NancyJohnson

With all due respect, the only thing I'd identify from Elixir strings is the lack of wrap, gold coloured ball-ends and a slight light grey/titanium discolouration from the coating process. We all know that there's a degree of inconsistency in string manufacture, everyone experiences duds... I'd never claim strings were ever soft and rubbery. Just consider for one moment the whole fakery process. The box. The strings. The paper envelope the strings are in. Free postage. It's an awful lot of effort to fake something for a few £££ gain.

I'm WFH today...figured it might be a good idea to fire up some stuff I've not listened to in a while, all of it Nathan Larson related. I've done a bit already. Mind Science of The Mind (1996). Hot One (2006). Jealous God (2001). Will close with some of his soundtrack stuff and Shudder To Think's Pony Express Record (1994). He has such a voice. First up, 'Mind Science Of The Mind'. Nathan Larson with Joan Wasser, Kevin March and Mary Timothy. They toured with Jeff Buckley on bass: Hot One: Jealouse God:

I have a new project on the go and have been asked whether I know any keyboard players. It's an interesting remit in that we're looking for someone who is more Richard Barbieri than Rick Wakeman, if that makes sense. Musical ability is an asset, but this more about pads and noise than sitting down and playing Rhapsody In Blue. We rehearse at Pirate, Wandsworth - erratic 3-4 hour sessions, weekends. We all have lives and late evenings will be for gigs, we're uninterested in staying out late on a school night. Wandsworth is equidistant for all members (Reading/Guildford/Lewisham/Central Landaan), but we may switch to Guildford occasionally. While we've all been on it for years, singer and guitarist both have a more prominent exposure level (if you are in that circle of players, you'd probably know the bands or them). We're looking at gigs two or three months, possibly Rebellion Festival. Would suit a more mature lady or gentleman (50s). Cheers.

'It's more than 4cm. I can't cope!' 'Why's that then?' 'Because I got little hands, innit?'

On the face of it the boxes are almost certainly genuine on both adverts. The Cactus In The Window seller, just seems to sell tat, but they may have just had a job lot of Elixir Strings and they've sold a few sets. As the honourable member for Bulgaria said, they could have sold the buyer duds and they don't know what they're buying. Maestro Music only seem to deal in Elixirs on eBay. Again it's feasible that the couple of negatives ('My E-string broke after two months, so they must be fake') are just people chancing it for refunds. Personally, I'd spend a tenner extra and go to the Elixir store on Amazon. Elixir will supply direct into Amazon (who act as middleman and take a margin on each sale). Possibly safer.

Professional. Hmm. In my opinion, I think it has nothing to do with ability/chops, gear etc. more about being in the right place at the right time at the start of the journey and having the nuance to sell yourself short constantly. There's hundreds of pro musicians that lack the ability that belies their status. We've all seen them. There are few people at the top of the pyramid. I know plenty of guys who've played professionally and all have second/third jobs to support this. Read some of the blog posts by Jay Postones, the drummer of Tesseract, who was doing graphic design work for a business in Reading 'minutes before [I] went on stage' and finishing up the work post-set while the rest of the band were having a beer. I often wonder how things would have gone for me had Polydor signed us about 35 years ago.

It's goose-pimply good. Man alive, I'm loving this. Holly Johnson aside, there's some footage up on YT of FGTH with Ryan Molloy fronting them. He was generally known for musical theatre stuff, but this 20 minutes is phenomenal.

Holly Johnson - Unleashed From The Pleasuredome, Live from Koko. Jesus, this is brilliant. 5/5. This also pointed me to his Baloise Session on You Tube from last year. Equally epic. Great rocking band, his voice still as strong as from the 80s. He's a bit if an enigma; without FGTH he'd be largely unknown, but he walked away from it, protracted legal case(s) etc. Patchy solo career, largely disappeared, and so on. We've seen this too many times. In all honesty, his voice is pretty unique and he should have become a national treasure. Message ends. Go listen. It's great.

I've always detested NYE intensely, it's always seemed like a horribly forced celebration. I honestly couldn't care any less about partying; my wife likes to see the new year in, but I'd sooner just have an early night. Like many people I know, I can't bear Jools Holland and the absolute falseness of the Hootenanny; it's recorded weeks beforehand, it's formulaic and tired. Look at the last one. Jesus. While there may be some appeal to a certain sector of the populist music fan, it's just full of artists that should have quit years ago and a few instantly forgettable artists (*except Rachael & Vilray). And Ruby Turner. Me? I'd like to see some kind of indie-rock extravaganza. I wouldn't mind if it was recorded ahead of new year; nobody is fooling anyone. Get a bunch of decent new guitar bands, The Beths, Momma, Soccer Mommy, Starcrawler, Snail Mail, Men I Trust, The Interrupters, Sports Team, beabeedobee. Let them do a three song set each, ten minutes each, and get a decent headline act to do 30 minutes after midnight (maybe the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs or something). Get Richard Latto to present it.

I can't bear it. We stuck it on and saw Rachael and Vilray, who were just awesome. Beautiful.

I've never had an issue with Andertons. When you consider the amount of kit they sell through the shop and online, there's an inevitability that once in a while something will go awry, but just remember they're the reseller and in all likelihood getting product out the door is way more important than sorting out queries. It doesn't matter whether it's musical instruments or shoes. First point of call with a warranty issue is always going to be to go back to where you bought it from - if, in the case of @KevP's neck, then Andertons contact Fender, they'll have various exchanges and Fender should investigate, then replace/repair if there's a genuine fault - we all need to realise Anderton's don't just snap their fingers and a replacement neck arrives within 48 hours. Kev has also not gone into specifics about the nature of the issue or how his tech knew there would be a future issue. The time of year the issue was reported could be an issue; all businesses go through busy periods (Christmas) and slack lower staffed periods (summer), which can stiff response times. Any delay is always down to the nature of retail and issue-resolution, believe me, if you've worked in any type of retail (yes, I have), then you'll realise that. That said the lead time from Fender (two months) does seem a little long, but you've not made it clear whether the replacement neck was a stock item or had to be manufactured from scratch to be model specific (is it the Ultra model as opposed to 'Ultimate'? I don't recall an Ultimate series.).

Somewhat delighted to see the UK's Danger Money and the expanded version of Night After Night have dropped onto streaming services in recent weeks (the first album has been up a while). I checked a few weeks ago and neither were there then. The live album from Japan shows in early summer 1979 (line up Jobson, Wetton, Bozzio) is a freaking delight; it's blasting out as I type this. It sound so, umm, fresh. So many bands owe a debt to what I'm listening to at the moment. Are you reading this Steven Wilson?

I wouldn't even consider using my monitors (an old pair of M-Audio BX5s) for practice purposes; the primary 5" drivers would just get quite pharty. I have a powered monitor up on the marketplace at the moment (10" speaker); that's about the smallest I'd go.

Just weighing in as the voice of reason here, I don't think I've actually measured the nut on any bass until a couple of minutes ago. When you're all going on about how the odd 2mm making all the difference I do wonder how you cope up the dusty end.

I'm working, so it's a case of just looking properly later. I did have a quick scan; it's surprising how little I know about the bands that played and how even on the day it was very much a case of dipping in and out and tuning in for the full sets of the bands that I wanted to see. I obviously remember the bands I recorded on VHS, but beyond that, nada. I had no recollection of The Style Council playing, or Adam Ant, Elvis Costello, Sade, Bryan Ferry, Old Wheezy, Dire Straits, The Who. The US show, I can only recall Bryan Adams and The Power Station. Blimey.

Ian Hunter solo stuff.

My wife got me a Gator 1212 gig bag as part of my haul. Perfect for the Darkglass and associated new project*. *Details TBA shortly.

It is all a bit odd how a different PC can just wreck things. Thinking back, I also had an issue disabling some B&O software on it that was processing audio as well. I'm not on the market for another desktop, but I won't buy another off the shelf/one-size-fits-all PC again.

I have a huge (15 hour) Christmas playlist on Spotify...all old crooners; Bing, Deano, Doris, Frank, Fred Waring, Burl Ives etc. Just stick it on shuffle. We usually put it on on Christmas Day and it sees us through all day, then back to normal programming on Boxing Day.

The main stuff: Early teen years - Sweet/Sparks/Mott The Hoople; Late teens through 20s - Predominantly US/Canada rock and UK punk: Kiss/Rush/Motley/Clash/Pistols/Van Halen/Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers. I adored It Bites. I was a huge Japan fan early on too, pretty much as soon as the first single came out; In my mid-20s to 40, I just lost interest in commercial hair-metal and punk and got more interested in what had evolved out of metal/punk. Janes Addiction/Living Colour/Dan Reed Network/Veruca Salt/Soul Asylum/Pearl Jam/Shudder to Think/Nine Inch Nails/Rival Schools/The Wildhearts/3 Colours Red (who I've been listening to today), plus stuff like Jellyfish/Sugarbomb. The last 10-15 years, I've enjoyed Motion City Soundtrack, a lot of small label US-indie stuff. Right now, I have a distinct soft spot for female fronted jangly guitar pop/rock. Momma, Dead Pony, Little Big League, Housewife, Sports Team, itrenintrenitreni. Dronningen, Blood Red Shoes, beabadoobee. I hadn't really embraced XTC when they were still together, so definitely a latecomer to that party. In addition to this, I like to dig into my favourite albums. I still adore Rumours, Band On The Run and a clutch of others.