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Well after 40 years of playing, Mrs JPJ bought me a beginners book of reading the dots and an introductory lesson with a local music school. This is something I’ve wanted to do for years, especially as I’m working with ‘proper’ musicians these days. So yes, this 54 year old is going back to school and I couldn’t be more excited 😎

I'm not going to try and work out how much a little piece of rubber would have saved me over the years!

I also think that Rutherford's role in the multi-12 string guitar thing that Genesis made their own was a massive factor in their freshness and originality.

1972 all original Fender Jazz, with the original case, she’s aged beautifully with great looking wear and checking all over, she was Olympic white but is now a gorgeous buttermilk colour with the most beautiful piece of tort I’ve seen, I think my soul was a small price to pay.

A bit weird to see Geddy in the Guardian. Like they've finally allowed in from the cold which is a bit ironic given Neil has stopped drumming. What are your favourites ? https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/dec/24/geddy-lee-on-rush-greatest-songs

A Zon Sonus Standard 4 string bass and 6 Dunlop Ultex 2mm picks :-) I had a pair of lounge pyjama bottoms and a new scratchplate for my Precision on my list but it went a bit wonky........

Not a Morning Person myself... after a quiet day and a sedate couple of G&Ts it's time for a play. I've just started a policy of rotating my (now stable I hope) family of five basses, today it's the fretless, for the first time in a while. It's the smallest and heaviest of the five - I need to do some strength training before I gig it again 😞 Ps half an hour later - I'd forgotten how easy she is to play and how good she sounds! 🙂 🙂

Got nothing bass related today so pulled the trigger on an Orange 4 Stroke 500 as a gift from me to me 😂 Arrives Friday

My luthier friend dropped this in my lap last week. Part gift, part barter for preamp design work I've done for him. Purpleheart fingerboard, custom neo sidewinder pickups optimized for slide bass. The bottom knobs are a temporary set I put on so I could get started on the electronics package. I'll probably go with something blond to complement the pickup covers and headstock.

From my daughter. Main pressie from the wife was the Bassix EUB.

I made it until about 4pm when I heard this and had to whip out my bass

A huge part of Genesis was about having two guitars. Mike's role was just about unique. Something they also did was bring bass pedals to the fore.

This. That era (Permanent Waves in particular) is the point where they stopped being a mishmash of plagiarised influences and defined their own sound, to my ears. Never been one for picking "best" or even "favourite" tracks but if I wanted to play a track that represented Rush to someone who didn't know them, it would be Free Will from PW. Hits every defining Rush feature, for me. Re: the article itself - a bit of a shame that even after Rush being validated by an outrageously successful 40-year career, the Grauniad writer can't get past the sneery put-downs - "widdly-woo music" and the inevitable implication that musicianship & technically complex music are intrinsically valueless. Seems some dismal & dated music hack tropes are destined to never go away...

Stop getting Rush wrong! It's Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures that are the best. Not the bland synth Pop of the latter years.

Now now, what would the Nickelback museum need Geddy's basses for? 😉

How’s about this then, Santa’s only gone and got me tickets from the Friday at the palladium. So it doesn’t matter if I get the call or not, I’ll see you there.

Ah, you’re referring to the 1/4” amp output then, which will be at instrument level. Merry Christmas, Rock & Roll Killers!

As if you could buy eggs at this time of night on a Christmas Eve! 😂

Totally get what you mean Dribble is her middle name. Never got why she is so popular, although its seems she is more ‘hip’ than popular. Bland self indulgent wailing springs to mind.

Agreed, I get concerned when our band leader calls multiple 12 bar blues tunes. Thing is we have so much other material . However it's not my call. Blue PS: I'm in New Jersey over the holidays and had a chance to jam with my close childhood friend Doug. We started our first band when we were both 12 years old.

I sold this back in 2012 in the Netherlands. I rarely regret any custodian relinquishment but if anyone knows where it is today I'd be grateful!🙂

Hope not but he may have had an accident or a family crisis.....

I'm studying for my PhD in electroacoustic composition at the University of Birmingham. As part of the project I've started building a website which will form a part of my final portfolio, the idea (actually my supervisors idea) is that it will connect everything I'm doing together; the blogs of my journeys, photos, descriptions of the places that I visit, maps of sound walks, field-recordings, and compositions. It's still very much in its early stages, I've never done a website before, other than a Bandcamp page. Comments would be most welcome, particularly if you've been to or are planning on visiting the places, even more so if you live there. The only sounds up so far are from a very recent visit to Belgium, I've got some from a trip to Amsterdam to upload later. There's a piece of music that I'm working on from Amsterdam that is up there too. I'm reasonably happy with how the site is starting to look. I managed to find an app that works how I want it to for the maps; it kind of does what I want anyway, I need to experiment with it. I've realised that there's going to be a fair amount of duplication across the pages and the content; I don't want people to have to skip to another page to see some photos, or to listen to something, so I'm putting photos and sounds in the sound walks section that will also appear on the photos and sounds sections. Some will also probably be in the blog section. Some people I guess might just want to look at the photos, or listen to the sounds. I'm using the free site at the moment, you can add photos but sound has to be via a link to Soundcloud, so I'll probably upgrade to a paid version in the next day or so. It's pretty versatile. You can have an image rather than blank behind the text for instance, I thought that looked good, but made reading the text awkward at times. I'd really, really like people to comment on it, and hopefully interact by adding comments to the contents, especially people who've either been, are planning on going or live in any of the places that I'm visiting. https://placesandsound.wordpress.com/sound-walks-and-maps/

most bands have only got a couple of decent albums in them, sometimes not even two, they've got one way of playing and one style and when that's exhausted it's a descent into repetitiveness or, as you say, blandness

Probably wouldn't get on very well with Schubert, then.

Smell my cheese!

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Wah! Heat... two classic singles and then a dwindle into the gutter of obscurity. Shame!

@AndyTravis so you are well and truly backnplaying again now! In the small print of the advert, they say you have to own nearly every model of Yamaha made

The 300 to 6/7/800 (whatever it is these days) are all basically the same bass. Just the woods and electronics get a bit better the further you go up the price scale. They're all very good and although my Soundgear obsessed days are far gone, I still wouldn't hesitate with a lot of them. Thanks to the brilliant ergonomics I know that's one bass I can blind buy every time and it'll work for me. Saying that I think they're oversaturating these days with all the minor variations in body finishes and so on. The 655 in "ice black" or whatever, for example. Just another SR w/ Bartolinis that sounds good, but not great. If you can find one of the 6xx series ones in the brown stain finish with the Norstrand CND P/J pickups and active/passive switch, that's well worth the £6-700 price tag. Or just get the 300E for probably the best sub-£500 five string on the market. I'd also recommend looking at the TRBX from Yamaha which was very clearly their idea of an SR competitor when it dropped. Many good reviews on the TRBX305.

Its a fair point I suppose, but they way the lyrics are shoehorned in are exactly what I like about Prog style music, nothing is ever simple! 👍for Turn The Page though. Hold Your Fire was one of the few 80/90's albums I actually liked.

They may well do but they'd be overlooking the stunning Czech Euro basses. EBMM make a fine product, if a little middle-of-the-road and unexciting. However, the Spector Euro is an entirely different animal but I think, comparable in quality to a Musicman. At least their G string is as loud as the others! I must also commend the quality control at the Czech facility. It's always excellent. This was even more impressive a few years ago, when their basses cost about 60% of what they list for today. I can remember when I first played a Euro Spector, at Sound Control in Newcastle when they got two NT models in for £1000 each. They were really excellent and the novelty of playing an EMG P/J equipped bass was great. I was very much into Victor Wooten's 'A Show of Hands' tone and those Spectors just nailed that.

I've used George L's for years. I've had them for so long I can't remember why I switched, but recently a guitarist friend of mine used a cheap "6 for £10" patch cable to jumper channels on his amp and everything went dark. I leant him a George L one I had spare and hey presto, great tone returns. Solderless cables of this calibre are an absolute MUST if your pedals are mounted on a board and there's minimal movement between the pedals.

To be honest, there’s not really a lot of point to these kind of threads, either “I can’t stand so and so”, or “so and so is fantastic”. All they ever end up in is a percentage of people agreeing and a percentage of people disagreeing. 99% of the time minds are already made up. All they ever prove is that we’ve all got different tastes, which is how it should be.

Since I’m trying a few tapewound strings out I thought I’d shield the cavities since I will be losing out on the grounding, once she’s in pieces there some interesting photos of the wear.

Yes - I read an interview with him where he was saying that he’d specifically got a Fender Jazz from each year of production to see if he could hear any difference and see how they had changed, and came to the conclusion that “pre CBS” was a genuine difference in how the basses sound. I’m not a Fender fan either, but it’s a very personal project and it’s interesting to see his opinion. probably more interesting for those with a Fender and Rickenbacker interest tho

No worries bud ,my Sr 500 will be resigned to the bedroom wall for a while now.

You said no bagpipes 😢. However, what if I cover a bagpipe tune? Below is my version of a fantastic pipe tune by the late Gordon Duncan, called “Ian Green of Greentrax”. I adore this tune, as it is so joyous, which given the sad life of Gordon himself, is amazing really. Mandolin, acoustic guitar (in CGCGCD) and acoustic bass guitar 😊

Just finished, catch it on iPlayer. Quite the most hilarious thing I’ve seen for ages.

Sorry, I’m with the seller, I’d always expect payment in advance to ensure I’m not waiting in all day for a no-show buyer.

3 band eq.....thats the issue Try a 2 band - it'll take your fillings out

It's possible you might get some increase in volume if your bass has a low output, but I think you're most likely to end up driving the preamp into distortion rather than getting any real increase in volume.

I know this is an anathema to some bass players (and guitarist) but move around a bit, if you're standing the same way all night, it will put strain on the joints that take the weight, and the added bonus is you'll put on a more interesting show and get more exercise

Some years ago I heard a story that Strings and Things would swap necks and bodies to meet specific orders.

Amazing how different people's tastes are... I know folks who love Californication as well. Each to their own! But then I'm a fan of Urban Dance Squad, 24-7 Spyz and Infectious Grooves.

What an awesome night! There's are video stills from the camera at the back of the stage behind me. I'm sure there's more to come out of it! The stage is lava... Me: "I promise I'll play the bass part straight, I wont show off or showboat" Also me: Me in crowd - bass solo, drummer on his phone...