In this month's interview with Bill Nelson he talks a lot of sense about how musicians should treat potential managers and record companies with considerable caution. There's an inevitable temptation, especially when you've been working like a maniac for that 'big break', to sign just about any piece of paper put in front of you — especially if you've been hyped-up about possible rewards by the person who drew up the contract.

Bill goes on to preach utter caution as the watchword for anyone asked to sign anything. Unfortunately he's right. We've said this before but it still bears repeating that no contract exists which doesn't exist to take away rights from whoever is signing it. That's what contracts are for — to define what you are giving away in precise legal terminology. All too often the bits in a contract which specify what you'll be getting in return are at best vague and, at worst quite absent.

This, of course, applies to many contracts in life, not just to those emanating from the music business.

But sharks always feed where the pickings are richest and the music business (for all the tales of failing fortunes and hard times) still generates a lot of money which can either go to the manager or the artist, instead of being split fairly between the two.

It would be dangerous to get paranoid about this and assume that everyone who showed an interest in your career was a potential rip-off merchant but maybe it would still be safer to be like that than to join the ranks of musicians who've helped to swell other people's coffers at the expense of their own.

Far too often the villains involved get away with it scott-free (it's hard to see why fraud proceedings aren't more common in this business) and the musician is left, his career and his finance in ruins.

Quite how you avoid this is difficult to say, other than that you should be very well aware of the potential dangers and always get independent advice from your own legal adviser. You should also have written into your deals that the books relevant to your earnings should be open to inspection by your own accountant. These two courses of action should help. It's a pity that more can't be done about it, though, and the Press isn't helped by the laws of libel which prevent us from talking about managers and organisations which are widely spoken of by musicians as being somewhat less than virginal white.

Anyway, onto happier matters. This month's MUSIC U.K. contains a major feature on getting the best from your P.A. system, a probing article on the future of Gibson, a collection of exclusive reviews and news plus, for the first time, a readers' letters page. We hope you enjoy the mixture!

Finally, the I.M.S. show at Alexandra Palace (running from April 29th. to May 3rd.) is beginning to attract a lot of attention from exhibitors and the Public alike. We'll be there, of course, and we hope you'll be coming along too to meet-up with us personally. Last year we learned a lot from meeting many of our readers and we hope that this year we'll be seeing even more of you. Listening — it's what's made us No 1!