NancyJohnson

There's another one from me, too. I used to attend credit circle meetings and struck up a good friendship with a guy from a comptetitor, who was a big alternative music fan. He contacted me one time and said he had a spare ticket for the Manic Street Preachers, I think it was at Brixton Academy. Not being a fan, I declined. A while later, different Manics tour, spare ticket. And again. Four or five times this happened, one time the offer included all access passes. I jokingly asked him why he was always touting Manics tickets, to which he responded, 'I've told you the story haven't I?', to which I just kind of replied, 'Err, no what story?' Turns out James Dean Bradfield is his brother in law. D'oh.

So about eight days ago, I start a new job. My background is in credit management and analytical poop; I'm supervising a team of eight ladies, they're all pretty lovely to be honest. A couple of days in and I'm facing a battery of questions, you know, 'Are you married?' (Yes), 'Do you have kids?' (No, cats), 'What you you do outside of work?' (I play bass and read a lot). The latter question is always a way of saying that I do music, used to gig a lot, but don't now, it's a studio project and so on. I rarely make an effort to big myself up, I mean why would I? One of the ladies says that a heavily pregnant member of the team has a husband who plays drums, so I make a mental note, because drummers are hard to find. I sat down with her last week and we're just chatting and the conversation moves to music. She asks, 'You in a band then?' I explain yes, but no, but yes and it's all studio stuff. I mention I'd heard her husband played drums and - wondering whether he'd be up for a jam sometime - I ask whether he plays in a band. 'Yeah, he's in Scouting For Girls. They've been on Sony for about ten years.' I just wondered why the ground didn't open up and swallow me.

Never been sacked, but left the band I started about eight years previously after the new singer pretty much took over and things became intolerable. I guess sacking or leaving, just try to rise above it, irrespective of how much it hurts now. Whatever you're feeling now will pass and you can move forward and take some pleasure in the failings of the unit that felt they no longer needed you. I certainly know that my current project (Lutz) if a country mile better and more challenging than the old one.

I'd speak guys we shared stages with and pretty much every guitarist wanted a Junior. If Gibson actually did their diligence they'd know there's a huge groundswell of players who want to see (and would buy) a reissue based on 50s specs, not the Tribute model that they're currently selling.

Money? There's money to be made from this malarky?

Ben Harding contributes to the 3CR Fanbase Facebook page regularly. Lest we forget, he was also in Senseless Things.

I'll give it a miss this year I think.

I don't miss it; it's been 18 months or so. I used to think it was the peak of musical creativity; getting it out there. Meh. The constant drudgery of midweek 100+ mile round trips to play 'well promoted' shows to a handful of people, the stream of two faced promoters and club owners who never even offered to cover our fuel expenses, or the one who actually charged us for water and two Magnum lollies after we'd driven 100 miles to get to his shitfest and had to pay for parking (he told us there was limited parking to the rear of the venue for staff and he would clamp us if we parked there). Ooh, I could go on. That nasty smell of cheese, beer and smoke that I just couldn't shift from my gear after playing the St. Moritz. The way that if you supported a 'biggish in the 80s', C-list name band how they just ignored you. Travelling to Italy and gigging in Milan and Turin; the realisation that you really don't like the other guys in the band and how we just split into three factions for the duration. Oh, it was crap, generally. Recording is so much nicer. Decent coffee, pizza delivery, easy, home by 10.30pm.

I just can't get past the my-dog-took-a-bite-out-of-the-headstock headstock. The pre-bitten ones look much nicer.

There's a tech in Reading I know who has one. I was surprised how well it intonated for a 1960s guitar with a wraparound bridge. As previously posted, it was light as a feather.

This company seem to have a very short memory. Does anyone remember when Gibson announced this Jimi Hendrix monstrosity? Looks familiar? I really just don't understand how they even went as far as building prototypes without someone at Gibson going, 'You know what? I think this is a bad idea, doesn't anyone think it looks a little too much like one of our competitors instruments, so perhaps we shouldn't build any.' Perhaps the R&D team were just too feeble to say no to the captain of the ship, but mind you, when ol' Henry was at the helm, it was probably very much a case of any goes, eh?

I've found a few guys doing something similar; once guy built a Telecaster clone out of old SD cards set in acrylic. If woodturning is your thing, there's a guy called Andy Philips/Phillips who has a You Tube channel that's fascinating to view. He just gets these gnarly old lumps of wood, turns them, then sets them in acrylic and turns them again. It's just joy to see these old bits of wood transformed into something stunning.

I seem to be going through a phase of obsession with guys either turning wood or building guitars out of scrap. This is a build where the guy has used coloured pencils and acrylic pours.

I was searching for some old Bell Musical catalogues a few days back...these are from 1974:

Before I even owned my first bass (I had a classical guitar for Christmas one year...), I used to borrow the exact same bass as this from a guy who lived round the corner from me. He also had a WEM Dominator III. I owe a debt of gratitude to that bloke. Simon Kellet, wherever you are, thanks!

Somewhere in the depths of a box of old bits, I still have the original cable that came with my first proper bass. Mid-70s. It's a bit crackly and the rubber has perished a bit, but last time I plugged in with it, it worked OK. Insofar as instruments go, I have a mid-70s Epiphone FT-140 acoustic I bought new with some money my grandmother left me and a 1950s/60s Zenith Josh White parlour guitar that my mum procured for a couple of pounds at a Salvation Army jumble sale in the late 70s/early 80s. While I have some oldish basses, these are fairly recent acquisitions.

Any sightings this side of the pond yet?

Prior to my initial dalliances with Amazon, I would have wholeheartedly agreed with this comment. We had a fantastic little bookshop locally who just seemed to be in denial when the net book agreement was abolished; they just limped along and I remember the proprietor bemoaning online sales, all the while turning a blind eye to what Amazon or Play were doing. They maintained charging the full price until going out of business a couple of years ago. Back to the original point, yes, I do/did try and support local businesses, but it's 2019 AND a buyers marketplace, why would I pay £5.00 more for book?

Different SKU/ASIN. The more expensive product (Prime) is stocked and shippedby Amazon, the cheaper is not.

When my dad retired I tried to persuade him in investing in some vintage Gibson and Fenders with his lump sum. Some 30 years on, sure had you bought wisely, you could have seen your investment triple ir quadruple in value.

Just some background and basis for Amazon's pricing methodology. When I worked in the jewellery trade, we had a caveat in the terms and conditions that ANY jeweller who wished to pursue sales online must have a High Street presence before we could ship product; this was looked upon as our way of supporting the High Street. We would not embrace traders who operated a mailorder business out of a spare room or garage. Towards the end of my time there however, things changed somewhat; it would be fair to say that we had a new managing director and FD who were wholly sales driven and there was a changing marketplace and more competition within our pricing sector. I'd say a precedent that led to the change in our distribution channels was set by one shop that maintained a tiny store in Reading whilst being the biggest online retailer of wristwatches in the country and as a consequence the lid was off a box that we tried so hard to keep closed, so it became open season. A couple of years before I left, we jumped into bed with Amazon. While I'm not wholly aware of the specifics behind the contracts, I figure the management finally caught on that Amazon was becoming a huge player in just about everything, that logistically it saved us a fortune on long-term warehousing and shipping and through them we could control/undermine the businesses we were trying to limit selling online. I mean, what better way to beat people down than - irrespective if it's good ethically - to side with another business to ultimately drive more small retailers out of business. Concerning prices, let's not forget that have huge resources at work to track 3rd party marketplace products and to ensure they are always the cheapest. We'd just ship into Amazon's warehouse locations and if XYZ Ltd were selling one of our products at £295.00, Amazon would automatically track that product and sell it £10.00 cheaper. You have to remember that because of agreements and bulk selling, we're selling into Amazon at a) cheaper than we would a High Street retailer, b) the mark up is almost definitely more than 80%, possible double and c) Amazon were rewarded with contributions from us based on sales out numbers. The long and the short of this is that Amazon will almost certainly always be the cheapest that you will find new product on sale for. Forget going out and looking at stuff now; people are effectively using stores as showrooms; it doesn't matter whether it's TVs or wristwatches. If you know what you want, you will not find it cheaper elsewhere.

Well, I guess when these originally dropped (1987/88) the musical landscape was somewhat different to how it is now and by way of small credit to Gibson, they were trying to do something different. Conservative estimates have actual production numbers as 'under 50', so it hardly set the world on fire.