Cato

I think you may have been a bit unlucky there, or quality has improved. I've been very impressed with a pack of Next trainer socks I bought early last year. I mainly wear them down the gym and most of my gym socks have a pretty short life span before they get worn through but these have just kept on going despite my corrosive sweat.

Brand snobbery is an intrinsic part of capitalism. Is a US Fender really 2 or 3 times beter than Mexican? Is a 4x4 Porche really 3 or 4 times better than a Skoda Yeti? The answer is only 'yes' as long as people believe in the added value from the prestige of the brand. Otherwise it's almost impossible to account for the mark up just from the 'higher quality' components used in the prestige brands.

I've got a lot of time for Charles. I watched a 'how I got here' video of his a while back and he's seriously paid his dues. I'm glad his Youtube channel seems to be going from strength to strength.

I avoided Statocasters for the best part of 30 years because I always found them a bit boring and associated them with music I found a bit boring. Finally got one a couple of years ago and was blown away by the playability and the sounds, I'm still not hugely keen on the aesthetics though.

The UK entry has been getting a fair bit of rotation on Radio 1, so unusually for me, I've actually heard it this year and, even more unusually it's rather grown on me. (The video takes about 20 secs before the music starts) I reckon it's well above the admittedly low bar for UK entries, probably becausebit's not trying to do the europop thing, it's just a fairly typically British pop song. I'll be astonished if anyone but Ukraine wins this year, but it'll be interesting to see how the UK gets on. I haven't heard all the other entries but surely at a minimum this song deserves to be top half of the final table.

JPJ's little breaks in Good Times Bad Times. Short, sweet and actually enhance the song.

Finally got round to listening to Wet Leg's debut. There's so much more going on here than break out hit 'Chaise Longue', which much as that's the song that drew me in isn't remotely representative of the rest of the album. Reminds me of pre Brit Pop 90s indie in the best possible way while still having a quirky modern edge.

That's a lovely looking bass.

I think it's a really nice looking instrument, spoilt somewhat by the logo on the pickguard, although I imagine that pickguard could be swapped out fairly easily

Nikki Sixx sig apparently. The ones I can see on Reverb have been advertised at around £450-500 mark. So this one is setting the alarm bells ringing a little bit, makes me wonder whether the neck 'shave' mentioned in the ad has seriously messed it up.

I only had my Washburn Status for years, then Basschat happened and I added Precision Deluxe, modded VM Jazz and a fretless Sire V7. I could easily just get by with the Precision and the fretless. But I don't want to.

Not played one but they look very interesting Given the frequent requests for suggestions and discussions re lightweight basses on BC I suspect the honey comb chambering thing could garner a lot of interest here.

I think the problem with things like richlite, ebanol and presumably Blackwood is that bassists (and guitarists for that matter) tend to be deeply traditional. Personally I'd take, say richlite over pau ferro because I'm not keen on the orangeyness of a lot of pau ferro boards, but then I don't believe in tonewood (not looking for a debate here) and I already have a bass with a graphite board. I think for a lot of players anything that isn't traditional wood, preferably ebony, rosewood or maple, is a deal breaker.

I'm pretty sure Dave Grohl had already told Kurt he was leaving Nirvana to do his own thing before Kurt's death. I seem to recall reading an interview with him where he said he felt guilty about it for years.

I suspect that Hendix's career would have followed a similar trajectory to Claptons. Ie. Innovative guitar god to middle of the road AOR by the mid 80s.

Sheerhan's done an interview for Newsnight about this and other claims against him, I think it's being shown tonight. The clips I've heard are quite interesting apparently he's had so many plagiarism claims made against him that now when he's writing songs he films the whole process, presumably to show that it's an organic process and he's not trawling through spotify looking for songs to rip off. Whether that protects him in future, I have my doubts because there's always 'you're still consciously or subconsciously copying something you heard elsewhere' argument, but it's slightly depressing that he feels he can't just write spontaneously when the inspiration hits anymore without at least trying to protect himself from future litigation.

Dodgy as hell. Less than half price and in one of the most popular modern finishes that Fender have produced for a while? Even used it would be worth considerably more money, but brand new? If something sounds too good to be true...

I hear this earlier from a band I was aware of but had never listened to. It's sent me down a bit of an Everything Everything rabbit hole.

https://news.sky.com/story/foo-fighters-cancel-all-upcoming-tour-dates-after-death-of-taylor-hawkins-12577736

I'm a bit inconsistent with regards to sunbusrts. I don't really like it on a bass but I think it can look good on Strat or Tele style guitars.

Taylor and Dave were so close it seems likely that at the very least Dave will want to take a break before going out on tour without one of his best friends. The Foos have US tour dates scheduled in May so I imagine there'll some sort of announcement one way or the other in the nearish future.

I don't listen to much heavy stuff these days, but I really enjoyed that.

I've see Foo Fighters live twice, once supporting the Chilis and once headlining. They're an odd band for me in that as much as I've tried I've never really been able to get into their albums, but live I thought they were absolutely outstanding, up there with the best I've seen. Taylor was a vital part of that huge live energy and he will be sorely missed.

Decide for yourself Sound quality isn't amazing but Les is obviously not aproaching this with his usual vocal style. I didn't hear any slap either. Btw I didn't post it here because of spoilers but if anyone's interested there's a entire set from this tour up on Youtube. No idea if it's watchable quality though.