Grimalkin

"Who are they? And what do they want?"

Come on, quantity is no indication of quality, that's been proven time and time again. No, I'm afraid I agree with Irvine Welsh: "'Thir must be less tae life than this."

Tooth whitening turkey.

"Hallelujah, Noel, be it Heaven or hell The Christmas we get we deserve..." At least we dodged the chlorinated turkeys, I suppose there's that.

The time slot is wrong though... 23.52 - 25.19

Not your cup o' tea I suppose but probably the best tip I picked up back in the '90s on working with a metronome. Removing the reference gradually to reinforce internal time. "If you can play with a metronome, going that slow, you should have no problem playing with a drummer." He's not wrong: 26.32 - 27.42.

May ten thousand frogs spawn on their living room carpets... "Only the boring and bland shall survive Only the lamest of lameness will thrive Take it or leave it, you won't be alive If you are overtly CREATIVE..." Frank Zappa - The Evil Prince.

If you can, bring in strict alternation with your plucking fingers at this point, raking comes naturally but strict alternation (crossing strings on alternate fingers without raking) is hard, that's why a lot of new/old players ignore it. Until you try and play Rocco's lines, then you can see what it's about. I played relying on raking for years until I brought in and practised strict alternation, and that was years of undoing, so if you can bring it in now. I've taught in schools/institutes/privately for over 20 years, very few spend time on that, it's difficult. Nothing comes for nothing...

And so this is Christmas And WHAT HAVE YOU DONE...

'tis true that's how a lot if them end up... A ramp is a different thing though, it's a buffer to stop the fingers over-travelling and digging in too much, equal recovery distance every time. I rarely anchor on a pickup, I play over it, the thumb is usually muting.

Plus if you like playing over ramps or pickups set to act as ramps as many players do, it's nice to have a couple in different positions.

"Maybe this world is another planet’s hell." Aldous Huxley. Indeed.

Lurking turkeys.

I like having the versatility of two pickups.

"Climb up onto my back", said the fox...

"That's right, it's come to this Yes it's come to this And wasn't it a long way down? Wasn't it a strange way down?..."

I'm not sure but I would recommend the album, it's been a favourite of mine for years, there are some nice synth bass things going on. The speech is taken from the very extreme Westboro Baptist Church, who do indeed believe that rock and roll should be destroyed.

I wanted to try a Warwick Streamer five string around that time, I had a short endorsement with Warwick for a while but the neck profile wasn't for me so I returned the bass. The endorsement didn't come for free, and you had to be recommended.

A bit early in the mushroom season perhaps?

So at what age do you become ripe for identity theft? The Beatles wrote a lot of considered classics that have stood the test of time. I know lots of guys working who can play the stuff, but I don't know anyone who could write like that or the shear quantity of it. If you're looking for tips on identity theft, see Grant Shapps, no hold on it's Michael Green, forget that it's Corinne Stockheath, no wait it's Sebastian Fox... It's not right is it...

Bruce Springsteen's version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" is worth checking out. All this Crimbo prep has reminded me of one of my favourite Christmas Tales... "We told our children he wasn’t the real Santa. He was an imposter and will be going on the naughty list..." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/santa-claus-angry-swearing-father-christmas-children-fire-alarm-grotto-st-ives-cambridgeshire-a8681456.html

Having to play "Mistletoe and Wine", would make me want to try and eat all the mistletoe and snuff it, but then the original was far removed from Cliff's slush: "The musical was renamed The Little Match Girl and adapted for television by HTV in 1987, and featured Roger Daltrey, Paul Daneman, Jimmy Jewel and Twiggy. As originally conceived, "Mistletoe and Wine" had a different meaning from that for which it has come to be known. The writers wanted a song that sounded like a Christmas carol, intending it to be sung ironically while the little matchgirl is kicked out into the snow by the unfeeling middle classes. By the time the musical transferred to television, the song had become a lusty pub song sung by the local whore, as played by Twiggy." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistletoe_and_Wine