Dankology

On our road there's a family with hens who have long had a box of eggs and an honesty box in the garden. A few months ago they made a rather grander box for the eggs as one of the kids wanted a project. Last week the local kids nicked all the eggs, emptied the honesty box and smashed up the egg house. I'm just grateful our house didn't get egged.

I think this is where I would differ. If I'd been in contact with someone (not least someone who was significantly changing travel plans to buy the item), my response to the local would be to tell them that they're next in line if the original sale fell through. Admittedly, there isn't a law that says that should be the way of things but it just seems like common decency to me. Funnily enough a similar thing happened when we were buying our house. Our offer had been accepted, mortgage was being sorted etc etc when we were informed that another buyer was interested and we should submit a further offer. We held to our original offer and the other buyer apparently put in a massively inflated one. They then stopped communicating and the sale fell through. Amazingly (or perhaps not) the estate agent didn't get back in touch with us and the seller nearly lost out on the house they were buying due to the delay. It was only when I made a cheeky phonecall direct to the seller that everything went through. A massive aside, I know - but hopefully evidence of at least a tiny element of karma in the world's workings. Of note, the amp in question is still on marketplace, now with updated photos...

I'm on holiday at the moment and, as always, checked out the local Facebook marketplace listings for potential goodies... Arranged to buy a guitar amp two days ago, lots of messages including an unsolicited demo video from the seller but 24 hours ahead of pickup he's messaged to say that his neighbour has bought it instead. About a month ago I arranged to buy a sitar on marketplace. The following morning, just as I was about to head out to pick it up, a very similar message arrived. What gives? Am I just unlucky? My suspicion is that the sellers have genuinely both mentioned the sales to their mates who have said "I'd have given you more than that"... Which just leaves me puzzled - who doesn't speak to their mates before going to the minefield of FB marketplace? And why are people so comfortable backing out of a sale nowadays? Bah and humbug.

If I had the money, I'm pretty sure there'd be times I'd be tempted to get a session player in to play lines I'd actually written myself. I'll just echo what has been said above and add that (1) I don't think you should spend time regretting the time you put in in the studio as it is experience that will inevitably come in useful in the future and (2) everything that you've written suggests that you are a fine and valuable musician - and we all know that carries a lot more weight than being able to pull out one slick bassline in the studio.

You might be overestimating the size of our rehearsal room there... We do have an 8 channel mini snake thing that we used to use for the drums but the mess of cables around the kit obviously remained much the same. I guess between the mini snake plus cheapo wireless dongles for the 2x vox and the bass/guitar amps we could get things a fair bit tidier...

Rather than separate proper wireless transmitters and receivers for each channel we had been looking at the small combined XLR/dongle connectors (the cheapest of which are significantly cheaper than the Sony/Senn systems mentioned above). The more I think about it, the expense and increased number of points of potential failure vs the relatively small gains means it's probably a non-starter. Thanks for your thoughts, everyone.

As the prospect looms of knitting back together the practice room post-gig, someone has queried whether we could be using wireless XLR connectors (for our non-phantom powered stuff, of course). I can't seem to find much in the way of a general overview online so wondered if the ever-relable Basschat panel had any experience here. Our rehearsal set up uses a Behringer XR18 which allows us to multitrack every rehearsal; we also use the same set up for proper recordings. Thoughts that immediately spring to mind are: 1) is there any latency involved? And if so will it be an acceptable-for-rehearsal level but not for serious recording? 2) is the battery life reasonable? 3) how many radio channels can you choose between? With potentially 8+ audio channels going through are we going to max out the available options? 4) how cheap can we go? There are some fairly diverse price points online Any thoughts or experience you can share would be much appreciated.

Re @casapete's comment about car dealers, I'm increasingly convinced that most secondhand dealers are now primarily simply selling loans and that the cars are the most convenient way of doing it. Back on topic, I tend to have a price in mind I'm willing to pay and will haggle in most instances but usually not here. Partly because the prices very often seem in line with what I'm willing to pay (or is that some cunning self-fulfilling ploy??) but also because there does seem to be a genuine community vibe here. I do often wait for multiple price drops though. The silent haggle.

If you genuinely believe that then I'd suggest that you aren't listening widely enough now and were not doing so back then. Or, as noted above, the rose-tint of retrospect has filtered out a lot of the dross that the charts/radio/TV have ever been full of. Just in case you're open to having your mind changed, here's some recentish tuneful stuff that tells stories and has interesting compositional quirks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1qlK5dF5s4 - The Weather Station https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqXSfHO-7f0 - Jesca Hoop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY7MIqZ6Bvo - BC Camplight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OHfnY_ZE_4 - Carwyn Ellis/Rio 18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFu5wYMflSI - Mick Head

As well as generational prejudice, let's not forget that time is a great filter. When I was growing up (80s/90s) it was almost accepted as fact that 70s music was crap: pundits, talking heads, chat show hosts and guests all happily echoed the line that 1970s music was all some tacky and regretable post-60s aberration. Similarly, 1980s music -long the soundbite-seekers' bête noire- is now routinely used in ads and shows and also in cheeky references in new music. The quality of music being made over time is presumably fairly consistent, unless there are weird, internationally-consistent variations in levels of talent, with only the good stuff (and the atrociously terrible stuff) being remembered.

Hasn't this always been the way? A lot of my first exposure to what turned out to be classic rock was via TV ads in the late-80s through the 90s. Between licensing issues, nostalgia, familiarity, the possibly limited tastes of the creators and deliberately targeting those with greater spending power I suspect it will ever be the way too.

Who, I believe, was aping the Corronation Street theme tune. It's a rich tapestry...

I think I got a couple of brass collars in with my staytrem that work really well. If you can't find some tubing to cut to size I bet plumber's tape would do it.

At one of my local shops, the queue started at 9.30am the day before 🙄 The whole thing narks me enormously. Records being bought, never to be played, Ebay gouging, pressing plants tied up for months to meet demand, the occasional bit of music that you might want being potentially unobtainable without joining the melee. And, of course, most of the action just representing people paying over the odds for music they already own. If RSD has revitalised the independent sector, I guess I'm happy but looking at my local record shops the new stuff costs way more than I'd usually consider paying, new pressings are often quite ropey and even secondhand prices are moving skyward. Not sure who the winner is meant to be here but it'd be great if at least some of the people willing to wait 24 hours queuing outside to spend £40 on a 12" single might consider dropping £5 to see a new band later that evening. Rant over. Next year maybe I'll hit the queues and hand out CDrs of my band...

I love mine - bought on a whim, mega cheap, a few years back and use it for two or three songs at every gig. It was one of the lesser Squier variants and I had to change the bridge and significantly shim the neck but it's more or less right now. Especially with the Newtone Bass VI strings set on it. I don't think it would ever pass as a proper bass and I wouldn't want to play a whole gig on one but for our gtr/bass/drums three piece it covers a lot of sonic territory and gives a bit of variety. I'd probably swap it for a different colour though - everything looks better than white.

Guitar tuition & repair https://g.co/kgs/FGhRS93 Eastwood Brian 01706 874549 https://g.co/kgs/4rjfoWh

I don't know about Tod but there are are a couple of good guys a few miles down the road here in Rossendale.

Best zombie thread resurrection ever.

Weird! We were there last week and had a completely different room - the green room in the adjacent theatre.

Isn't the hall of fame just a misguided extension of a sports halls of fame? I understand the desirability of a baseball or whatever HOF in the era when footage didn't exist or wasn't easily rewatched - greats and their achievements could easily be forgotten. But for music, in the recorded sound era, surely it just becomes a distasteful self-congratulatory irrelevance? Of course, there's also the highly unbecoming bickering re which current/past members are admitted or get to play I do feel for the Ramones though, who seemed to spend a significant part of their later career and post-band life resenting not being in the HOF when clearly their influence was seismic. Of course, their sales were relatively meagre, they were still touring in a bus and many of their best lps were out of print - a band ripe for recognition in the pre-internet, pre-streaming, pre-cool music on major TV shows era. I dunno. If it makes more people listen to Jane's Addiction or gives some validation to people who have barely made a living despite making great music, who am I to object? .

I don't have much time for Liam Gallagher but it's difficult to disagree with him here. Stopped clocks and all that...

All sorted (I think) now, ta

Bit of a disaster situation here but is there anyone with a splitter who can drive a (name) band from the Manchester area to Bristol on Friday and on to London on the Saturday, returning overnight on the Sat? Please direct message me to discuss!