Graham

My wife's got me a ticket to see Sepultura and Raging Speedhorn in Southampton in June, hopefully tours will be going ahead by then. Tonight's Nordic Giant's show has been postponed, don't know until when yet.

Some nice playing and reverb, but not much use a string demo

Sounds interesting, but proof is in the pudding and yes, it'll be a pudding I let someone else sample first.

I can't even remember where I heard that now, so I'd say you're right

My favourite thing about them is that it was supposed to be Napalm Death, but they booked Carcass by mistake 😄

Well, it is in relation to looking at buying one....

I've been enjoying YouTube videos of delay/reverb pedals, so far Earthquaker Dispatch Master and Avalanche Run and Keeley Caverns, any others I should be checking out?

A bit more recent, but I was at the Damnation Festival in 2016 when Cult Of Luna played the Mariner album in full with Julie Christmas. It was the only UK performance of that set and I worked the festival so I could get on the balcony and be sure of a good view. Mariner is in my top two albums ever and the performance was absolutely fantastic, probably the best set I've seen.

I was at the Download Festival in 2004 when Lars was "taken ill"* and Metallica depped him with Dave Lombardo of Slayer, Joey Jordison of Slipknot and his drum tech. The opener was Battery with Dave Lombardo on drums and it's the tightest I've ever heard them, Rob looked so happy to be playing with a drummer who isn't, well, Lars. *definitely not on a coke bender

How many youngsters buy new equipment? I'd guess a sizeable proportion of those who buy new value light gear, whilst young folk value second hand and cheap, so the market will be determining the price. As to where does the money go, to some degree R&D - making a cab lightweight will require redesigns in the materials and design of both the cabinet itself and the drivers inside.

Materials and Logistics manager at an manufacturing/engineering company in Sussex. Not a bad place, I've certainly been at worse, just completed nine years here. Looking to change jobs next year, as the wife would like to relocate to another part of the country

I don't know how old you are and at what stage you are with your career and family, but don't forget the average age of people in this forum is 40s-60s - I'm reminded of Steve Lawson's comment at the SE Bass Bash a couple of years ago that he was looking at a room full of "white men of a certain age". That's a demographic who, on average, have more disposable income, so maybe makes it look easier to buy instruments regularly than it would for a more representative sample of the population.

I liked the sound of the pickups in the demo video, which would be enough to make me long-list one ahead of playing one, now there's a headstock option that I don't find completely off-putting.

I don't dislike the shorter headstock, but then I'm strange and like the G&L headstock. If I were in the market for a four string Fender style bass, I'd certainly consider them based on what I've heard of the pickups, so long I could try one in the flesh first. However, I'm not in the market for any basses at the moment, especially not four strings, so all academic anyway.

Beyond the lad from Busted already mentioned in this thread, the only other people I know of gigging a Sterling are Roger Lima from Less Than Jake and the guy from Capdown, who's now in The Getgone - clearly liked by ska bassists

White Stones - new project from Opeth bassist Martin Mendez, who has clearly been missing the death metal for the last few albums

I'd love one of these, particularly as my HD350 seems to require violence every gig to stop it from cutting out, but $2.5k is too much for me

Went to see the Lounge Kittens on their final tour last night at Union Chapel in London. It's a wonderful venue - a beautiful church with fabulous acoustics and filled seated with (literally) pews. As this was their penultimate show, it was clearly an emotional night, but they went out on form, playing two one hour sets covering almost all their released material and more. First set was a standard TLK show - the three of them and a piano, set two they had a full band to fill out the arrangements and sounded brilliant. It meant they could do things like their Prodigy medley too, which I don't imagine they've played live before this tour. I do hope they recorded at least one of these shows as I'd love to hear it again. If only to experience Glory Hole played in a church again 😂

So I visited Wunjo's first, after stepping out of Tottenham Court Road and feeling nostalgic and missing The Astoria. There I tried a Stingray Special 5 and a Sandberg California TM5. The Stingray had a very nice neck albeit thinner than I am used to; shorter too - I've been playin 35" basses for the last three years. The tone was strong and authoritative and the build quality exemplary. I liked the Sandbeg too, more variety in tone with the J/M pickups, but overall I think I preferred the Stingray. The amp at Wunjo's - a Fender Bassman - is quite different to the EBS I'm used to, which didn't help, trying to get a flat basline tone out of it wasn't obvious. I then headed over to Camden and to Guitar Guitar, there I tried a Sadowsky Metro Express RV5, another Stingray and a Digwall NG3 This time the amp was a Markbass Littlemark III, so more in my ballpark. I liked the Sadowsky the most, but was baffled by the controls until I googled what they were, once I understood what did what, I really liked it. Jazz 5s are definitely me, and it had the neck I enjoyed the most. The Stingray was nice again and I enjoyed it more through the Markbass than I did through the Fender at Wunjo's. I didn't like the Dingwall, I struggled to find a tone I liked from it and despite the 37" scale, found the low B certainly no better than the other basses I'd played and I think weaker than the Stingray and Sadowsky. The main takeaway though was whilst I liked the Sadowsky, I found nothing I liked more than my Lakland DJ5 and despite really, really needing a new set of strings, I'm very happy with my bass. I'm now enjoying a Thai crab dinner in Islington before pottering along to the Union Chapel for The Lounge Kittens penultimate performance.

I should be on London for a bit this afternoon and thought perusing a couple of bass shops would be a good way to use the time. I've not been instrument shipping in London for a few years, so where's good? Denmark Street and The Gallery still the places to go? I need to stay fairly central, but will be getting a travel card so can move around on the Tube

Pig Destroyer - Book Burner Not unrelated to the first Damnation Festival announcement yesterday

It certainly wasn't popular with the father of two young daughters who were there (I'd guess aged about 2 and 4), who stopped his display by threatening to thump him.... Here's a short video of the guitarist from Saturday, you can hear me in the background 😁

Very good last night and the new guitarist is bedding in well It was a surprise 60th birthday at a social club, good sound and lots of space on stage and a pretty decent crowd (apart from the drunk idiot who started taking his trousers off just before we started...) I was r qeally happy with my tone - the only thing I'm gassing for is new strings and an amp that doesn't need violence to get it to work.