Happy Jack

I imagine you've already seen this:

Ah yes, the famous 45-minute extended version of Sweet Home Alabama ... 😱😱😱

You say you want revaluation ... well, you know ... we all want to change the world. 😉

My two main bands are a 60s/70s covers band (Beatles & Stones, Kinks & The Who, T.Rex & Bowie, Status Quo & Clash) and a full-on rock'n'roll / rockabilly outfit. Current side projects include classic 60s soul, modern retro-originals, obscure Americana. Past side-projects have included steampunk folk, mournful singer-songwriter, diva torch singer, late 60s power trio ... you get the picture. 😎 It's a barrel of laughs, it never gets boring, it keeps me young. What's not to like?

I'm in a (broadly) similar situation to @Len_derby. At any given moment, I am usually playing in two front-line gigging bands plus a variety of side projects (some of which lead to gigs and some of which crash & burn). For me this is easy because the only thing that can cause trouble is direct clashes and, since @Silvia Bluejay and I get ALL the gigs for BOTH main bands, the only diaries we need to manage are our own. I never play in two bands who do the same sort of stuff and who could therefore be seen to be 'in competition' with each other, like Len I'm always completely up-front when I first meet potential new bandmates, and above all I run my diary on the basis of 'first in the diary gets it'. I have no interest at all in which gig pays more money or might be more fun ... if I'm booked then I'm booked and I turn down any other offers. All my bandmates in all my bands know the position (I try to be genuinely open and transparent on all this) and it virtually never leads to friction.

Hit a wolf note on that and it might shatter. Ah well, at least feedback won't be a problem.

Almost universally described as Mother Of Toilet Seat ...

Are you asking about the width of the neck, or the width of the four strings - i.e. from E to G? My 1963 500/1 is 40mm at the nut and 46mm at the 12th fret (so not really parallel), and the string width is 33mm at the nut and 37mm at the 12th fret.

Isn't it amazing what you can do with some plywood, a bit of glue, and far too much opium?

It's in Las Vegas. Seller reckons that finding someone stupid enough to buy this is a million-to-one shot but it might just work.

I wondered why the pedal looked so much like a 54 P-bass and then realised the enormous photo was actually your signature!

Before anyone points out that the large Luminlay dots are a mite clumsy, seeing as they're luminous anyway, I should mention that Andy suggested using much smaller dots for a neater look and tighter intonation. I didn't go with that because I'm well aware that there will be occasions when I forget or don't get a chance to re-charge the dots so I'll be reliant on them just being inherently visible and besides, my intonation is about as tight as a pig on roller skates.

That turtle has sailed ...

And let's not forget https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11478645

When you say "most venues", are you looking for one rig for pubs and clubs, one rig for concert halls, one rig to rule them all and in the darkness bind them? One rig probably won't be suitable for everything unless (like me) you mainly play one type of venue. You'd probably do better to go a bit modular. One really nice head, a small cab (1x10) for smaller venues, a bigger cab (2x10) for larger ones, and the ability to combine them for really big ones, by which time you're running a DI to FoH anyway.

Well someone needs to disagree, and that would be me. 😂 I use a compressor to tame my famously agricultural playing style (a trait that I can't imagine @Thunderbird or @Doddy suffer from) so I run Tuner --> Compressor --> Drive If I had a preamp on my board (which I don't) I imagine that I'd put it before the Drive.

That is a really cunning plan. 😎

Ha! Of course ... it's an entirely new neck, so of course the headstock matches the back. Doh!

Have to say I'm not convinced by the 'natural' maple ... for me it neither complements the body not matches the back of the neck. Obviously I'm basing my comment on how the headstock looks in my screen's depiction of your uploaded photograph, so I'm aware that reality may differ. I'm now thinking that the headstock should either be tinted maple (to match the rest of the neck, or at least get somewhere close) or plain white (to match the body, or at least get somewhere close). White would also bring the benefit of providing much better context for ebony swifts.

Is there any way you could do the swifts using tort? 😆

That was actually a list of the 100 best-selling singles (in the UK) for that year. 😉 But you piqued my interest as to which of them I chose to buy at the time, and the answer turned out to be just nine of them. Some interesting choices too ... I bought When I'm Dead And Gone but not Lola, for example.