Pseudonym

I can imagine at least a couple of drummers thinking, "Well, it's usually like this anyway, so big deal." I can imagine a few bassists thinking, "As long as I can get along with the drummer, it's all good. No one else ever understands the rhythm section anyway." I cannot imagine many guitarists thinking, "Excellent! That's what I picked up the electric guitar to do, serve the interests of the singer with no thought for myself, and no ego at stake."

It would take me a lot longer to drive around Silverstone than it takes Lewis Hamilton. I feel underpaid. I don't know if your point is beyond the scope of this thread, really. When you pay a royalty for the fruits of creative work, the main resource for which you are paying is time. My materials cost me a very small sum. I haven't even broken a pencil in years.

It isn't necessarily unpopular, merely divorced from the reality of selling creative input. If I make a chair, and someone copies the non-functional aspects of my design, that person has infringed my property rights. If I have a patent on an aspect of the chair's design, that is also my intellectual property. If I have a trademark, that belongs to me too. If I convey those rights to, say, Ikea for a lump sum, do I somehow not deserve to be paid for my work? One of the reasons that intellectual property concepts exist is that they encourage creativity and innovation. Put simply, the possibility of income provides an incentive to create speculatively. Otherwise, the market will do what markets without intellectual property rights always do: reward people who make things with known values and deter people from making things with untested merits. If the incentive to innovate does not appeal to you, consider this: I write for a living. I insist on payment prior to publication, and my fee is high by the standards of my field of expertise. I can set a high fee because I am very good at what I do, and I am a free agent. The end result, however, is that a very small number of potential buyers of my products can afford to buy my products. My "honest work" is beyond the reach of most of the people in my tiny corner of the world who would like to buy it. Something similar applies to, say, a novel by Salman Rushdie, or a recording by Bob Dylan (or a chair that you can buy at Ikea; try getting the same thing from the chap who makes it by hand). A system of royalties, or other ways for creators of intellectual property to be paid, allows customers to pay very small amounts of money for enjoying fruits of someone's labour, usually because a company or other entity facilitates widespread access. It bewilders me that people actually seem to resent the wealth that successful artists sometimes accumulate, instead of thinking, "This is great! A novel for the household, and its costs less than a modest lunch for two!" Or, "I can't believe that I get this song for the price of a bar of chocolate." Try getting a decent chair for that. Intellectual property is what makes it possible for a broad public to enjoy what might otherwise be available only to the wealthiest among us. I would argue that intellectual property is also what made it possible to reward contributions to the public good without requiring the contributors to serve the interests of privileged investors. Sure, we could go back to a simpler time, but honest artisans were always outnumbered by the serfs, sharecroppers and industrial workers who put in 12-hour days for the benefit of magnates rather than themselves.

You're in a band with Elton John? Well played.

Some sites might want to see proof of age on an official document. Basschat will want to see breath condense on a mirror.

Some backchannel communications are more direct than others.

That pretty much sums it up. Certainly it doesn't make much sense if one thinks one's time has value. That said, it is entirely possible that buying goods from the US might become easier and/or cheaper in the nearish future, and of course it is becoming relatively cheaper to use sterling to buy otherwise unobtainable US goods.

No, I imagine not. Still, that's fiction for you.

It would have worked in the early 1980s, I think: "...that's after the news with Jan Leeming. Over on BBC2, continuing coverage of snooker from Sheffield and updates from the continuing embassy siege. But now on BBC1, Rog and Pete get ahead of themselves and agree to a charity gig that isn't quite what it seems. It's Ronnie Barker and Graham Chapman in Who's Out Of Tune?"

I think this is all utterly charming. The Who always struck me as honest-to-god grumpy, sarcastic, insolent English blokiness personified. They were like that when they were petulant youngsters, they were like that when they went overboard in the 1970s, and they are like that every time they have a barney in public and then pull the jaunty one after they realise they look like berks. None of this fashionable phony professionalism for these chaps. None of the "run a band like it's Accenture" nonsense where everything goes through a PR firm. No, it's proper mickey-taking, storm-in-a-teacup sitcom misunderstandings, all to be settled over a pint. If Ronnie Barker were still with us, he would absolutely play Roger.

These days, the howl in "Won't Get Fooled Again" is probably because he just put out his back lifting a bottle of mineral water.

I would say the buyers do in fact live in this world. They simply own more of it than most of us do. I wouldn't personally spend that kind of money on memorabilia but it is surely one of the more benign ways to spend private wealth. It isn't like they are pricing us out of a market that matters to us. It isn't land.

That's great news, Eddie! You'll get your bass in no time, I imagine. By the way, if you are unhappy with the hardware, I know of a spare bridge that you can probably get for a decent price:

It might be even more fun to poach them.

I suppose that for some people who weren't there back in the day, or would dearly love to be back in the day, it is cheaper than a time machine. I cannot comment on the nostalgic value for others, so the question of whether it is worth the enthusiasm and cost is really down to personal taste and expectations.

Indeed. The singing-lesson scene in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle comes to mind. Surely the whole point of Oasis is that they are cocky, swaggering, musical junk food? Is there really any point in complaining that some people enjoy a bag of Wotsits with a can of lager?

That is a poor choice on his part. A sedated Farrell is undoubtedly more amenable than a belligerently drunk Farrell.

I believe this is known as "managing upwards."

If his record of actually delivering objects to a destination is anything to go by, he is more likely to be throwing lame excuses.

This reminds me of the calamitous gig where Plan B and Mel C tried to cover the whole of Kid A. Let’s not even think about the time ABC preceded XTC at the BBC and poor old Jools needed an EKG. Sorry, Gasman. Carry on. W sounds like a bit of a four-letter type.

I wonder what you would make of this thread if you were part of its audience rather than the protagonist. As a member of the audience, all I see is a tragedy based on the fatal flaws of two people: a dishonest artisan and an unworldly customer. At best, you will get an adequate bass that you should have had many years ago, either from the builder or using money recovered from the builder. If you want a different story, perhaps you simply need to understand that you can only change the behaviour of one of the two characters.

The switches on 1970s technology do get stuck easily. The Sunakomatic was built in 1980, and it still thinks there is a Conservative Party that can fix the previous government's economic blunders.

The technology has come a long way since Doo-bee-doo-bee-doo.

On the other hand, at least Tesco changes the record from time to time. A good example to follow.

There's no need to get personal, mate.