NancyJohnson

208 'Your Cheerful Earful!' Ooh, loon pants!

'One Hand Clapping' by Wings. Enjoying this immensely (second run through already today). Wings are a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. I remember my mum buying me Wings Over America one Christmas on the recommendation of the owner of the record shop where I'd get all my records from. Those three or four albums from the run that led up to this live album (Band On The Run, Venus And Mars, Wings At The Speed of Sound) are regular go-to listening. The recent Band On The Run (Underdubbed Mixes) was a freaking 10/10 joy.

This just popped up on my Facebook feed. It's a guys website (https://luthierylabs.com) - he's made a couple of Rickenbacker copies based off the 325 guitar body shape. Ignore the Home Depot and Fender logos on the headstocks! Despite my disliking of sunburst finishes, the bottom image is probably the nicer of the two, especially with the 3001 style headstock; I'd like to see one with a four-knob/black plate on that one. The bodyshape really works in my opinion.

Being of a certain age, Japan were my main band 1978/80...I can take joy from the spartanly attended gigs I schlepped up to London for; Dingwalls, The Venue, Music Machine, Lyceum, Royal Opera House. Me and a mate saw them at The Rock Garden and then got into The Greyhound a couple of days later. Mick Karn was always the primary focal point. Nobody/fans gave a rats bumhole about them early days. It was like they were our little secret. The Lyceum shows were interesting; the first was about a 1/4 full, the next was absolutely rammed. Quiet Life changed everything really. Gone was all the psuedo-aggressive punk/funk and the audience was just full of peacocks that were more interested in the clothes and aura behind the band rather than the music. Diminishing returns too. My last gig was one of the later Hammersmith shows and it was terrible, Rob Dean long gone, almost erasing memories of just a couple of years previously. Moving back to Mick Karn, yep, genius. Groundbreaking. Inspiring. Brilliant. I honestly don't believe we, as bassplayers, knew just how great he actually was until he was gone.

I suspect that once we get off BT Internet and sign up to 900mbps Zen Internet, I'll just migrate things over to Tidal.

I realise that this might counter a couple of posts above, but - assuming you want to retain a similar body shape - why not just source a Sterling/Sub and get a carpenter to hull out the body? You could feasibly sell on the neck/hardware for a few ££.

There was a lengthy thread here a few years back, honestly it should have gone to a vote...people paying stupid money for shims or just sticking a bit of cardboard/creditcard under the neck heel. It was amazing how people would advocate using StewMac shims ("Noticable sustain," or something) when a playing card would have exactly the same result.

Just off the back of the two posts from ped and Warren above, we're probably of (or approaching and age) where historically we actively went out to try and find music we were interested in; we read music weeklies, we went to gigs, we appreciated word-of-mouth referrals, we listened to radio content/shows that appealed to our tastes, we may also have been lucky enough to have a record store nearby where Sounds journalists would drop off their review copies and owners who allowed us to listen to music on headphones (all hail, Record Scene, Staines (RIP)). Now - with all these platforms - we are spoonfed/dribbled content to the apps. I get what Warren is saying about the Spotify UI. If I look at Spotify on my phone, all I really want is a big old button that points to my search options and the playlists I've set up. I know what I want to listen to, I have a vast musical library on Spotify (and on a NAS, which because of the failure of the Sonos app I'm unable to access across my network at the moment). I've got panels for 'Recently Announced', 'Picked for you', 'New releases for you', 'Recently Played', 'Fresh New Music', 'Recommended for Today', 'Your Favourite Artists', 'Huge Playlists', 'Audiobooks For You', 'Jump Back In', 'Episodes For You', something called 'Our Generation', 'Alternative 70s', 'Alternate 60s', 'The Indie List', 'misfits 2.0', 'Made In Scotland', 'Massive Dance Hits', 'Made In Liverpool', 'Altar', Rap UK#, 'Powerpop'...there's about 20 more. I don't need any of this at all. I am no more going to click on some acne-faced indie group from Liverpool any more than I've going to go out and find something praising he merits of Allah. Let me do my own diligence rather than forcing all this poop on me (which is likely sponsored by labels anyhow). Most of the good stuff I've 'discovered' recently has come via a US indie station called W-EQX, which is based in Manchester, Vermont.

I've stuck with Spotify, but was thinking about going to Tidal (did a free trial), simply as they have 5.1/Atmos/Lossless content. Insofar as non-streaming content goes, I would generally use the (currently broken) Sonos app to squirt this content around the house. Had a trial with Apple a while back, but didn't go any further as the UI was bloated/unnecessarily complicated. Reckon I'll migrate to Tidal at some point, but it'll be a trawl to get everything/playlists from Spotify.

If you want to give it a day or two, I'll pull my Hamer out and let you know. He did one without the power switch for me.

I saw Gary doing his shizz with Dressed To Kill a looong time ago at a club owned by a mate of mine in Wokingham, Berkshire. Frankly, it was one of the greatest evenings I've ever had seeing a band, originals or otherwise.

Royalties pre-date Spotify.

Business model applies globally. Doesn't matter if you're digging coal or working on a shop-floor, the guys who own the business will always be the ones that reap the greater reward. The guy who set up Spotify (Daniel Ek) is still CEO at the business; I say well done to him for creating his niche and good luck to him and the people he has working for him. Same goes Deezer/Tidal etc. This might sound a bit naive, but the whole royalty thing is a bit odd to me and I find it difficult to actually put down in words as to why. As I said earlier, personally I don't expect to be getting a reward for work I did 30 years ago, so why shouldn't the same apply to music/film/books/media creators? They've done the job of creation, so why is there this expectation of a continuing royalty/percentile?

On the question of exploitation, would you expect to be recieving a royalty for work you did 30 years ago? The royalty model is truly broken, the big money is off touring and merchandising. I've haemorrhaged thousands on music where 80% of the tracks are just filler and would wager I'm not alone.

I mean, each to their own - and don't quantify your answer here on the basis of format wars - but the question for me is how do you go about discovering anything new or do you just rest on your laurels and feel warm and fuzzy about the music you may already own?

Sorry, it's already gone. I didn't see a message until a few minutes ago. Nephew was rooting around on my PC, suspect they read it and I didn't see the flag.

I've never really been a fan of multi-effect setups (we're talking chorus/flange/octave pedals etc, not drive pedals at this juncture); for years I've gone through Sansamp drives, these sound perfectly good for my needs, but where other outboard kit falls over for me is where the entire signal path goes through one effect unit. I guess the XO is giving you the facility to just route highs or lows through individual loops and squirt it back to the main output, also obviating the necessity of running two amps as well (in certain set ups). When I think back to how I was running a stereo power amp into two cabinets, splitter front end to GT2/BDDI. It sounded decent enough, but tonally it was all or nothing over both outputs.

With the first one, I bought in a new singer and I know he wanted us more than we needed him. Things went a little toxic, guitarist left, singer wanted the drummer gone etc. We were a four piece but if we voted on anything it was always guitarist and singer against me, with the drummer just sitting on the fence, so I had no voice in a band that I'd actually started. It just got incredibly frustrating. Much as I hated just jacking in, I felt that if I hadn't it would have just come to blows and no one wants that. Singer was quite angry and malicious; he admits he was drinking quite heavily but kept it private, there were times where I think he was just testing the limits of how far he could push me before I'd break.

If you subscribe to basscentric You Tube channels you should have seen this beauty by now. Man alive, how I could have used this a few years ago rather than trying to build tone off a variety of guitar distortions (GT2), BDDI/VTBASS stomps and ABY boxes. Sadness is that while the XO will integrate with most boards, the new Tech21 XB driver stomp will/should be a one box solution.

Last two breakups both over WhatsApp; it's just cleaner than doing stuff face to face. Oldest one was acrimonious; sadness was I lost a band I'd started eight years before and also that musically we were moving into a very creative period. The straw that broke the camel's back was being questioned why I was pulling out of a gig the day my father-in-law passed away ("Don't you realise how hard it is to get gigs?") Last one I just jumped on the coattails of the drummer, project had just run it's course. While issues had been building (friction/apathy), both these went from being active projects to dead in the water in a matter of minutes.

I was never a fan of Suede, but liked Bernard Butler quite a lot. It was a masterstroke re-releasing People Move On with BB rerecording the vocals; his voice has matured beyond belief. The new album ('Good Grief') is a wonderful thing. If there were comparisons, I'd compare it to the magnificence of Charlie Sexton's 'Under The Wishing Tree'. This is a wonderful, wonderful album.

The big fail with Epiphone guitars was this frankly nonsensical adherence to their (traditional) headstock shape, not that its mattered with Explorers, Flying Vs or the more recent Thunderbirds. Even though I don't need another bass, a faithful Grabber or Ripper reproduction might picque my interest, so long as it's accurate (the Thunderbird bodies are some way off). Let's see Les Paul Jones and Melody Makers as well.

It's 20% off. 😁

Mid-70s Aerosmith. Rocks, Draw The Line, Live! Bootleg. For me, these three are the only albums worth listening to.