Rich

I thought Kanye was a talentless jerk, but I take it back. Genius. Everybody, stop writing songs, the pinnacle has already been reached.

Loving these stories. Solid gold. I reckon this is the best thread we've had in ages.

...in Dobbly, presumably

Problem being the lack of time, piano and funds When I was a nipper, my folks had a really quite nice upright Joanna in the front room. They'd had it for donkey's years. I completely ignored it and eventually they gave it away to the local British Legion hall. Oh how I wish that I'd sat down and actually learned the bloody thing.

I've got the obligatory pawn-shop acoustic guitar and I know about 4 chords. I've got no real interest in learning to play it properly -- the world is full of guitarists who are better than I could ever be. I do however wish that I'd learned to play piano when I was young.

Quite so. In interviews in the past, he's been quite proud of the fact that his fugly 'Punisher' basses cost $250 to build and that there is no shortage of mug punters willing to pay him $2500 for them. Anyone who will so brazenly rip off his own fans and be proud of the fact that he's doing it is just worthy of contempt IMO. As for 'jealousy'... Do I wish I had his wealth? Yes of course. Do I wish my band was as successful as his? Yes. Do I wish I was him? Not in a million years.

Avoid politics please chaps. Thanks

Local music shops where I live are more like this. Me: Hi. Him: Arr. What be ‘ee looking forr? We ‘as a nice range of galoubets, serpents and lutes. Or a dulcimer if ‘ee want summat new-fangled? Me: Errm, actually I’m more interested in bass guitars..? Him: Guitars? Arr right, well we’ve got a very nice baroque guitar over ‘ere… Me: No no, a bass guitar. Him: {confused} Well it don’t come with no base, but… Me: No, a bass. An electric b… Him: {recoils in horror} Elastictrickery?? Why, 'tiz the work of beelzebub! Are you in league with the dark one? {yells out to the back of the shop} Perpetua! Assemble the townsfolk and loight the bonfire! We ‘as one of satan’s imps in ‘ere! {exit Rich, pursued by pitchfork-waving mob of very closely related locals}

Totally inexcusable. Either she'd be out of the band or I would.

Bloody good idea. Next year I will bring my cans and Korg Pandora thingy and leave them hanging around for people to use if they want.

.uoy no skcirt gniyalp seye ruoy tsuj s’ti kniht I

Before flogging the Wal, it'd be worth considering its investment qualities... Wal values only seem to be heading in one direction, so even if you're not going to use it in anger, it'd be worth keeping hold of.

https://www.theurbanexplorer.co.uk/

Sorry for going quiet, I was just making arrangements to have you killed.

I'll be there next year, for definite! The Wal needs a spot of gentle TLC -- she's an old lady now, y'know -- so I've got a year to get her sorted out.

Sounds like everyone had an utterly dreadful day, as I suspected you would. I'm really glad I had to work and miss the whole f%$&*ing thing.

I agree with all the above. I would definitely investigate the custom-made lightweight option. Talk to Jon Shuker... his carbonlite basses are awesome.

They said they'd retired, but now there's film of Dirk Lerxt and Pratt rehearsing together again and sounding, well, remarkable. Perhaps they'll surprise us with a reunion tour? Fingers crossed. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2005220929507190&id=1202966273065997

"Flip you, I won't do what you tell me!" Yes, it does rather lose some of its fury, doesn't it?

Agreed. Any pub that had routine problems with aggressive drunks harassing the bands would pretty soon find it hard to get any band bookings. Either that or they'd become very popular on the Oi! scene.

Many years ago when I lived in Swindon, my blues-rock trio (Hendrix, Gary Moore, ZZ Top etc) had a booking at the Plessey Social Club... when we walked through the door, we lowered the average age in the room by about 40 years. As we set up, I could feel the glares from the light-&-bitter brigade burning holes in the back of my head. We had backline and a vocal PA only, nothing DI'd or miked up -- Steve the drummer was first to get set up, he sat down and picked up a stick and hit his snare drum ONCE... and I heard a croaky old voice from out in the shadows say, "ooh, it's a bit loud..." Predictably the first set was horrendous, every song met with almost total silence apart from a few “turn it down”s from some of the coffin-dodgers and one or two claps. One of them even walked right up to me mid-song, stuck his fingers in his ears and bellowed “It's TOO LOUD”. End of the first set couldn’t have come soon enough for me. When it did, the club MC asked if he could borrow one of our mics to do the bingo. Ye gods. Eventually we couldn’t put the second set off any longer and trudged to the stage. I was just putting my bass on when a woman approached me. I thought, if she tells me to turn it down I’m just going to pack up and sod off home. But she said cheerfully, “OK lads, all the old farts have buggered off, they only come for the bingo... you can turn it back up now”. So we did needless to say, the second set was a lot better and we never set foot in there again

"That ain't no Hank Williams song!"