Earbrass

You've not lived!

"JUDAS!!!"

Yes, although at the other end of the price spectrum! I use a Chinese (?) Superlux R102 to record my nyckelharpa. I find it smooths out some harshness in the upper mids that I encountered when using a large diaphragm condenser. As it is an active ribbon mic, using phantom power, it doesn't require a lot of boost from the mic pre, so it's fine going straight into my interface. I seem to recall it cost about £100 a few years ago. No complaints so far. They often seem to be recommended for stringed instruments. If I were going to upgrade, the Rode NTR and the Sontronics Sigma both look interesting, but I'm not sure the (probably) slight improvement would be worth the expense (they're both in the £600-£800 range) for me.

Chris Square Was the bassist with Yeah Their guitarist Steve Ho Was a Chinese maestro.

On the contrary, many of the more extreme "woke" are themselves bigots, displaying very high levels of intolerance for those whose views differ from their own.

"How do I tell my wife I just bought another bass?" The OP has misspelt "why".

But if you insist that no comedy should ever upset or offend anyone, you are going to lose so much stuff, from Life of Brian to most modern stand-ups referencing sexual material, jokes about the Royal family, jokes against <insert political party / figure / philosophy here>, Dave Allen on religion, right down to the endless innuendos that form the basis of so much basschat 'humour'. We have social norms and taboos, and it has always been and will always be human nature to find humour in breaking them, and in mocking things we are "not supposed to" mock. Whether or not it crosses a line will always be a matter of judgement, and will depend on things like context and the nature of the audience.

While I wouldn't say that this was universally true, I think it's unarguably the case that a lot of humour depends on the breaking or testing the limits of taboos of one kind or another.

Interesting that nobody's mentioned The Sex Pistols, a band seemingly designed with the sole purpose of causing offence. Their lyrics might seem rather harmless and childish now, but at the time I seem to recall they caused quite a stir. Back in the seventies, many of the older generation had lived through the war, and had lost loved ones in the fight against Hitler; likening the Royal Family to a "fascist regime" was a lot more edgy then. Funny how things change; nowadays they are just a minor part of rock history, whereas some of the DJ's who were not allowed to play them on radio one because they were too offensive.....well, enough said.

I'm going to guess absolutely f*** all, as in the present case, apart perhaps from the warm glow of superiority they get from having seized an imaginary piece of moral high ground.

Inti and the Clown Whores. Great band (or banned).

I think you'll find the answer is "some".

Any recommendations for a reliable and durable tall boom mic stand that will remain stable and won't droop with a chunky mic attached? Maybe something with a counterweight, or a pivot with interlocking teeth instead of relying on friction? For studio rather than live use. Thanks.

Those pillars holding it up look nice and sturdy.

That's the key quality I always look for in a band.

Peavey Milestone. These have been available in J & P configurations at various times. Basic, but solid, lightweight, comfy, nice players, good tone, reliable (might have to tweak or replace the jack socket at some point) and readily available s/h for under £100.

I'm not sure whether this one is eligible or not...here's the story. One of the music production channels on Youtube that I subscribe to is that of Rachel K. Collier. Late last year she posted a video about her favourite plug-ins under $100, in which she gave a link to a vocal stem from her track "No Deeper Escape", and permission for her viewers to sample this stem and make whatever use of it they wished. Never having tried my hand at this sort of thing before, I decided I'd have a go. I ended up using large sections of the vocal lines more or less intact, albeit at a different tempo, and messed with in other ways, but the structure and underlying chord sequence is quite different from the original (in fact I deliberately didn't listen to the original until I was fairly well advanced with my track). So, maybe not really a "cover" as such, and if the Powers That Be decide that it is not suitable for the comp, I certainly won't argue. It was, though, all recorded this year. The original can be heard on spotify here: open.spotify.com/track/7aoKxAksi7RZUvFAi7mGrO Here is my track D-Per Escapade: The nyckelharpa and guitars are real. All the other drum and instrument sounds came from a Digitakt and a Microkorg, except the very first sound heard, which I found in my Kawai stage piano. The video was made in Reaper.

Love Andrew Huang's channel. His music is not really to my taste, but his videos are always worth a look

Has the OP considered looking for a "drum machine / groovebox / sampler person" instead of a drummer? Modern machines often have a lot of real-time tweakability / playability, so if you replace the drummer with someone playing one or more of these machines you have a lot of scope for changing things on the fly, extending or shortening sections, warping the sounds in all manner of ways, improvising and so on; you're not restricted to having the exact same performance every time. Obviously not suitable for all genres, but can be made to work to produce interesting and dynamic performances.

From someone just interested in the sound obtained, rather than in trying to sell their "tonewood" products

Two spring to mind. First is the 'Pernod' saga from The Velvet Underground Live at Max's Kansas City. For those who don't know, this was an "official bootleg" record, in that it was recorded by a fan / friend of the band from their place in the audience. Consequently, some chat from audience members can be heard between the songs. At one point, a voice can be heard to ask "Can you get me a double Pernod?". Later, we hear the same voice asking "Did you get the Pernod?...<inaudible reply>...oh you, have to go to the downstairs". I think there's also some comment on one song "Yeah, I've heard it, but it's pretty new". Finally, we here the same voice saying "oh no, I gotta hide....look who's over there". That's it really. Not remarkable in the great scheme of things, but has always amused me. Not sure the other one counts, as the stuff between the songs is clearly largely scripted / pre-arranged and is an integral part of the show. I refer to Frank Zappa and the Mothers live at the Filmore East. First heard when I was a teenager, and full of the kind of crude smut guaranteed to appeal to the teenage boy in all of us.

Silly video, but nice track ("In the arms of Mary" - Grai)