Paul S

As a song it is, I've played it before. But I guess you mean the lyrics aren't that gender neutral. I'm sure they will be fine with the right attitude and a little tweaking.

I never knew it was a cover! I'll see if I can find it

Nothing sensational, as it happens. This is the pet project of the guitarist (who I have yet to meet or hear!) and I think he put together a list of songs before having a female singer on board. 7 to learn - Barracuda, I Love Rock n Roll are the only female vocal ones then Friday On My Mind, Jailbreak, Highway To Hell, White Room. Doctor Doctor (UFO one). If it looks like it will work out I'm sure with some judicious steering we can get some more appropriate songs in there.

Thanks Dave. Tricky song to cover, I'd say .... but maybe it sets out the stall early about how competentthe various players will be? Can only hope.

A drummer pal and I decided to answer a call for a start up classic rock band and we have a few songs to learn for our first get together in a couple of weeks time. Lady singer, apparently, and I'm delighted to be learning Heart's 'Barracuda' as it is a song I have been listening to an enjoying for many a year. A lot of 16ths! I hope the reality matches the ambition as the vocals are a big ask. Fingers crossed.

Bought a set of strings from Paul in the simplest of transactions. Great comms, speed of light arrival - all in all a pleasure doing business.

Unless things have changed in the last few years I believe you'll need to show some sort of documentary evidence that the bass was already yours, if challenged, and has not just been bought. Bill of sale etc. Some years ago now but my dad died whilst holidaying in Australia and HMRC wanted to charge me import duty and VAT on his personal effects until I sent them a copy of the death certificate. I'm surprised they didn't charge duty on his ashes!

I had one of the Squier katana basses and imo it was a fab thing. I actually liked the shape, the areas where bits are missing are areas where I have extra bits, so we were a good match Lightweight, sounded just like a slightly aggressive Precision and I loved the 32" scale. Finding a hard case was, er, challenging So far as I recall from the time I read a bit about it, Fender made a Katana guitar but never a Katana bass. They then brought out the Squier Katana guitar and also introduced the bass model as well. Unless the Fender Katana bass was a Japanese market issue only, but I don't remember that. Then again I don't remember my name some mornings.

Phil Lynott, on Live and Dangerous version of Emerald, introduces the song with somnething like "Is there anybody here with any Irish in them? Is there any of the girls that'd like a little more Irish in them?"

'We go 'ome on Mundy. But I wanna to tell you, it's been a GAS this time. It's really been a gas'. Name that album!

Made in Japan, Live and Dangerous, Live Dates and Strangers in the Night got a mention. I'll add Performance, Rocking the Filmore by Humble Pie.

Tom Lehrer! Not thought about him for years. Classic songs like 'The Masochism Tango' and 'Poisoning Pigeons In The Park'

I guess ugly, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Give me a Precision any day

They do - I have one. Actually the sound isn't a million miles away from a Thunderbird - I had both at the same time for a while and both have 'that' Gibson sound. They were cheap to buy new, as Gibsons went, and secondhand seem to go for not much considering it is a bone fide Gibson.

What about a Gibson Les Paul Jnr DC? Short scale, the pickup is placed more centrally, gives a great growl, can do a series or parallel on the coil, too, via a pull switch. lightweight. Poss a little over your budget but they are great little basses.

Aria pro II Cardinal Series are excellent basses, medium scale, slightly different to the norm.

That is a great tale to have in the bank, nice one! I saw them back in the day around the same time as 'Live Dates' came out. That remains one of my all time favourite albums. I later saw the Andy Powell version but as said above it did seem to lose something somehow. Currently have 'Blind Eye' lined up to include in my blues/rock trio's set, love the timing of the stops and I can see that workiing with just one guitar.

This reminds me of a joke by Alexei Sayle. They say 90% of accidents occur in the home - there was a train derailment at the bottom of our stairs last Tuesday.

This. I've tried all the apps mentioned and this is the recurring theme. About the best was Doodle, mainly because it demands an actual active response and doesn't require people to remember/bother to fill in things on a regular basis. Of course it does mean that someone needs to take charge of it but that is OK generally.

I would imagine if you Google sheet metal laser cutting in your area you'll turn something up. I had my house number cut out of a sheet of mild steel, kept the sheet not the numbers, which has now rusted nicely to how I want it to look. Pretty sure it would work with aluminium.

Despite not running through a full set for many months my blues/rock trio played a memorable gig at The Pickerel Inn in Stowemarket to a small but extremely effusive crowd, many of whom follow us and had come up on the train from Ipswich. We were tight, energetic and guitarist played with real passion.

Its a funny thing, this match-fitness. The drummer of my blues trio is an arable farmer and so can't afford to take much time out during the summer. So between that and lockdowns we have played very little. A couple of weekends ago we played at a biggish BBC event on Ipswich waterfront and were ragged, despite managing to squeeze in one quick rehearsal a few weeks earlier to run through the 40 minute set. If there are only 3 of you there isn't much room to hide and we all made some glaringly obvious mistakes which I put down to lack of match-fitness. So with that in the back of my mind I was feeling a bit apprehensive about last night's pub gig as we haven't played some of the tunes for absolutely months. In the event it was one of the best gigs we have played - tight, energetic, passionate and pretty much everything was on the money. A small but noisy crowd who follow us came up on the train from Ipswich to Stowemarket and that helped as they were up from the first tune. Weird.

I can wholeheartedly recommend Leighton Jennings. He builds, repairs, sets up guitars and amps so can do pretty much anything. And he is the nicest chap. Based in Leigh. https://www.leightonsguitarshop.com/