NHM

I bought a new pickguard for my MM a few years ago - I think it was from WD, and not too pricey. If you want me to check when I get home....

First rule of interviewing, eliminate candidates who aren't appointable. So rather than compare A with B, ask the question of each 'is s/he good enough to join the band?' This will then leave you with two, one or no candidates, so you can move on to the next stage of the process.

are you willing / able to change key to get the best out of their range?

saw a thing on Anderton's about a strat with scalloped fretboard - we need them to bring out a P like that. Perhaps they will next week?

nice bass, but I was thinking of something with much higher frets, like on the sitar, so the strings are never on the board and the pitch is therefore variable depending on how hard you press down....

a Yamaha? which model is it?

v good. has anyone built a bass with a fretboard way below the frets, so you can bend a note by pressing down?

Seems odd an old couple selling their son's bass. It's usually the other way round. I didn't see the programme, so it might have been explained. I wonder if they considered giving it to a local young bass player to help get him/her up the ladder, Today it's all about what stuff is worth and getting a quick buck. A quick grand whilst getting turned over on telly wouldn't buy me the same pleasure as helping out a youngster.

The neck on my '71 MM looks like Ikay's (above), just a tad darker.

I'm very happy with my B3n, it has now replaced my pedal board for gigs as it is so much easier to manage and cart around. I use the same clean/compressed patch for 95% of songs, plus one funk and one tremolo so it couldn't be easier to use live, with the rhythm pedal added to each patch so it is available for practicing. And the unit is small enough to fit in the pocket of the gig bag and tucks away in a corner or sits on the amp for pub gigs when there's not much space on the floor.

last year I bought a new bass from a reputable shop, it was clearly new, with tags etc. When I later checked the serial number it turned out to be made in 2011. I wasn't bothered by this as it played beautifully (might it be better for having sat in a box for six years?) , but I was surprised that stock might sit around for so long.

A really enjoyable hour spent in front of the fire. The two second clip of the enormous speaker cab that it took four blokes to carry - 'a picture speaks a thousand words' I think someone once said... .

yup, oysters still big business in Whitstable. It is thought the Old Neptune was originally a premises for boat-building so your ancestors would no doubt know it well...

Playing at the Old Neptune in Whitstable on Sunday - if you don't know it, it's a beautiful old Sheps building on the beach. Not the biggest gig I've played but possibly the most picturesque and certainly the one closest to the sea. Hoping there isn't a tidal surge that day.

Mrs M, who is an Alexander Technique teacher, says 'plant your feet securely to create a stable platform'. She says less printable things about my bass playing which are probably unique to me (so not worth passing on here), but the foot advice works well and seems generic - and I don't tire and my concentration isn't too bad over a two setter. I'm nearly 63 and it's only the (rare) consecutive nighter that's a killer, but then that's always been the case...

the bit that is always missing is 'what strings is the bass fitted with?'. Unless you know this, you've no idea how to compare the amp in your mind. Product videos - inc. Andertons and Mr Whisperer - never mention the strings, so how can you assess the sound of a guitar / pedal / amp / speaker without this critical bit of info?

yup, LEDs are ideal for rock n roll, lots of advantages, but are less effective if you want something verging on the naturalistic - for reasons already stated... It is incredible to think you can run a whole lighting rig off a 13A supply, with watts to spare, when you go down the LED route. In the old days of tungsten, all you could get out of 13A was 6 x 500W spots at any one time, barely enough to light a pub-sized stage, and each one in a single colour with no beam movement.

you don't need much welly from uplights as they hit bits that other light don't reach...

we don't get much call for saltires round these parts, but I've done a few 'sunbeams through the window' with them in my time.

there's plenty of Cajon bags if you look on Amazon...

a cajon bag?

LEDs don't have the smooth fade out that incandescent did/do. Patt 750s were terrific lights, double mirrors for a really concentrated beam although hard to balance one against another. crossfade to reply over 7s

the trouble with 103 and 117 is that gel only worked well in 'old fashioned' lamps such as 23s, 123s or Sils - for the younger reader, the days when lanterns weighted a ton, got very hot, consumed loads of £££ of electricity and - their best selling point by far - had tungsten or halogen lamps that simulated 'mini-suns' and thus bore some resemblance to the quality of light we live our lives within. For all the faults of the old technology, and for all the benefits of discharge and more recently LED, let's face it modern low-energy light sources are crap at colour rendering. The ability to render colour well is the most important parameter for any stage lighting instrument, whether you are lighting drama, dance or music. There's a law* that says the crapper the colour rendering, the better all the other parameters of the lighting unit are likely to be, and visa versa. Unfortunately economics have dictated that cheap to make, cheap to run LED lights have pushed traditional lights into the skip. There's a generation growing up that will never have seen a performance subtly lit by incandescent lamps, and they're all the culturally-poorer for it. Unless garish coloured scenes are actually what people want, but if they've been exposed to nothing else .... I'm old enough to remember putting a 'surprise pink' (36?) in a follow spot to light Shakin' Stevens, and young enough to have lit displays with fibre optics and leds. As a result I know that progress doesn't necessarily benefit aesthetics where there's money to be made. Rant over! Fade to black. *I just made up that law (I don't count candles!).

depending on the diameter of your PA stand, a theatre lighting 'hook clamp' might do the trick. the standard size fits scaff (2"?) but there's also a small size available.