NancyJohnson

I love the Lignum stuff...guitars, housebuilding, construction. When they reroofed the old building on the island, it was stunning. All brilliant. Concerning the bass, this is the Lignum build video. Strings on that are tapered rounds, god knows who make them. Piano strings maybe?

Seeing the Vigier that's just closed in the For Sale section got me thinking. A guy I know had one, a Passion model - god knows where it is now, he's in Australia at the moment, might be with him, might be in storage over here somewhere - I really liked the look of it, the set up was horrific. Action must have been at least a centimetre on the octave, possibly higher. I offered to have a look at it, but he declined, despite saying how much he liked my rattly old Thunderbirds. He really used to struggle up the dusty end. Same story a mate in Milan. Yamoto sapphire blue Gibson Thunderbird. Beautiful looker, nasty front bow, strings not changed in years, my hands just felt dirty after a 45 minute set. I played it in Milan when we gigged there. Zero interest in getting it playing better. Even offered to get the strings off and boil them at the venue. Nope. And in closing, guy I worked with years ago had a Rickenbacker; I think it was a 4003. Mahoosive front bow on the neck, played like a donkey.

"...and you can't take them back because they're all covered in spit." Steve Martin 1979.

When I was a kid, 1/2" was the same as 8/16" and 4/8". The issue seems to be that they're going off shaft diameters rather than the bushings.

We seem obsessed with what to buy our basses as a treat; things we can screw in, glue on, or replace. We're all guilty of it and we are all under the allusion these additions are all for betterment.

On the face of it, anything that Fender make which isn't badged Precision, Jazz, Mustang or Jaguar tends to disappear after a year or two; they seem unwilling to play the long game with anything that falls outside these models and hey, it's easier to simply rebadge your existing models as Original/Ultra/US/Player Plus and slap new colurs on them rather than come up with something new, so I wouldn't hold your breath for a six string. I was just having a look online at their discontinued bass models. The Dimension. Coronado. Bronco. Performer. Urge. Zone. Bass V. Bass VI. Prophecy. Starcaster. Telecaster.

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?