Agent 00Soul

That's really cool. My last band was also instrumental and I loved it.

Are you doing the Bangles' 3-4 part harmonies?

I've been on a garage rock kick lately. The best thing about that is I can usually learn the bass, rhythm guitar, and lead solo quickly. This morning I did Help You Ann by The Lyres.

Another thing to remember: basses, like all wooden instruments, need to be broken in for their sound and playability to be at their best. If you play all the time, this can happen within a year. For most weekend warriors it can take longer. It's something else to consider when judging new vs used (and of course not all used instruments are broken in).

How did you do that? Ebay/Reverb/Facebook, consignment/sale to a shop, private sale?

Good point - the generations who were really into gear are in the downsizing era of their lives now, or soon will be. And the younger ones don’t fetishise gear as much (a good thing IMHO) and could never afford this stuff anyway so never developed as strong an attachment maybe. Either way, it sounds like the numbers of market value are hugely inflated. And they don’t tell you how long an item was for sale before some person with money showed up.

Sounds like market value means much less than it did.

In an instance like that, do you think it would be better to find a vintage guitar shop that takes commission and suck up the lower price just to get it into as many more serious eyes/testing hands as possible?

Reverb etc are loaded with cool old/vintage instruments, some priced to "market value" (which is still a lot of money - like a 1990s ES-335 for 2500GPB or a Rick 330-12 from the same decade at 2100GBP) and others at rock star-only prices (1964 Fender Jag for 6000GBP). Yet neither seem to sell very often. I have several instruments and also amps in my feed that I've been watching for years out of interest without a bite among them. What's going on? Are people hoping that one of the few rich musicians left is going to see that your item is "the one" and buy it? How long do you expect to list high-dollar, but still market value, stuff before it sells? Is the term market value even legit these days? I ask because I have a decent collection myself of instruments and boutique amps that are worth something on paper, some of which were new when I bought them but are vintage now, that I imagine I'm going to have to start downsizing within the next decade.

I stand corrected! But my main point is still valid: that’s a real band. They’ve surely been together longer than the Beatles and Wings put together by now I imagine. Wings is actually a good example of “What is a band?” Colloquially, they were a proper band not the back-up of a single artist. But they changed members all the time and were always on Paul & Linda’s payroll. Then there was his 1989(?) Flowers In The Dirt band, released two albums and toured the world for a few years without being officially given a name. Band or no band? It’s a hugely grey area defined by semantics. And I think the audience and the people involved in/with the group can see different ones.

He only asked for a 2% cut for all that merchandise released in the US during the height of Beatlemania in 1964 (wigs, colouring books, toys, etc). I was just reading about it yesterday. One of the licensors was interviewed and he couldn’t believe his luck. He was laughing all the way to the bank.

Can the US actually do anything to Canada militarily? They’d be retaliated against by all of NATO surely. Economics are another matter of course.

If you are into following non-mainstream music, especially bands, the easiest way to do I’ve found is to join the mailing list of some of the few remaining indie stores left. I especially recommend https://www.resident-music.com in Brighton for this.

Maybe they were testing to see if there would be some kind of backlash? It’s still awful precedent. Who knows where it will lead? Are whole areas going to be forced to build some kind of “great firewall” to keep this kind of thing out?

That’s what mine says now too. They’ve updated it since I began this topic.

Do they have decent mapping software?

For the past 15 years governments have been telling these people to regulate themselves and they just laugh. Trump says something ridiculous and they implement it instantly. This sets a very dangerous precedent. It’s also symbolic of the sort of things the rest of the world is going to need to gird its loins and resist. Companies like Google are relied upon the world over so they are surely hoping that if they make enough changes to fit Trumptopia, the international community will have no choice but to gradually accept it, especially as an entire generation comes of age with this kind of thing so they are used to it.

I just checked Google Maps and they renamed the Gulf Of Mexico into the Gulf Of America. Apple Maps is still calling it Gulf Of Mexico. Why are these so-called disruptors in Silicon Valley suddenly listening to the whims of a political leader? They never have before.

Exactly. And they stay together and gel like a band over time. It’s not a thing just for the kiddies either. Paul McCartney has played with the same 3 guys live since 2001. They don’t usually appear on his recordings, but I think it’s a real stretch not to call them a band.

I had a book called “New Wave Riffs for Bass” and the cover was Sting playing one of those Ibanezes.

I come from the same side of the tracks and believe me, I wish this were more true. But it's not been my experience. Every band I've been in has been dominated by 1 or 2 people. Unfortunately IMHO, I've found a lot of people in bands just want to be told what to do and be left to do it by the songwriter, who will guide them as to what he or she thinks might fit their tune best.

I guess that depends on the signifcance you place on the semantics of what a band means. I mean, no front person introduces the group they put together as their "hired hands". Also, what about the situation where Beck put together a group of top session musicans for his Odelay tour in 1997 and they more or less became his permanent live group if I'm not mistaken? They might still be playing with him. They've also been hired regularly to do the same thing for Air and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Justin Meldal-Johnson was the bassist if I recall. From what I understand, part of the reason Bruce Thomas parted ways with Elvis Costello because was because he thought they were a "band" and Elvis ultimately saw The Attractions as the backing musicians that he had put together and was paying, albiet the best possible band for the gig.

Nobody has mentioned recording techniques. Home studios are now good enough for one person to do the lot on both sides of the microphone and it can sound professional if that person knows how to get the most out of the tech. When/if they go on the road, they usually put a band together to play the stuff they recorded by themselves.