Cato

Personally and with some personal experience I'd say the link between creativity and drugs is mostly nonsense. People with the creative spark have it whether they are taking substances or not. Just because in previous decades a lot of successful and creative bands were known to take drugs it does not mean that that the drugs made them succesful and creative, it's just a classic example of correlation does not equal causation. Although the myth that drugs were responsible for the creativity probably encouraged more musicians to experiment to see if they could unlock some sort of hidden potential. In fact generally when you look more closely at the history of a lot of these bands the excessive lifestyles were far more disruptive than they were positives for the careers concerned and in many cases were directly responsible for bands either breaking up or members being sacked or, in the worst cases, band members not living to make more music.

That F10DC is a huge aesthetic improvement on their previous Fodera type single cut. Looks nicer than an actual Fodera.

Probably my favourite guitar shape of all time.

I like Davey and Charles in smallish doses. Davey seems to try to give off the impression that he has almost mystical abilities that make everything he does effortless, although it's clear to anyone familiar with the instrument that there's thousands of hours of practice behind his skills. Charles makes no secret of his extensive musical education and I'm happy for him that he's found a way to make a living from it. Sapko is a different beast, whilst he's clearly a very good player, his social media stuff has more of a stand up comedy vibe,he's trying to provoke a reaction with what he says rather than impress people with his playing. I've warmed to himin the last few months, but it's no suprise that he winds some people up.

Can't fault his playing or arrangement but there's something about his tone there that I actually find quite unpleasant. Might be a product of listening through phone speakers but the treble frequencies are really quite harsh to my ears.

Another vote for DR. I went on a similar quest a few years ago, trying a different brand of round wounds every month. The brightest, zingiest strings I found were DR Hi Beams. The most disapointing were Dunlop Super Brights, they were medium bright at best . By the way, it pays to shop around for DRs there can be a £20+ difference in price between different outlets for the same strings.

I can't imagine Paul McCartney would want to be spending his time & money trying to save a failing business at this point in his life.

Worth remembering that there's another side to Hofner's business making classical stringed instruments that I imagine most of us here know very little about. Who knows which part or parts ofthe business are actually failing?

I wonder if the McCartney association is as much of a curse as a blessing for the violin bass. In the same way that some people are put off by signature models because they don't want people to think that they are trying to emulate that player. And the association between McCartney and violin basses is very strong indeed, to the point where it's one of the few models where non playing audience members might actually recognise it and think of it as the 'Beatles Bass'. Obviously McCartney is a great player, but not everyone wants their playing to be associated with or compared to someone else.

Just seen a clip of British Lion and it looks like 'arry's got either a new bass or a new refin, (or at least one I've not seen him with before) but it's not the 50th Anniversary job.

I can't remember the exact story but I'm pretty sure Mohini Dey's dad was a pro musician and she started learning music and theory very young. There's no doubt she's a top tier player, one of those you could drop in any situation from a pub level covers band to an all star jazz ensemble and she'd be completely comfortable. She does have a tendency to post short clips of very fast highly technical solos up on her social media which can sound pretty unmusical to the casual listener (and I count myself in that group) especially out of context of the rest of the song, which I guess makes her an easy target for 'She's talented but would you want to listen to it' type criticism.

Best of luck with it, great to see a new venue opening.

The intro argument is just for the video, the streaming versions go straight into the song.

I'm neved sure how real any of these influencer on influencer spats are. Reminds me of the Twitter 'beefs' of around a decade ago where celebs would insult each other on social media with the result of all parties getting some free publicity from the inevitable ensuing media attention. I'm not suggesting it's that cynical in this case but I doubt either Mohini Dey or Danny Sapko is too devasted at the thought of all the potential new content they might generate from their 'conflict'.

I had a girlfriend who had one of the Vester Warwicks in a transluscent green colour, must have been around 2000. I was really taken with it with it, probably one of the first really impressive budget instruments I ever played, before that kind of quality became the norm for cheaper basses.

Went for $40k, according to this slightly click baity article from No Treble. https://share.google/qK6FugI3ZeKrNJ9PZ

He just turned up on my Instagram feed doing this. Colour me impressed.

Andertons have the Dave Murray Custom Shop 50th anniversary sig for around £10k, makes the MiM look like a snip.. I did wonder if there might be an eqivalent Steve Harris model, but no sign of it yet.

I know Steve's had a few resprays over the years, maybe his No 1 will be black by the time the next leg of the Maiden tour kicks off? Personally I always think of him with the blue/gold version but I guess that reflects the era I got into Maiden, for older fans it will be the checkerboard finish and for the newer ones the West Ham edition.

One of those powerhouse session guys who played on more hit records in 60s and 70s than you could ever name. One thing I didn't know until reading his obituary is that he co wrote 'Sitting on the dock of the bay' which for most musicians would have been a career peak achievement. For Steve Cropper it was just another day in the office. RIP

He's apparently making a living from playing bass. It may not be quite the same dream that most of us had when we started out way before social media, but he's still living it. Personally, while I would never actively seek out his (or any other bass influencers) youtube stuff I do usually watch the short clips that pop up in my Instagram feed and he's made me laugh a few times, so good luck to him.

The rise of roasted necks may initially have been related to CITES but imo it very quickly became one of those classic guitar 'snake oil' things where manufacturers claim, usually without evidence, that a certain component or process gives the instrument some kind of special quality. I definitely first started seeing the roasted necks on high end instruments like Stingray's but now they seem to be available at every price point. Personally I like the aesthetic of roasted maple but, as with most of these things, I'm extremely skeptical about any special qualities, at least to the extent that would make a noticeable difference from a non roasted neck.

Went to see the Horne Section last night at Warwick Arts. I'm not familiar with Alex Horne's comedy outside of Taskmaster so I wasn't sure what to expect but it certainly wasn't this. The show is basically an eclectic mix of bad puns, comedy songs and surrealism, at various points I was a bit baffled as to what was going on but on the whole it was an entertaining evening, at times very funny and never boring, the 2 hours (with interval) flew past. The musicianship on show was of a very high standard, the bass player was outstanding and sounded really good. 90% sure he was using a Wilcock, a Mullarkey in something like Aztec Gold (though might have been natural with the stage lights giving it a glow) it definitely looked like one only it didn't look short scale, though that may have been relative to the size of the guy playing it, difficult to tell from where we were sitting.

I love the look of these early P basses but at the end of the day I'm also sure there are sound reasons why Leo Fender tweaked the design and stuck with those changes for the rest of his time at Fender. Ergonomics and quieter pickups being 2 of the obvious ones.

I've never tried using an adhesive to secure a pickguard but I have changed a few and I would say that they don't always sit flush to the body prior to being screwed down. It may need to be fairly strong adhesive to stop the edges rising up over time.