tegs07

pick up the pieces - A.W.B

freebird - skynyrd

Body electric - sisters of mercy

return of django - upsetters

crawling king snake - the doors

the tourist - radiohead

i like dirt - rhcp

after midnight - jj cale

in the jailhouse now - soggy bottom boys

under pressure - queen

we have explosive - future sound of london

For the best IMO. In the innocent days of my childhood that flag just symbolises Smokey and the bandit, The dukes of hazard (those shorts and that car) Rockabilly and something far more exciting than dull and grey suburbia. Not anymore. Full history here for anyone interested: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_display_of_the_Confederate_battle_flag

going down - freddie king

the bastard son of dean friedman - half man half biscuit

the heathen - bob marley

sculptures of anything goes - arctic monkeys

motorcycle emptiness - manics

saturday sun - nick drake

Yeah the neck and pickups are crucial for me. I don’t like offset bodies much but other than that the neck is the determining factor. It doesn’t really matter what it says on the headstock. Pickups are easy enough to replace and the Nate’s will swapped out as soon as I stop being lazy.

A few years ago I had a squier CV P bass. It was a really decent instrument. Eventually I decided to get a “proper” Fender. Thus began a total waste of time (in retrospect) buying and selling a US P, a mexican P, a couple of Bitsa’s before finally getting a Fender Nate P that for me is better than the CV. If I never sold the CV though I would have been perfectly content and saved a fair bit of effort! I’ve been down a similar road with Stingrays with the initial Ray34 being in retrospect just a really decent instrument that didn’t need to be replaced. Edit: The one caveat is most likely due to age I now prefer a slimmer neck so that may tip the balance for the Nate.

liberty song - the levellers

as the dawn breaks - richard hawley

To be fair this is not an issue that just affects musicians. Several people I know run their own businesses and have to do other work in tandem to make ends meet. One guy I know opened a restaurant and after cooking from around 7 till 11ish in the evening goes off to do a night shift. He has been doing this for nearly two years to get the restaurant into profit. I ran a small business for a few years and loved the work, but it was seasonal and when the family came along I just couldn’t expand it enough to make ends meet (not without big risk and investment anyway). Running any small business is really tough in an expensive country like the UK. Ultimately a musician is another struggling self employed small business and sadly a lot of them fail each year. Getting past the first few years is the really difficult hurdle. The next comes a few years later after achieving some stability and trying to reach the next level.

I get a bit cross with eBay about their stance on counterfeit goods. They are not some small budget local non profit organisation. Allowing people to sell obvious fakes and take a cut in the revenue is illegal and immoral. Some poor sod will end up £500 poorer from this. They have the staff and technology to put an end to it, not profit from it.