Cliff Edge

Just after GarageBand came out I watched a demonstration in a London Apple Store. Some guy came on stage with a Stratocaster, plugged into an interface and proceeded to put together the basics of a song from scratch with drums and bass keys in half an hour. Yes he’d obviously done it before, but nevertheless it was very impressive and did look quite easy. Sold it to me, although I have since moved on to Cubase, GB is very easy from the get go. Plus its drum samples library is especially good. And you can’t argue at the price, if you ready have a Mac that is.

British Gas here. They have a deal whereby any Electricity used between 11 am and 4 pm on a Sunday is effectively half price via a refund to the account. My wife now calls herself the Sunday washer woman as the washing machine and tumble dryer get a good workout, along with whatever is used to cook dinner. My practice sessions don’t use much if any power as I use a laptop and a Focusrite with IEM’s so guilt free.

Sometimes it’s a recording of a live performance that changes your mind about a performer and performance. I took Neil Diamond a lot more seriously after listening to the Hot August Night album for the first time. Brother Loves Travelling Salvation Show made the hair on the back of my neck tingle. Possibly not to everyone’s taste these days but I still rate it.

If I were you I’d buy ‘67 Ford Mustang.

My fingers are starting to look a bit Keith Richards, predicting the onset of arthritis . Fortunately no pain yet and no impact on my ability to play the bass. However I do have issues opening some screw bottle tops these days. I’m sure they are done up tighter in manufacturing than in the past. Probably part of the inevitable health and safety. Can’t have the kiddies drinking the bleach can we.

Whitney started a trend. Every wannabe diva trying to sing as many notes as possible over a single syllable. Bloody infuriating.

Remarkably similar to you, schoolmates start a band need a bass player. Up to that point I was a dismal guitar player with I think 6 chords, might have been 5. Our school music teacher was helpful allowing us to practice in the school after hours. The original band went nowhere but one of the guitar players and I did go on to join up with a couple of older boys and do a few gigs until that folded. I carried on and have a great time, earning more than a few Bob in the process but what happened to the others I have no idea. One regret I have is that I never kept in touch with any of my schoolmates when I left school. Unlike my wife and my children who I’m pleased to say still support me in what is a consuming hobby.

“Is being 'average' bad..?“ If it is then I’ve been bad the last 50 years.

That falsetto by David Lindley in Stay always makes me smile. Saw them do that live a few times. Don’t forget Running on Empty on the same album. Another great song in my opinion.

His smile is creepy

I thought it was the Tales of The Unexpected channel.

That 71 show might have been the one I was it, although the evening set. It was definitely around that time anyway.

I saw James Brown live many moons ago. Quite an experience it was too. As I recall the band was quite exceptional but his antics tended to take the attention away from it. The Hardest Working Man in Showbusiness schtick was well over the top at the end of the show. I can’t listen to his recordings for more than 5 minutes.

I haven’t worked NYE for years, by choice. Fortunately the other guys in the bands were happy with the decision. Prefer to be with the family and friends.

My advice for what it’s worth as a previous self employed self assessment person, phone HMRC and ask them. They are in my experience anyway, very helpful. But you should have all the details regarding payment methods etc to hand.

Not 50’s country and western, but there is a thin line between some modern country and 50’s rock and roll.

Pretty much all modern country music is alternative to the accepted Nashville sound of 30/40 years ago. To me as a former member of several country bands, Alt = modern or country rock.

They may not be allowed but my FB accounts all have fake names. A couple of them are fairly obvious too. At one time you weren’t allowed to have more than one account but I’m not sure that still applies. Although rather like your age, very difficult to police.

I’ve used contacts for years, used to wear them all the time but as I got older I would use them less. These days I wear them when out and about mostly in the summer months so I can use decent sunglasses. Very occasionally on gigs. I have varifocal lenses in the specs as I’m short sighted from an early age, and I now need additional help with reading. My contacts are monthly Bausch & Lomb Purevision 2 multifocals for distance and reading. Can’t recommend them enough. I can see the audience, the fretboard and the charts on the iPad.

Surely Herbie Flowers deserves a mention here. And Guy Pratt has done some good work of a Jazz.

KZ ZS10 Pro IEM’s. Bang for buck difficult to beat.

Facebook threatened to take down one of my accounts years ago because they didn’t like my name. To be fair it was obviously not a real name and they gave me the opportunity to change it. So I did, to Mahatma Coat from Glasgow. They seemed happy with that and I continued to use it for several years until they again asked me to change it.

Slightly off topic but Google has/had a long standing issue with email/account names. If I set up an email account cliff-edge at Google dot com, I can also use cliffedge as well and will receive email using either. But someone else can set up an account cliffedge at google dot com. So you can imagine how that works, or not. Accounts my wife and I set up years ago using a hyphen to separate words have been affected by this. We both occasionally receive emails not meant for us. Luckily the email accounts are largely used as junk black holes these days. Passwords are changed fairly regularly.

There was an excellent English Eagles tribute band by that name a few years ago.

I had a few good gigs in Stowmarket with a country rock band. Very enthusiastic audiences, although it must be said most were dressed as Cowboys and Indians. But hey, you take what you get.