rushbo

Can I just throw DHL into the mix... Recently, I sent an inexpensive (£130 bitsa) from Dudley to Spalding. Very reasonable fee, I thought. I opted for the "drop off at parcel shop" option to save a few quid and dutifully manhandled my parcel to the local collection point. The nice man at the shop tried to scan in the details, but to no avail. "It's not been working all morning" he said. Bloody, but unbowed, I took the thing to the next closest collection point. Same story. I went home and waited. After a couple of hours, I phoned shop #1. "Yep, it's working now!" came the cheery reply. Back in the car, back to the shop. The device now wouldn't recognise the parcel number. Went home. Shouted at some things, then tried to phone DHL. Like most of the helplines one rings at the moment, unless your question is "what company am I ringing?" you won't get much of a reply. I tried the "chat" section of their website. After a wait in the queue, I finally got to "speak" to an advisor who said to book it again as a home pick-up and they'd refund my initial payment. Which I did. To be fair to DHL, the collection guy came at exactly the allotted hour the next day and whisked away my parcel. After a bit of communication with the very nice chap I was selling the bass to, he mentioned that he would be working on the delivery day and would have to pick it up from the depot as I'd specified that the parcel should be signed for at the delivery address. "Aha!" said I. "DHL can divert delivery to an open all hours (ish) parcel shop!" We found a local place, I made the adjustment and nervously waited. I tried to track the parcel, but the new shipping number magically stopped working. That evening, the happy recipient told me that the bass had been delivered to his next door neighbour. How does that work?

Without giving away too many trade secrets, what did you use to get that purple finish? It looks ace!

I bought some sparkly new machine heads from JtG and all was good. Great comms, nicely packaged and promptly delivered. Sort of perfect, really. Rushbo

I worked in record shops for many years, and the number of disappointed Little Old Ladies who dejectedly handed me back, played-once copies of Extreme's "Pornograffitti" and No Doubts "Tragic Kingdom", having been suckered in by "More Than Words" and "Don't Speak" was astronomical.

Cheers Mr H. Here's the link for any UK based Zappafans: https://www.altitude.film/page/zappa?country=united-kingdom

Is this available to view in the UK yet?

The one in the OP went for £124 which is crazy cheap for what you're getting. These are really nice instruments - I'd still have mine if I could get on with that goshdarned extra string.

Blimey - I didn't know he'd written a book. That's a must have!

Wow. On so many levels.

I think the only members of his bands that had to read music were drummers- that was a prerequisite. Then again, how any musician could memorise such complex music, which Zappa would “modify” during every performance, is a superhuman feat.

Mike Watt is a goshdarned bass legend IMO. I loved fIREHOSE and got to see them at the short lived Junction 10 in Walsall, after an earlier attempt to see them play in scout hut in Derby (!?) was cancelled.

I sold an EMG pickup to Martyn. The whole process took about 10 minutes from placing the ad to parceling the thing up. As Alan Partridge would say; "Textbook!" Buy and sell with confidence, natch.

Just in case you may have missed it, here's the definitive guidance on stage presence:

Kevin gave me a Sterling pick up and scratchplate! He wouldn't even take a couple of quid for postage. In my book, this puts him at the top table between Mother Theresa and Mr Rogers. This man is truly a Dude.

Almost anything by the Minutemen. Do Public Image Limited count as punk? If so, anything with Jah Wobble on.

PM'd

Amazing stuff, thanks Steve! No "Liar" in this batch, but loads of Deaky related goodness to enjoy.

I had one of these in CAR. Really nice instruments, if mine was typical. I remember the neck being quite wide and shallow. It sounded great, but I struggle with 5 stringers. Someone might get a lovely instrument for not much cash, here.

I've just remembered a very unlikely candidate for this thread - The Strawbs. A band I played drums for (don't judge me...) supported them at the Robin II in beautiful, downtown Bilston, a few years ago. From what I gather, we seemed to be mixed to an appropriate volume for the room, but apparently no-one had told the Strawb's sound engineer that they weren't playing Wembley Arena. It was horrendous. A distorted, potentially life threatening tangle of noise. I packed my gear away and sat in my car in the car park across the road. Unbelievably, it was still too loud there, too.