Bassfinger

I cut mine. Excess amounts of string wound around the capstan can lead to tuning problems.

It is in the eye of the beholder, but I personally read it as ageist. If it wasn't then why mention their age at all?

Close Enough for me. I might chuck in the odd twiddle or improvisation, but nothing head turning. I generally play the bassline as per the book, although sometimes I may play it my own way elsewhere on the fretboard if I think theres a benefit. But generally close enough is good enough - perfection is rarely worth the effort, and I do it for the craic, not because I'm trying to impress Simon Cowell.

What does them being middle aged have to do with it? Im middle aged and still headbang to Motorhead. Causal, off the cuff ageist remarks are an irrelevance - these people were most like born as squares.

Rubber Soul. It was supposed to represent a turning point in the career of the Beatles, an album so awesome that it inspired Brian Wilson to create Pet Sounds...but for all that I never used to get it. But now, years on...I very much get it and appreciate the genius behind it.

I took a cab to the station this morning. The driver refused to give me his NI number before I paid him.

Bo Rap. Bat Out of Hell. And not from my teens but played a lot during them, Stairway to Heaven.

Never heard of her.

It doesn't matter to me. Alas, it matters greatly to the music industry.

I'm in a covers band because I can't write music for toffee and I enjoy performing. I couldn't give a sheet if some gobs***e prat doesn't like it.

It is a great record. Makes up for his dire bass playing on Rubber Soul.

Youd have to spend a fair bit of money to significantly better the Wilkinson pickups. Much like Alan Entwistle's, they punch well above their weight.

Let it go. Don't waste your life on stuff like that. Karma will see to it that they get theirs one day.

I'm still using the same bottle of Dunlop stuff I bought 10 or more years ago, and it's still more than half full.

Lemmy was the consummate rocker, a man so great I even named my dog after him. Nevertheless, I take your Lemmy and raise you one Phil Lynott. An appetite for the good things in life so great he lasted only half has long as Lemmy, and his bass playing light burned twice as bright. May as well lock the thread now.

To this day they're extremely influential among musicians. I'd have liked to have seen the programme myself.

Don't think I've seen a show where the support act was actually better, although when I saw Tull in '89 the support act was an electric violinist called Mary Kelly, and she was worth the ticket price all on her own.

I feel somewhat queasy.

They reckon a specialist hearing test is worth a ton? In Harley Street perhaps.

Fortunately, the Nazi's were too frightened to clamp down on heavy metal, invented as it was by the Vikings in around 900ad.

Yep, and just to confuse matters further there are several different ways they can be wired in before even resorting to switchable pots, so to suggest they never quite sound the same is a statement so broad it's almost completely untrue.

But quite often close enough is close enough. The pursuit of adtion perfection in a set up is often ephemeral, and not worth the aggro. In fact this is true of everything, from food through to women.

It's quite flattering that Mark King has chopped his hair off to look like you! Seriously though, very slick all round.

Well, that's nothing. I had a heart and lung transplant and insisted it be done under a local anaesthetic so I could do my mandatory hours daily bass practice, which that day was scheduled to he a jam session with Eric Clapton and Cozy Powell.

Smear laxative around the mouthpiece of his toy trumpet.