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A week ago this little one man enterprise in the Netherlands caught my eye: Brooks Bass Guitars. https://www.brooksbassguitars.com/ The guy is truly into Gibson basses, which has never been my cup of tea. He even wrote a book about Gibson basses. Anyway, Rob builds his own versions of Gibson bass models, but with a twist. I totally fell in love with his EB-TB bass, a fusion of the first model EB0 (like a Les Paul Special) and the Thunderbird. Absolutely gorgeous! I just had to order one, based on the design alone. So - now it is ordered. It will look like this: Classic but yet not. Classy!

Luckily, I can nap on a rail in full sunlight if I'm tired (or in front of a blaring TV, which might occasionally happen...allegedly), but yeah, I have a very dark bedroom... On that, years ago a friend of mine had moved into a new (shared) house, and his bedroom was at the back overlooking some woods; there were blackout blinds already fitted, and he set his radio alarm for 5am (it was Winter, too), because he had an early shift. It turned out instead of the alarm tone, he'd set it for the radio, so he was awoken to the ethereal sound of Enya, in an unfamiliar place, in total darkness...he said 'I just lay there, blinking, not seeing anything but black, with a choir of voices around me...for about a minute I thought I'd died in the night...' 😁

Just got back from Alex James’ farm, following a wicked mid/afternoon set with Katy Hurt at the Big Feastival. We had a blast, and apart from a complete mind fart on the last chorus of the last song I think I played OK 😀 Started with a reasonably sparse crowd (pic below) but it felt like most people who walked past stopped and stayed for the whole set which was delightful Bass was my glorious Zoot P5, onstage duties handled by my Elf and a single Barefaced Two10. Marvellous!

A lot of you know I’ve gone a bit mad with boutique pedals. As I head toward married life I’ve been rejigging how I approach them and, as a result, I’m selling a lot of them, making boards with others, and collecting a few like a gear-hoarding magpie. Since I moved at the start of the year, all but five or six pedals (and my minis board - currently partially deconstructed) have been in boxes waiting for a board. As part of the overall rejigging I’ve realised that nothing is so sacred I have to leave it in its box. As a result, I’ve finally built a Broughton board (and one Southampton pedal that Josh Broughton worked on). I plan on putting other boards together over the next few months but this is currently my only fully-wired up board. Signal chain is right to left bottom row, then right to left top row. Knobs do not reflect settings; I’m just clumsy when I wire up.

I loved him in Deep Purple.

If it came via Skynet, you know it would be back. 🤭

My worst was unloading my brother, he wasn’t progressing as a guitarist as the rest of the (admittedly green) band were, he couldn’t commit to gigs for months on end because of his full time job. We had a gig for my other brother (house warming/big birthday thing) who lives next door to my parents. So we (rest of the band) thought it would be a good place to end things, mistakenly as it turns out, but a quiet word was had by me afterwards! Where I was thinking that he would be in a place of support, and would understand that our gigs couldn’t be booked because of his work, and that was too much for a developing band to shoulder… He did a huge flounce and the rest of the family turned against me, quite nasty really! Being fair, my reading of the best place to do things was off… And I’ve apologised about that… But his reading of the band dynamics was off, and realistically should have stepped aside months previously. Though we are civil again, I lost the friendship of both brothers and to some degree my parents… was it worth it for a ”pub” band??? I guess it doesn’t matter… It’s already happened 😬

Update. Thread closure. It's gone. Piano dealer in Cambridge took it away (very neatly and efficiently) for free.

I usually wear this gear when setting up for a gig in my home town of Paisley. Better to be safe.

I always wear gloves when carefully setting up my DI box and IEMs.

I picked up a lovely old 1984 Westone Thunder Jet yesterday. It's in need of some tlc as it looks like it's had quite a life. None standard knobs or bridge. New, more accurate, bridge is on the way. I've got some brass Thunder I style knobs on the way, but I am watching an auction for original ones. The pots are in dire need of a clean, or replacing. The logo has gone, I'll get one made, and the truss rod cover is worn, so I'll sort that too. I'll need to investigate why one machine head is wonky, and they're quite tight to turn. Fortunately they're not branded so replacements are easy to find. I've been after a Thunder Jet for a while now and I wanted a little project to keep my occupied while some work being done to the house means my music room is out of action. Through a preamp pedal and headphones this bass sounds amazing, the pickup has a lot of output. Westone were right to name them Hard Puncher. I might give the body a light refinishing, just enough to return it to a more flat finish it came with, but not enough to look new. If anyone out there has a Thunder Jet can you tell me if the logo is white or that flat gold colour Westone used. Cheers

Ah Vienetta - Ultravox

Thanks! If we could just pretend I didn’t obsessively keep altering the positions for 45 minutes that would be great.

I have a pair of late ‘70s Japanese doublenecks (guitar neck / bass neck) which were made in the same factory as the Ibanez models of the era but rebadged with a different name on the headstock for the UK market. One of them says Antoria and the other says CMJ.

Yes it did! 😀 For anyone interested, this is what eventually arrived... Probably the finest guitar Alan of ACG has created. Would of been a tragedy if it got lost in the post.

There’s a providence bass chorus in the sale section… that’s supposed to be one of the best for bass I think. (I’ve got a bass boost chorus which is pretty good)

I've been playing my BB414 lately and I am liking it more. It just feels good. And it sounds amazing. I have used it in a couple of recordings and people loved it. Anyway, I am posting a pick because it's orange and it can be seen from the distance and I find it funny. Sounds cool, plays awesome and it's sexy.

A classic illustration of why you should never play in bands with relatives or partners. Too much spill-over into your personal life if you fall out.

I've subsequently used it on furniture that was dented when moving house. On the 'does it work on a sealed finish' question, the first move is to try. If it doesn't work, there is a further option for this technique. When I bought my used Rob Allen, there was a ding in the the neck, which is finished in nitro. Rather than just ahead on an expensive instrument, I contacted Rob Allen and he said that if the finish was unbroken, a small score with a razor blade would open up the finish for the steam treatment. It turns out that the finish was broken anyway and the dent lifted and is still fine to this day.

Latex gloves are essential when murdering the guitarist, to avoid leaving fingerprints. Depending on the method of dispatch, a full biohazard suit may be preferable for bludgeoning and stabbing, whereas simple strangulation whether manual or by ligature should only need the gloves.

I was extremely fortunate to work with Mr Jim Mullen sometime ago while I was in Gary Boyle's band. An amazing musician (as is Gary) & an all around top guy. We've remained friends & follow each other on Facebook through our various music projects.

That's absolutely Epic...top, top quality "resignation" 🤣

Way back in my youth I left a band by climbing out of the toilet window and running away. I know it sounds odd, pathetic or both, but that's what happened. I'd formed the band with a guitarist "friend" and we recruited a drummer and bass player / singer (well, he was a guitarist but everyone knows that if you can play guitar you can play bass, right?) and got some songs together, played some gigs, recorded some material etc etc. It was all good fun and I really enjoyed it. Then the "friend" began touting us to labels and one or two of them showed some interest, albeit in a very initial sense. That was it - the flavour of the band changed and the "friend" and the bass player started demanding that we wrote more commercial songs and that each song we wrote had to be a potential single etc etc. It went from a fun band playing some cool alternative rock to a job playing horrid, anodyne, radio-friendly dreck, and despite my protests they were firm that this is what we were doing, and that was that. So, I ran away after climbing through the bog window, and when I left I took all my gear (not only my guitars, but the bass and amp that the singer used, the PA etc etc) and that was the end of my time in that band. They continued for about another year with a few line-up changes but didn't get anywhere. The real kicker for me was that we'd recorded an EP of four songs, three of which I'd written, and when it was released, post-bog window, the only credit I got on it was "additional studio guitars", and they'd turned my guitar parts down anyway, the buggers. The "friend" ended up buggering off back to Canada after having stolen, embezzled, defrauded and unpaid a small fortune.

Possibly, but it depends on what he was wondering off to do with the two female backing vox...

Ritchie Blackhands?

@Merton - brilliant!! Good work… I checked out her stuff when you joined up, she’s great! Nice gig to land

Sundae girl. Blondie

I followed Bernie on facebook and in the last couple of clips that were posted, he didn`t look good. A sad loss to the music world and his family of course. If there is some kind of after life, I hope he`s up there with his great friend Cozy Powell making a racket.

Here's mine, just. Holidays really get in the way of the recording process, don't you find? I nearly went down the route that @Dad3353 took with his nod to The Prisoner, seeing as it's one of my faves (see my profile pic). However, I've swerved into a completely different direction. A strange tale of being pestered by an annoying git who, for some reason, wants to ruin your day. 4 string cigar box guitar, 5 string guitar à la Keith Richards, cheapo Spider brand bass and MT drums. Recorded using Wavepad and Audacity.

Reminds me of a nightmare date I had when I was around 19. I'd taken this girl for a day out in London, thinking we'd be spoilt for choice for things to do. Anyway to every question of mine such as 'shall we go to the Madame Tussauds/London Dungeon....whatever' I got the same answer. 'I don't miiiiiind, whatever you liiiiiike'. Imagine this being said in quite a whiny, miserable voice, repeated ad nauseam. Later on in the day I opted we go to the movies in Leicester Square. So we did. Around half way through the film I needed a wazz so told her where I was going. On coming out of the toilets I peeked through the door into the theatre and the next thing I knew I was hightailing it to the tube station. I briefly stopped to ponder whether running away was the gentlemanly thing to do, decided 'f3ck it' and went on my merry way. So, running away is a good and well recommended solution to many problems and you shouldn't feel bad about it 🙃. I wonder if the Chinese or Japanese have made a martial art of it?

Knock off the 90 😁

Are you expecting me to finish my 500W home brew before then? Good grief man It has only been 7 years in the making.

I dare you to tell DJ Yella it's not ok

Squier 40th Anniversary Precision sounds like a no brainer to me. Loving mine - just restrung with DRs and sounds awesome.

Not sure Stradivarius is a good analogy. Making the best instrument that mimics a cat being strangled is a low bar 😂 .

There is a middle-way. I'm currently studying for a music degree at the Open University - it's distance learning, and can be done part-time (16 hours per week) over six years. I happen to be a "mature" student, but I think it would have worked well for me when I was younger.

The dep was to cover for his bassist who was on holiday. I left to pursue drums which I'd packed in years ago..It was perfectly amicable, in fact they tried to hang on to me. So at rehearsals he was hugely welcoming and chatty. However he and his wife go back a long way with my recent long term ex and I turned up at gig with my new woman in tow...Maybe it finally dawned on him that he felt some weird conflict....

Haha...should have said one was his daughter the other her friend. But I've known him for years on and off, real friendly guy....There you go.

Smokin' In The Boys Room - Mötley Crüe

I have an Apollo Standard 4 string in Aqua which I've owned the past three months now. Mines is passive with V/V/T

I like to think that was my musical pinnacle. I've not managed to top it yet.

' what about rigger boots then ? Essential for those of us who regularly like to punt a boot into the guitardist

No maple here but still looks special with black hardware. Sold it way back when and I've regretted it ever since.

Told you it would change

Here is my MC 924. I was 21 in the early 80’s and I had a choice between this and a British alternative as a pressy. Sometimes I regret not choosing the Wal… As others have said it’s weighty! This one works passive & active but it seems to drain the battery whether the switch is on or off. Gets taken to gigs as the spare but have recorded with it recently. Still sounds great….