musician. Her guitar is out of tune and looks like it desperately needs new strings, while her "singing" is even more out of tune than her guitar. The volume she plays at is loud enough to make me wince and even more focused than it would be outdoors as she's in a long connecting corridor between two tube lines.

When I had to commute daily in the pre COVID times, there was a lady busker at Bond Street Underground station. She was absolutely terrible, which surprised me as you have to pass an audition to get a busking license on TfL property. I only had to endure a few minutes each day of her, but I shudder to think what her amplified caterwauling was doing to the station staff.

I didn't see them in the early days either, a little before my time. I did see Patricia Morrison in Wokingham of all places when she briefly fronted her own band. I had high hopes, since I was familiar with her pre-Sisters activity in bands like The Bags and Gun Club. Sadly it turned out she was doing what a lot of other formerly quite distinctive bands and musicians were doing at the time, which was trying to go mainstream by playing heavy metal. Appropriately enough, this was also when Eldritch tried to do the same thing with the execrable "Vision Thing" album.

There's the "Sisters of Murphy" who have been doing the rounds for years as a Sisters tribute. The version of the Sisters currently fronted by Eldritch sound like a third rate techno outfit, so I'd definitely prefer to see a tribute if they can capture the intensity of the pre-Floodland band.

A quick Google (other search engines are available), and there is a "Not the Hoople". They look to young to be the guys we were on the same bill with, as they were a bunch of guys who looked and sounded like they had quite a bit of history. They were very polished, but it seemed like a fairly niche band to be a tribute act for.

I was on the same bill as a Mott The Hoople tribute a few years ago. They had a right strop when they found out they were support, and in the end we let them headline. Sadly for them everyone was there to see us, a Joy Division tribute, and the audience promptly scarpered as soon as we finished. To their credit, they proceeded to play for what seemed an eternity until the sound engineer finally pulled the plug on them ... which was before they'd even got to the Bowie penned track that the original band is remembered for.

White Coats by New Model Army. It's been a few years so perhaps I should give it another go, plus a quick search on the intertubes has this cover that will probably help with the bits I couldn't get:

If they do a "flat pack administration" then it will be like DV247 (formerly Digital Village and more recently rebranded as Music Store) all over again. The business was shut down and "sold" to the same owners overnight, on a Sunday, with all stock whisked off to Germany to avoid creditors or suppliers getting their hands on it. The whole process should be outlawed, as it just screws over the suppliers, customers and all of us who pay tax since any debts owed to HMRC are also avoided.

As noted earlier in the thread, despite the .co.uk domain, Bax are not based in the UK. I ordered from them once only. A synth, that arrived with what's known as a "deathdaptor" to convert a two pin power supply to fit a UK plug socket. Totally illegal, highly dangerous.

I'm another one that has used them for computer parts going back longer than I can remember. Hadn't realised they now do music gear as well.

I suspect that sound engineers and their presumption of what a bass guitar should sound like is a big factor in what JJ sounds like at any given show. I wouldn't be surprised that even a band with the stature of The Stranglers don't have their own sound engineer these days and normally rely on the house engineer. For example, I'm used to house sound engineers scooping the mids on bass sounds. My sound and that of JJ's early era is the mids at full, a smidge of bass boost and a smidge of treble cut. That goes against what most sound engineers think is appropriate in all circumstances and often a source of argument. I hate it when engineers mic' the guitar amps, but only directly DI the bass before it's even reached the amp. My amp sound is deliberately part of the band's sound, and I have to insist on being mic'ed up or at least having the DI coming out of my amp's preamp. The show I did last Friday we were the last to soundcheck as things were as usual running late, and I set the (mic'ed up) bass amp to maxed out mids, flat bass and treble. I was amused to see the previous bands had left the amp settings untouched when we went on stage, despite the sound engineer's initial grumbling about the bass sound when I first soundchecked solo before we played as full band. Long story short, most sound engineers at small to medium venues have a very blinkered idea of what a bass guitar should sound like for certain bands. And don't get me started on sound engineers who still mix keyboards to be inaudible because most of them are guitar bigots.

There were quite a few on the London scene a few years ago, but most didn't reappear after the COVID lockdown. One band that is definitely still around and making a bit of a name for themselves are Black Doldrums. They have a friend of mine on bass - he's actually a lead guitarist normally but had made the transition to being a melodic bassist very well. I'd suggest checking them out on YouTube, although the studio recordings haven't quite captured the intensity of their live sound yet so if you get the chance I'd highly recommend seeing one of their concerts in person.