Pseudonym

I would like to point out that there is a thin line between being a sensitive voice of marginalised post-adolescent anomie, and being an oversensitive hypocrite who dishes it out but can't take it. I would like to point that out, but I can't because its a whole stack of ovoids. It isn't a thin line, it is a great fat gaping chasm into which that preening autodidact fell many years ago. Still, since the whole persona was predicated upon his naff self-loathing and ineffectual spite in the first place, I suppose he has simply aged according to type.

Only backstage.

Rock of Aged.

I thought that, nearly two years ago. I'm still here, mate.

Local customs usually prevail. I am a dual US-UK citizen. When I engage with my fellow Americans, I try to respect the fact that Americans (a) overwhelmingly still pay lip service at the minimum to the monumental achievements of the Constitution, and (b) an awful lot of my fellow Americans have no real grasp of it but like an argument. Marketplace of ideas, and sometimes it gets ugly. When I engage with my fellow Britons, I try to respect the fact that (a) Britain has a long history of dealing with intractable systemic flaws by exhausting every comic possibility they offer, and (b) as long as a Briton is willing to engage at all, it most likely happens in good faith. One the whole, and leaving aside the very real and nasty strains of violence and hatred that are part of the human condition, Britons tease those they love and ignore those they do not. Being mocked is far, far better in the UK than being shunned. Mockery is familiarity but not necessarily contempt. I have always encountered much more good humour than mean spirits in both countries. And I'm a genuinely pessimistic misanthrope, so that's saying a lot.

It's because we have the Den of Iniquity thread, where civilised, well-mannered types rehearse all manner of martial fantasies with comic brio and a general ethos of trousers-down absurdity. It's all so harmless it makes Sgt. Bilko look like the first ten minutes of Saving Private Ryan. There's no place there for twonks who dress like those idiots at the Capitol without a sense of how ludicrous it looks. Also, there is often cake. In real life, of course, I'm a crass oaf who cannot string two words together without punching someone out of sheer frustration. I'm 99% sure the other people on the DoI thread are absolute sweethearts, prone though they may be to flogging dead llamas.

Yes. By the looks of it, "OFC" (upper case) is oil finish colour in Warwick posts, and "ofc" (lower case) is "of course" used in all manner of posts. I still prefer words, but YMMV.

I just did a quick search of the "for sale" threads and from the contexts I saw it looks like it could mean "of course". Is that a possibility? Had I not searched, I would have suggested "original flight case". Where it crops up in "for sale" posts, however, that would not make sense.

Good at intros, however. Welcome. You will find any number of self-deprecating bassists here who you somehow know could blow the back wall out. I'm not one of them -- I really do aspire to mediocrity.

Summoned as I am by an upper-case challenge, a full reply might settle this non-argument. 1. I don't care about his money one way or another. I don't really care about my money either, but a taxi driver often does and I do care about getting where I need to be without worrying about being late. My point: sometimes money represents intangible, unquantifiable aspects of life. 2. I don't care if he's a git. I'm not asking him to join me for dinner. If he treats people badly, that reflects poorly on him (as it does on anyone), but after all the lyrics for "Yesterday" aren't "Yesterday/Hurry up with my sandwich you grotty nobody". Most listeners aren't going to experience that side, they merely hear the music. 3. Taste is subjective but also indicative. When a lot of people share a taste, there might be any number of reasons for that. I'm interested in the reasons, which are complex, rather than in the subjectivity of aesthetic responses, which is obvious but unlikely to shed light on anything. 4. I don't care about popularity or lionisation except as phenomena. What I like isn't especially popular except when it is. Popularity would be a meaningless measure of anything I do, except when it isn't. Being lauded and being popular only overlap sometimes (cf. thread on Banksy). McCartney's popularity in 1964, or 1980, are less interesting to me than his durability as an exponent of musical genres that are not as fleeting and short-lived as their commercial dimensions suggest they might be. 5. My subjective view? Well, okay. I formed my initial musical tastes in popular music from whatever Radio 1 played throughout the 1970s. That included some truly impressive moments (Bowie, Roxy Music, Slade at their most cheerful, Elvis Costello at his most acerbic, etc). There was much dross, of course; there always is. The Beatles remained popular and got played a lot; their stuff just worked like all the other stuff to my ahistorical ears. I knew it was "old" (i.e. not made last month), but I liked it anyway. So, lesson in the obvious for the young 'un: catchy songs endure. And McCartney was responsible for quite a lot of them. Wings didn't impress in the same way but did confirm that he was still in the game. McCartney II came out in 1980 with "Coming Up" on it. It isn't Bowie with "Fashion" or some similar display of acute musical antennae, but it does reveal a musician with a taste for incorporating new-found elements into his own work simply because he likes them and thinks he can use them. Another lesson: things change, and open-mindedness applies in all directions. I could like PiL, Madness, and "Coming Up" at the same time -- and then find Macca's Christmas single silly but oddly catchy. I saw that I might not be his audience for everything, but there is more than one audience. He is a populariser; including rather than excluding. Does he do it to make money? Sure. Does he only do it to make money? Of course not. He's having fun, and that comes across the way even a mediocre film can be elevated by an ensemble that is obviously having a whale of a time. And this was significant for me, an anxious child who quite obviously overthinks everything. Sometimes, having fun is a virtue in itself. I went back to the Beatles and listened property. It's like nothing else and everything else: a wide range of musical antecedents transmuted into songs realised at such a clip that they retain their spontaneity. They are seldom overworked. Many people deserve credit -- George Martin being the one everyone points to -- but McCartney is certainly crucial. Studio experiments; harmonies that evoke pre-modern chants; a transatlantic gumbo of styles worn lightly; and energetic performances from a band that was learning as they went, and which quickened the transition from studio as venue to studio as laboratory. Listening to the Beatles in the early 1980s was an education in itself. In 1981 I was teased for it by the kids who in 1989 were in love with it. Lesson: massive popularity does not preclude artistic validity. Were the Beatles a literary phenomenon, that artistic merit would be less clouded by the stigma of adolescent adulation. What do I find exciting and moving about his music? To be honest, I am lukewarm about most of his post-Beatles music, with a few exceptions, but I respect what he does with it. I respect the fact that an overpetted moptop still has the urge to form an ambient techno group with Youth. I respect the fact that he is obviously inclined to be a crowdpleaser until he drops, like he's Tony Bennett. But exciting and moving? Well, I associate Abbey Road, the last thing the Beatles recorded, with the frenzied, intoxicated lovemaking that characterised the breakdown of my first serious relationship. It's the sound of something that knows it is dying but is compelled to pretend otherwise, the sound of emotional demolition. I associate the guitar solo of "Taxman" with the transition of my taste -- and, crucially, the personal values that taste signifies -- toward the kind of jagged loss of self that I still try to invoke when I play the guitar to try to stay halfway willing to live. I hear in McCartney's bass playing a path through my own musical limitations as I pick up the four-string after 40 years with six thin ones. But, if were are going to get close to the bone, so be it: in the hours before my wife died, I played her six tracks. Five of them were mine. The other was "Things We Said Today". If you can write a song that captures so sweetly the sense of love beyond the reach of communication, you deserve McCartney's money, but I'll lay odds you can't. I question the premise that we can draw a general rule from your own subjective dismissal of a musician because he was unkind to you and you don't like plutocrats.

Your disagreement is noted. Obviously, all posts of this kind make assertions. You might notice that I do not say McCartney necessarily meets the critieria I mention, merely that I offer possible reasons why (a) some think he is great, and (b) others really do not. In that sense, I am not asserting facts. I am merely proposing criteria in relation to an inherently critical topic. It is up to you, or to anyone, to judge for yourself whether you think McCartney is one of those musicians who meets the criteria I set out in the first sentence. Obviously, you do not, but I don't have any sense of whether you think the yardsticks themselves are invalid. Second sentence, regarding noteworthy technique, by now has a critical consensus that appears robust. That is about historical significance more than technique per se, of course. Third sentence about virtuosity is, again, a stipulated critical perspective, widely shared by aficionados of popular music (and acting, visual art, literature etc) regarding all but the most strictly formalised modes of creativity. (It is also why it is pointless to compare classical performance with improvised jazz, for example.) But the notion that the world would not miss a single one of his songs seems a little far-fetched, given that they still sell and it is not hard to find enthusiasts young enough to be McCartney's great-grandchildren. This is ultimately a commercialised form of music we are talking about. He doesn't need to be Mozart. I don't rate him as an artist the way I rate numerous other well-known figures. But I don't think his longevity and appeal are any great mystery. Craftsmen also endure. As much as the Beatles were more than the sum of their parts, perhaps McCartney is one of those artisans who is more than the sum of his abilities. Whether he bores you or not, I assume you would agree that not everyone shares your view. I am more interested in the structure of his appeal to those who like his work, because an individual's boredom doesn't really need explication if it provides no general rule. If McCartney bored everyone, your boredom would be interesting. As it is, it is a matter of taste, and I completely respect that. He might be a git. He might be a git sometimes. He might be a git to you. Does it really matter? A gobby taxi driver who gets me to Heathrow in record time still gets a big tip from me.

That makes sense, I think. There are very few musicians who are simultaneously (a) distinctive instrumentalists, (b) prolific and astute composers and/or lyricists, (c) charismatic performers, (d) long-lived contributors to a musical canon, and (e) willing to experiment even after decades. If McCartney were merely the bassist he is, that would make him noteworthy -- his technique was quite radical in the early 1960s. A creative or performing artist who works well within his limits is not necessarily inferior to a virtuoso who works perfectly within pre-existing limits. I wonder if the fact that McCartney is notable for several reasons possibly dilutes critical evaluation of his specific abilities. Also, he can come across as a man who never outgrew the arrogant humility that he embodied as a young man. He is, perhaps, more gauche than we expect from an iconic musician. He's not Bowie, or Miles Davis. McCartney was never particularly cool. He was simply extremely good at what he did. Had he simply thought of himself as a bass player, rather than treating his bass playing as one ingredient among several, he might now be lionised for that alone. But in some ways he is too much of a cheerful, normal, sometimes foolish man to inhabit the persona of greatness.

G-string.

Off topic briefly, but offered in the spirit of safety: after you clean it, perhaps it is worth trying a vapour barrier bag for long-term storage. Foam can certainly react in an unwelcome manner. Regarding the OP's quest: I don't think Hercules discloses the formulation of their foam. Neoprene should work with anything but a nitro finish that hasn't finished curing, I would guess. If in doubt, perhaps neoprene covered in a fabric that you know will be safe? I agree that keeping the vauable nitro instrument in its case is a wise approach regardless.

I suppose a lot of us a getting a bit long in the tooth for raves.

They seem well-mannered compared to Senior Common Rooms, the Royal Courts of Justice, and games of bridge among genteel ladies in the vicarage. Is it possible that Basschat is where a bunch of raving psychopaths come to indulge their decent, respectful, witty and warm-hearted alter egos? Just want to make sure I'll get out alive if I ever meet any of you in person.

Beats talking to furniture and expecting it to talk back.

I'm so impressed by the conduct of Basschat members that I might actually learn to play the bass. Same here. I can only endorse what has been expressed on this thread. I have never come across a site that comes close to this one. It is a pleasure to come here and annoy tittilate mock intimidate sulk digress wildly support our troops on the DoI thread converse.

I'm almost certain that duo was a one-hit wonder in 1990 but I was out of it on chloral and Jaffa Cakes.

Yes, although possibly Nirvana and Tad were supporting each other in turns or something like that. I saw them at SOAS in October 1989, I think. In a stellar year for gigs, that one stood out. Most of the people I knew then with wide-ranging taste rated Bleach, and -- tellingly -- didn't think Nevermind was a sellout album from a band with a major-label deal. Nirvana had a terrific run while it lasted.

A vote here for Harvey's Dry. I liked it when it came out -- it was quite well-received, as I remember, so I wasn't exactly swimming against the tide -- but I think it is terrific when I listen to it now. Outside of personal antipathy and taste, I doubt there would be much of a consensus that Harvey or Nirvana started weak and became strong. The follow-ups, as you rightly indicate, are magnificent, so it says a lot that they do not really eclipse their precursors.

No, but I wish he'd stop putting his finger in the socket. I worry about the lad.

All true, and nicely put. I don't think the major chains expect anyone to preserve them, of course. They seem to change logos, design and store aesthetics quicker than I change tyres. To be honest, I don't really mind Dalston becoming a place where the risk of being mugged has shifted to the risk of being modestly overcharged. But my main sentiment is, "Après moi, le déluge." I am reminded of the effects of entropy every time I look in my refrigerator, so a bit of regeneration is okay with me. As for Denmark Street, I also remember the old hands bemoaning its changes when I talked to them in 1986, so it's certainly a ripe locus for old bloke nostalgia. ("Aye, an' you could get a Japanese Fender for next to nowt, lad...")

One of the best things about Denmark Street was that it never became a tourist trap -- it was a place that attracted visitors, and some tourists, but always maintained its identity as a place where the flesh, blood and sinew of the music business went about its day-to-day. The kind of transformation you mention makes a nonsense of local identity. I remember a visit a few years ago to a part of east London I used to haunt before it was sent for the socioeconomic equivalent of elocution lessons and a new wardrobe. Instead of the frayed fabric I had remembered, I found commerce indistinguishable from that of SoHo in New York: glossy chains selling the same sportswear, the same lifestyle accessories, the same ephemeral technology in pseudo-minimalist spaces, the same expensive but oddly unerotic lingerie, the same crockery, the same "unique" quirky small businesses that were now small global chains. I don't want or expect places to remain unchanged, and there are benefits as well as disadvantages to regeneration. Nonetheless, places do become soulless when they become generic. Denmark Street, like Soho and its environs in general, has had its heyday. It was great while it lasted. It will certainly be remembered but I agree that it cannot be preserved.

My first proper guitar came from Soho Soundhouse in Soho Square, my first proper amp from Rose Morris in Denmark Street. I bought them on the same evening and a couple of my mates came into town for the occasion to help me get the stuff home on the tube. I think both stores were frankly amazed that I had finally bought something costing more than a tenner. This was in the mid-1980s, so of course I was doing highly paid temp work at a mortgage company before going to university, and on the way home I realised I had left my Filofax on the counter at Rose Morris. Went up there first thing the next morning, feeling like a right muppet. There can't be many retail operations that generate as much nostalgia, and as much love, as music shops in and beyond Denmark Street. Good luck to Macari's, and to all who sailed in her.