skankdelvar

Indeed so. Many people merely expanded their musical tastes to include punk while continuing to buy the latest offerings from the Zeppelin, Genesis, Yes and - er - Leo Sayer. A smaller number hurled themselves into a full-body realignment, emerging with shorn locks, a repellent pallor and unfeasibly tight black drainpipe jeans. The further one went from London the less the popular impact of punk. Yes, there were punk bands in the provinces but I can state with absolute certainty that crushed velvet loons, shoulder-length hair and a tendency to look at the world from the business end of a colossal joint were still the prevailing fashions in Hull in 1980. While the big bands may have panicked prematurely only a very few fell irrevocably by the wayside. Some, like ELP, may have thrown in the towel by 1979 but others, like Queen simply re-grouped and got bigger. In hindsight punk was a ripple on the surface of popular culture; a harking back, in some respects, to the brevity and simplicity of early rock'n'roll and occupying much the same place in wider public consciousness (Must we fling this filth at our pop kids?). Perhaps the most significant impact of punk was the later adoption of skinny ties by middle-aged men who should have known better. That, and the perpetually arrested development of a significant minority now well into their dotage but who have extended punk's initial fiery nihilism and anti-establishment posture well beyond its use-by date.

The litigant Mr Stone might enjoy greater credibility were it not that he 'performs under the name Vince Vance with the band Vince Vance and the Valiants'. Older BC-ers will recall that an early incarnation of Fleetwood Mac recorded and released the song Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonite (a Jeremy Spencer pastiche of 50's rock'n'roll) under the pseudonym of Earl Vince and The Valiants. Mr Spencer is still alive and should either sue Mr Stone for passing off or go round and kick his head in, possibly tonite.

Croikey! Douglas out of the starting blocks like Usain Bolt on primo quality whiz.

TBPH, all I knew about Grimshaw was I really liked some of his pictures, that he was a Victorian and that... er... I didn't know much about him His Wikipedia entry is jolly interesting, though. 'Hello Mum, Hello Dad. I've chopped in my job on the railway and I'm going to be a painter!'

Thanks, everyone, you're far too kind. There's so much talent and hard work as goes into these comps I've shunted a pic across to Lurks for the June comp and I'll be submitting an entry but I'm def taking a break after that. This last one took days of fiddling around and I've been getting That Look from the Missus

Excellent work, Lefty. Let Whistling Jack Smith never be forgotten.

I intended to take a break from the comp this month. Then I saw the image and it just screamed 'Do a Floyd rip-off!' The Eye - A History ↓ Lyrics ↓

That would be me. Bought an early 80's LP Std about 1987. At first I thought it was great, then I slowly came to see its very many deficiencies. The only upside to that guitar was that one day a fretboard marker popped out so I looked up local luthiers in the phone book. 'Hang on... Tony Zemaitis lives round here?' Dropped it in for a repair, admired a lovely Zemaitis acoustic on the wall. 'Have a go,' says he, so I did. It sounded amazing and I said so. 'Yeah,' says Zemaitis. 'The owner's picking it up next week'. And that's how I got to play (one of) George Harrison's Zemaitis guitars.

Depends on the period. There's been times when 7 out of 10 Lesters have been dreadful and even now some horrors are still escaping from the Gibson electric solid-body plant.

The only off-putting negative association would be if an artist signature bass was (IMO) so butt ugly it would disqualify itself on looks alone. Fender Stu Hamm Urge 2, Warwick's Adam Clayton Streamer and Reverso, that sort of thing.

In 1960 minor pop phenomenon Mr Johnny Gentle engaged in a short tour of Scotland taking in such illustrious venues as the Regal Ballroom in Nairn. Mr Gentle's hastily assembled backing band for the tour comprised five young Liverpudlians who normally gigged under the frankly silly name of The Beatles and nothing was ever heard of them again. Johnny Gentle (r) and some random bloke

Not quite house backing bands but... * Warren Zevon toured with the Everly Brothers as their keyboard player and musical director, later co-writing songs with Phil Everly * For a while Dr Feelgood backed 60's singer / bassist Heinz of Telstar fame, a commitment which included their first major gig at the London Rock'n'Roll Revival show in 1972 supporting Chuck Berry and the MC5 1972: Heinz with (r) Wilko Johnson in his long-haired hippy phase

Quite so. Rather than assume that everyone's out to do down the UK entry, the British public are usually more likely to concede that certain geographically, linguistically, culturally or politically proximate countries will stick together and scratch each others backs, this while one hand washes the other. Indeed, observation of this fairly harmless tendency was encouraged by the late Mr Terry Wogan, the BBC's Eurovision presenter of choice and an Irishman by birth and upbringing. Mr Wogan's light-hearted reflections on the ins-and-outs of European affinities were taken up by his successor Mr Graham Norton (also an Irishman), though where Mr Wogan would have chuckled quietly when Monaco snuggled up to France it was usually the case that Mr Norton emitted a sound like a steam locomotive's whistle in the fleeting seconds before a tragic collision. No, it's an enduring paradox that the only Brits who truly believe that Europeans hate them are members of two tiny, extremist minorities whose entrenched opinions in respect of European geo-politics and constitutional formation are so diametrically at variance that they actually cancel each other out.

It's the perfect result

A Modest Proposal * Put an end to Eurocentric exceptionalism and open up the song contest to all the nations of the world * Re-name it the World Song Contest, logo tbc, possibly a dove playing the pan pipes * Each nation to be allocated to one of world ten regions, e.g., East Asia, Central Africa, Europe. * Regional winner goes forward to World Finals * Song duration to be no more than 60 seconds * Contestants to perform at permanently established World Song Contest venue: lavishly-appointed beer-crate stage in Kettering Sainsburys car park * Costumes - 'smart casual' * Total show duration 45 minutes, no commentary The Arena of Dreams

TBPH I can't bring myself to feel any great indignation about what would seem to be a simple error of cataloguing but it's nice that Humbuckergate™ has brought so much excitement into the lives of so many people.

The rough rule of thumb with pick-ups of equivalent output is: * Neck pick-up lower than the bridge pick-up and... * Low enough that the gap between the bottom of the string and the top of the neck pick-up is greater than than the corresponding gap at the bridge pick-up. * When installing the pick-up try to use a method that permits you the ability to adjust this gap by a few mm either way.

Couple of things: * I'm useless with electrics so you'll have to wait for someone knowledgeable to show up. * For the bigger screw holes do the toothpick trick but use thin barbecue skewers * In respect of the gaps around the pick-ups: Save yourself time and sadness, and get a new pickguard. Fairly amazingly, these guys offer a guard for an ET-280 straight off the shelf but you'll probably need them to adapt it to fit your new pickups. http://www.pickguardplanet.com/pickguards-epiphone-basses/ Once that's done you can hang the pick-ups from the guard and they should be the right height. Frankly, fifty bucks is a steal for a semi-rare guard like this.

Hi Szymbrush and welcome to the forum

Hi psymorama and welcome

Congratulations to the two deserving winners and to everyone who entered. So many excellent compositions Good to see an expanding voting base too!

I wonder what will happen when the YouTube influencers find out that the Squier Bronco boasts a six pole-piece, single-coil Strat pickup?

Someone should set up a Humbucker Disappointment Survivors group, crowdfund a class action and put the guilty men on death row. It's the only language they understand.