bigjohn

John is a top fella. A real pleasure to deal with.

Looks to me like the 2nd wave is starting to take hold. I know deaths aren't really rising yet, but admissions have started to rise again and cases are rising quickly even when the increased testing is taken into account. A high proportion of the newest cases are 18-24 year olds, which explains the lack of deaths, but it's only a matter of time before this spreads into higher risk demographics. I fear what's coming. Especially with so many people thinking the threat from covid is at, least partially over and are attempting to do things which are by their very nature going to mix people of different ages and locations, such as sporting events and dare I say it, music.

We were going to do an outside gig this weekend and stream it. I was due to go over to our studio to collect my cab, meeting our singer there who has the key, on Monday, but i was busy. Got a text from him yesterday (Tuesday) morning cancelling as he thinks he has the virus. He became fully symptomatic overnight. Turns out his next door neighbour is a confirmed case. Stay safe out there.

I carry a set of broken in strings. Ive broken a string twice in nearly 15 years...

Own 5 basses currently. A fretless, a bass vi, a jazz a precision and a pj. I play my p 99% of the time and 100% of the time i play seriously so I could easily live without the others. I did take my jazz to a gig last year, but never played it. I noodle on the others. Each one probably less than once a month.

The other members of my band are keen to start rehearsing again. I’m not keen at all. I don’t really see it as a risk that I might catch it and get ill. see it more a risk, however small, that if I put myself in a place where I might catch it, then even if I don’t get sick I might be passing it on. So trips to the shops for instance become far more stressful. I’m happy feeling confident I don’t have it and can’t have it other than contracting it in the one or two local shops I’ve been in. There have been zero cases locally. I really don’t want to be the one who brings it in. it does t help that one of us is a social worker who has spent the whole of lockdown working and going into people’s houses, going into an office, using the trams etc.

Yeah, he’s great... Here’s the interview I half remembered.

The story I read about Nils’ piano playing, I can’t remember where. He reckoned he couldn’t play the piano. Never had done before until Neil Young forced him into it, I think when they were recording After the Goldrush by reminding him could play the accordion 😎

Cool Nils is one of those musicians I got brought up on. I'd love to have met him.

This is great. Even if only for the Prince solo...

Yeah, been there, twice. Not because we knew them, both because the couple who got married wanted a live Neil Young Band to play their first dance. Neither of which were songs that we play, but hey ho. Both times the money has been comparatively too good to turn down and both were hard work. One of which was very much so. We've not done another and our duly increased price for doing our next one has been baulked at a couple of times since. I much prefer being "the band" at a venue, where people have paid to come and see us, rather than "the entertainment" at a random function. Cortez the Killer ain't a party song. That said, like pretty much anything. If the price is right, I'll do it, so long as it doesn't offend my sensibilities.

I've pulled ferrules out with masking tape already on from factory fresh guitars. Doesn't take much.

Yeah cone diameter means little. I used to get great tone and lows from a 4x8 I used to use at rehearsal room.

Yeah, really, if it's in good nick, which it might be, you never know, then it's gonna be worth 100s of pounds. If it's as knackered as it might be, then it's firewood and junk.

Yes of course. And that will be seamlessly added to the renewal price.

Made by a French company and printed in Poland of course. Like any of this is going to make any difference to anyone other than making our lives more difficult and things more expensive at best.

No. The legislative policy makers of the EU were, whilst we were members, literally us, the UK, in cooperation with all of the other member states. On top of that, any EU legislation that was applicable in the UK had to be passed by Westminster. This isn't political or a matter of opinion. It's just a description of how the mechanics worked and continue to work for EU member states. it is mechanically impossible for the EU to impose legislation on any member.

Well yeah. Funny though, and I'm not having a pop at you Lozz, is the perception of the EU as a single, external entity. This is the root I think of a lot of Euro-scepticism and it's mostly to do with how the press portrays "The EU" and the relationship we have with it and had within it. We were "The EU". Every time it was EU this and EU that, the press were actually talking about the UK and externalising it. People have never got the hang of the idea that the EU is a membership of individual and sovereign states who all agree to exist in an agreed and cooperative framework. As soon as we leave, bar a trade deal, "The EU" essentially ceases to exist for us as individual citizens. We must get used to that idea. Each member country is as it has ever been (and we we were all along) to citizens of non-member states, an individual, independent, sovereign nation. Spain is Spain, France is France etc. For us, their membership of the EU is irrelevant. People are still talking like we're still Eu citizens. We’re not. These countries owe us nothing. It's going to take some time for people to get their head around that.

It will be / is the prerogative of each EU member state how they treat visitors from 3rd party states.

No, I never said that either.

Thats not what I said. What I said was, pretty much every detriment to the UK that’s perceived as EU imposition is traceable back to UK government policy. Fishing rights is a prime example. It doesn’t take much to research it. But whilst we’re at it, all of the directives, regulations and decisions taken by the EU were done with the UK as a highly influential member with a veto which the UK government of the day has chosen to write into sovereign UK law rather than make use of. I said nothing about them being in Brussels. literally nothing, ever has been imposed on the UK by the EU against the express will and without cooperation of the UK government, If you have a problem with any of them, then your problem is with the UK government and not the EU. These are not my opinions either, they’re just plain fact.