Barking Spiders

In 30 years of following horse racing this is only the second time I've won an accumulator and I do Scoop 6 most weekends though it wasnt that that won me the dosh. Over the last year or so I'm just about ahead, with a hit rate of around 20% i'e. I lose on 4 out of every five I bet on but doshwise tend to do ok

yep, a great case in point. The Young Gods were doing this stuff way back in the mists of time, aka late 80s, when most rock bands were still plodding away with blues based riffs

..what's the temptation to go and blow it all on a much desired bass, guitar ( i like both equally , if that's not considered blasphemous here ) or other instruments or are there other completely different things you'd rather spend it on . As the thread title suggests it's only about spending on good stuff not dull things like a new carpet for the kids bedroom etc. I ask as I won nearly that amount on an accumulator on the horses at the weekend and am definitely gonna spend it on myself and/ or 'er indoors for a change and not them pesky kids .

Can't be plagiarism if the source material can't be identified.

Yeah but they were worth buying for the covers alone

There's not many albums I can go through skipless , even if i like all the tracks, let alone more than one by the same blokes and I have over 1 ,000 CDs. Not the fault of the artists just that I have the attention span of a gnat

Last night I watched quite few solo bass tunes by the likes of Michael Manring, Steve Lawson, Vic W etc on YT to see if I can get anything out of them. Clever technique etc but just not for me at all. Pretty much the same goes for any solo instrumental album except for the occasional acoustic guitar effort of the folky variety in small doses e.g. Martin Simpson, Tony McManus or Leo Kottke but not flamenco or those Windham Hill/new age jobs .. Ditto most performances , honourable exceptions including Adrian Legg, Leo Kottke and Tommy Emmanuel who pepper their gigs with entertaining banter. Well worth checking out while they're just about still around.

Back in the 90s I used to drum in a rock covers band. Generally we went down pretty well at functions, some of the more successful 'harder' tracks being Black Betty -Ram Jam Dont fear the reaper -BoC Dr Feelgood -Motley Crue Big bad moon -Joe Satriani Black hole sun -Soundgarden The rooster -Alice in Chains Rock n roll outlaw - Rose Tattoo

well there of course is fair trade for stuff like coffee and choc but it's one thing to have official policies in place that have mass consumer support and another to police it effectively from start to finish. Supply chains are so complex these days it's easy for the criminally minded to find loopholes to abuse. Just cos a product has 'Fair Trade' or 'FSC Approved' etc on it isn't a guarantee all is 100% kosher. I'd pay extra for a guitar if it meant workers got a fair wage and the woods are sustainable but getting the proof is another matter

+ 1 for new Gold Dream ( also for Sister Feelings Call) and Deon Estus's playing on Fantastic Fabrique by Fashion - love the lines on this underrated album by an underrated band Limping for a Generation - the Blow Monkeys debut. Has some lovely fretless by the overlooked Mick Anker The Specials - chock full of cracking bass by Sir Horace. essential for the band's sound I Just Can't Stop It -The Beat . always feel Dave Steele 's also often overlooked. New Boots and Panties - the first time I head Norm's tasty bass work Duran Duran (debut) and Rio - John Taylor's always been a quality player and Planet Earth definitely grabbed my ears

I'm quite sad to hear that and not a good way to go. So that's now the classic and the best line up all gone.

As I said I've got two Cort basses but I got them before the story about labour conditions got made known. I'm not gonna sell them as they're fantastic . Besides Cort also make affordable guitars for other brands but someone buying an Ibanez made in a Cort factory isnt gonna know that

No one's saying it's acceptable but poor labour practices in these countries is ultimately down to their governments. Boycotting never works as it mainly impacts the workers. If a business in Indonesia sees its sales falling cos western consumers are refusing to buy its goods, the workers will be the ones to lose their jobs. We can't demand Cort or any other private company pays better wages. Even if they were to raise their prices who'll guarantee workers get a rise. The world is unfair and unjust. Always has been, always will be.

Too true. There are many instances where boycotts by western countries of others due to things like 'bad' labour practices have usually been counter productive. In places like Bangladesh, Indonesia, China and the Phillipines factory jobs at least offer relatively steady employment the alternatives usually being either unemployment and starvation or lives as subsistence farmers. Anyway it may be that higher end products, whether basses or anything else, are overpriced due to the power of high profile or prestige brands rather than any superior intrinsic qualities. I do wonder at how come some hand made basses cost upwards of £3k, more than the cost of a relatively decent used car

Some highly innovative artists that use samplers extensively and are well worth checking out are The Young Gods and Amon Tobin. When the YG's first albums came out in the late 80s they made guitar based rock sound prehistoric they way they could fuse thrash metal, French folk, dance, modern classical etc into one sound. And they came before Nine Inch Nails. Best albums to check out, L' Eau Rouge, TV Sky Amon Tobin is a Brazilian fella who's released around half a dozen albums mashing up horror film scores, jazz, drum n bass, breakbeat, classical all sorts. Best albums to check out are his first four on Ninja Tune

All my electric basses and guitars cost me less than £500 new the basses being a Peavey Cirrus BXP, Cort B4FL, Cort GB74, Aria Pro II Integra and a Sub Ray 4. The build quality on all is excellent, the electronics are just fine, all are very playable and produce great sounds. Now we can all argue to the toss about Cort's labour practices but we'd all be walking around naked if we were all really that principled.

Good to see differences of opinion. I guess a lot depends on how stuff's being sampled, whether the 'artist' is a crate digger or just using digital techniques. Back in them dark days of the 1990s before it all went digital summat like DJ Shadow's Entroducing and The Avalanches Since I Met You were put together using 1,000s of micro samples from largely obscure LPs. Not easy to do well by any stretch, and these albums have been done very well

The thread on Radiohead vs Lana del Ray got me thinking about sampling in general and where you peeps stand on this. At one end of the spectrum you've got wholesale unimaginative steals e.g. that krap P Diddy lifting of Every Breath You Take. Even if this was approved by Sting the track shows hip hop at it's least creative and most commercially cynical. On the other hand there are the likes of DJ Shadow and the Bomb Squad (early Public Enemy and Ice Cube albums) who use samples but in such a way you can't identify the sources. To me this is every bit as creative as putting together tunes using guitars, etc. Others say sampling is still lazy, talent free etc way of making music.

There are a finite number of combinations of chord and note progressions, time signatures, timbres etc etc and with the zillions of tunes that have been knocking around the planet over the centuries it's inevitable many of them will sound similar to eachother at least in part. Unless there are clear cases of one act lifting a sample from another's song without permission I dunno why bands waste time and money pursuing copyright infringement cases. In this case as Radiohead admitted to copying some of the Hollies tune they've got no case

Check out Stop The Panic, an album he did with Luke Vibert (aka Wagon Christ), well that's if you've any time for off kilter electronica

Just come across this website . Anyone else seen it? https://www.bigbasstabs.com Looks quite good but being a US site the selection of songs by UK bands who never cracked the US can be limited

..ha ha well, as a big fan of slap bass I partly agree i.e. if octaves are the only notes being popped in a bassline but otherwise I think they're pretty necessary in funk bass

not sure as they can be a cliche in celtic folk anymore than electric guitars are a cliche in rock

sure thing, plus the fact that 90% of people at these gigs are over 45... by the look of them anyway. I know as I'm over 45 and I've been to see a few of those bands Also look at the main acts at big rock festivals like Download. This year, Guns n Roses? 50s, Ozzy 107, Avenged 7fold whippersnappers in their 40s. And last year, 'new' band Prophets of Rage ( at least two in their 50s - Tom M and Chuck D), Aerosmith (combined age 570), and System of Down which has Serj with a very grey beard.

+1 for the uilleann pipes. Wish I could have started learning them yonks ago but my parents aren't Irish curse them. Fiddles and accordians also work for me in celtic folk but elsewhere? No thanks. Saxes? yup, great in funk brass sections (yeah technically I know they're wind instruments) but feckin terrible in 80s pop, mainly cos the standard of playing is pretty entry level.