NancyJohnson

I had a playlist on Spotify that had seven or eight albums on it, all female fronted bands. Once a week I used to have to drive to Wolverhampton and back for work, and I'd shuffle the tracks. JH3 was on there, Bully, Chumped, Cayetana, Veruca Salt, Potty Mouth, Momma, Blake Babies (of course), Snail Mail.

The Juliana Hatfield Three.

I got a replacement amp from Thomann. All good.

One of the John East circuits I have installed has given up the ghost (see elsewhere), uncertain at this point whether it's worth just pulling it out and sending it to John for a service or just trying something else. Looking for replacement recommendations. Effectively a three knob unit for a two pickup bass. I did like the Darkglass circuit that was in my old Spector Euro LX, but specs just seem so vague on that. Help!

Brief meetup with Steve today - he bought an active monitor and tripod stand that I had for sale. Top bloke, tried to get him to the next bash!

I have an extender on my Euro-X, fitted recently. Ahead of the curve, it's strung with Elixir Nanowebs, 40/60/80/100. Interestingly, it hadn't seen much use since I left my old band and was still tuned to DGCF when I fitted it, so I was dropping to C. I didn't actually realise I wasn't tuned to what quantifies as standard pitch, no flappy strings or anything. It was only when I did a studio session a couple of weeks back that the producer questioned my tuning. Flappyness just seems a bit hit and miss all round. The Spector seems fine, another of my basses is the opposite with the same guage strings/scale length.

I'm really not a fan of Jazz/Precision basses, even less so copies thereof, but these look OK. Much as always is the case, the take on the headstock design is, as usual, horrific; I don't wholly understand patent law, but my understanding is that Fender hold the design patent for the headstock shape, but for body shape it's open season. Oddly, pretty certain that while we feel it's fine to alter the headstocks of the Harley Benton and Bass Centre models, this wouldn't happen with Sadowsky or Lakland derivatives.

@cetera I think we need to shoot a video.

Spotify tells me it gets over 100,000 plays a day and it's been played nearly 243 million times. Does anyone really care whether the narrative aligns with today's world view; life's too short and people are too often offended. Just read the lyrics (first time), it's storytelling, nothing more. There's a whole lot worse (and less intelligent lyrically) out there; have a look at 'Stupid Hoe' by Nicki Minaj.

When I saw them, I did a little bit of jizz.

I was up to about a dozen Thunderbirds at one point and I honestly couldn't keep track of those. There'd be a gap in the rack and you'd go, 'What's supposed to be in there?' I've been to the @cetera vault. There's a lot of stuff in there. An awful lot of stuff. 😂

Now then. My only experience was off a guy who owned one in the late 70s/early 80s. Distinctly remember the bass was a bolt-on and there didn't appear to be enough of the neck attached to the body in the rout/heel area and the thing was going like a banana. Horrific action.

$500 in £? £395.00. Bonkers.

So US/Sweetwiter $500 preorder, Thomann £611 (or $775). Bonkers. If I do pull for one of these it'll be though my brother in law on a US trip.

I know @tonyxtiger bought in some Tech21 stuff. The one thing that narked me with the Rocky Road distribution was that they didn't have a clue about the products they were dealing with; when my Ged rack lost its clank, it went to Rocky Road and their opinion was that, 'It's making a noise, so it's working, innit?' Err, no. For the salary they're likely paying their tech guy, they could just as easy have sent me a new one under the warranty.

They look nice. Eyewatering prices. I think the main problem I see with these is that I've never - from a Spector perspective - seen him playing anything except the honeyburst(?) PJ and JJ models. He's not associated with anything that looks like that.

I just don't get how hard it is to set up as a distribution company. We've discussed this previously. My brother in law spends a lot of time in Houston...

I have a meter - from memory the output jack is the same as the one in John's photo below (it just bolts into a jack plate). I'm getting some noise from one of the jumper points behind the rotary trim pots indicated below, beyond that, nothing. All the loom cables are in and tight. A while back I'd have been desperate to get this fixed, now you just kind of shrug your shoulders and pull out another bass, because fixing it is a job from future Nancy! :)

To be honest, I'd track down a second-hand Fender. Mexico/Japan. If I were you (not that I want to spend anyone's £££s for them), I'd stretch by budget and hit up Dave's Jazz, below. I've no idea what the current price is...it's been yo-yoing up and down.

Well, I love the Bongo. I'd take the Musicman over the Yamaha.

I've just returned from a session at the physiotherapist. While I was waiting, a second receptionist started work and there was a conversational handover, which was pretty much this: 'Oh hi, Sally! Good weekend?' 'Yeah, not bad, took the grandchildren to the park, then we had a Chinese and watched Eurovision.' 'Oh god, it was just awful wasn't it?' 'Yes, terrible. Why we even bother entering is beyond me. Everyone hates us.' 'I know! Jesus Christ on a bike.' So a little snapshot from middle England.

With all due respect, there's probably been past winners who pre-date these tags and pronouns. It's hardly history-making, winning something on the basis of votes. Nobody will even remember him/them/whatever in a few days.

I just watched the UK entry. WTAF? It's honestly no wonder the public vote gave him zero. Some of the posts on X are priceless. One person posted something along the lines of, 'Oh, why can't we just enter a nice song, performed by someone with a decent voice, nice clothes, sparkly shoes, backing singers doo-bopping.' Got a point. I'd rather this than five blokes dressed as boxers dry-humping each other.