Nail Soup

You're in good company here....judging by a magazine interview I remember from Edwyn Collins of Orange Juice fame. Edwyn claimed that he once punched the guitarist from The Alarm (I can't remember his name and I won't give him the oxygen of publicity by finding out) because Alarm guy expressed his admiration for one of Edwyn's guitars by referring to it a 'a beautiful lady'. Edwyn does not seem to me easily moved to violence, but I guess you can only push someone so far.

After the demise of Motorhead, long-time Guitarist Phil Campbell formed new band - Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons... named in reference to the Lemmy proposed name, and the fact that 3 of Phil's sons are in the band!

This has the additional advantage that each band member can secretly imagine that they are 'Alf Sprog'. ..........OK, the singer and lead guitarist can!

A band name needs to work for people of all intellectual persuasions. That's why it's good to have guitarists in the band to provide a check of the lower percentiles 😉.

I must admit, I do like the instruments played to match the band style..... but a lot of models e.g. precision can fit a lot of situations, whereas cricket bat bass has limited application for my money. I need to like the look of my instrument and like it to fit the band.

Great... I'll give that equal points as for recording a session !

My faves The Fall did more sessions for Peel than any other artist - 24 by the end. Every song from every session was released on a 6 CD compliation shortly after John's untimely death. He often said that one of his great hopes was for all the Fall sessions to be relased together.... and for a long while that did not look hopeful.... but eventually yes it did happen! I think it was approved before his death though. Here is a particualrly good song (might not appeal to everybody!) from a early (1978) Peel session - "Mess of My" - they never recorded/released the song apart from the session.

"It's easy, it's only got four strings"!

I could recommend a couple of songs: The Beer by Kimya Dawson Nothing Came Out by Moldy Peaches. The Moldy Peaches had a few crude (but good) songs and there is less of that in her solo work. And she doesn’t wear a bunny costume post-Peaches either!

Great stuff! Bit of a trip down memory lane to hear Peel talk about the faxes he is receiving! Have any other Basschatters done a Peel session? Don't be shy!

Wow!.... what the the band and song?

Not a gear myth, but on the role of bass: "Bass should be felt and not heard" I actually thought this had been consigned to the history books, but it has it's own modern day realization when live sound engineers give the bass a kind of sub-sonic feel and you can't hear the note choice.

I don't know the whole album, but the tracks I have heard are great and I aim to check out the whole thing. BBC 6 Music did a 2 hour show on Sparks a couple of weeks ago - including discussion from Ron and Russel. It covered their whole career.... I must say that only a handful artists have maintained such a high and varied standard over such a long period. It's available to listen to for a few more days: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jsw3

Listening to this a lot of times at the moment........ Someone asked on a facebook group I'm in for some Kimya Dawson covers and seeing as I like Kimya and her former band the Moldy Peaches I optomistically said "yes, me, I'll do it!" and put my name down for this song. I am now struggling to make a decent job of the cover .... but I'll persevere! But still, a good song by Kimya!

I purchased a Squier Bullet in Daphne blue earlier this year for £150. Very happy with it - I think the Bullet sounds more Tele-like than the Squier Affinity. I did pay a bit extra to get that colour though.

I mainly play stringed instruments and that is my comfort zone. I usually struggle when playing 'blown' instruments such as penny whistle and have never succeeded...... but there is hope, I'm currently venturing into harmonica and so far so good!

I love playing the ukulele! For one thing it is very portable - I can fit one (in it's case) into my suitcase when travelling for work.... just need to go one suitcase size bigger! My tip would be to not buy the cheapest uke (the ones for about £25)........ they don't sound so good and seem to have poor tuning and intonation. Yes the uke has suffered from too many "slow down a pop song" things.... I normally play in this kind of style (finger picking), or clawhammer style

Hi there from a long time lurker! I was attracted to bass many years ago by JJ Burnell, Bruce Foxton and the often bass-led post-punk movement such as Delta 5, The Fall. I am currently in a punk/new-wave covers band although I'm not on bass (!) in that band - guitar/vox. I've read loads of good opinions, advice etc from basschat over the last couple of years.

I don’t often use a capo, but I probably would go up to 7. After that may struggle with fingering etc.

There has been mention of Napalm Death, Extreme Noise Terror etc already in this thread.... and there was a great 3 (I think) CD compilation (on Strange Fruit if I remember correctly) of all those sessions from them and a few others which is one of my fave Peel outputs.