Wolverinebass

Oh yeah. I've had that. In fact, if anyone in a band I'm in uses the word "woke" as a pejorative term, it's a pretty good marker of there being some other shady stuff going on under the hood and you've just seen the tip of the iceberg. This view has been proved right every single time as there will be follow ups in varying degrees of misogyny, racism and the like which I'm never going to dig on.

You're more than welcome to pop over and have a play squire.

True, of course. Ian Klos asked me on a phone call about the headstock. I was diplomatic in that I said that it might put some people off. I suggested maybe a 2+2 arrangement in the more Status or Ibanez type shape. Or something along those lines.

Ian said it to me more about the balance of the headstock actually. However, it's a valid point that people like Fenders. For all my time playing I've never owned a bass that was 3+1 until this. It is curious. I believe the 21 and 22 fret necks require the right heel and there's no overhang like say if you buy a Warmoth 21 or 24 fret neck with the fretboard overhang. It's worth saying that their own instruments now have the revised headstock instead of the square one which was a bit awful.

They didn't because Ian Klos hates the Fender headstock. He did ask me about headstock shape and I suggested something like a status or ibanez. Which is kind of the way they went instead of the square thing on their full instruments which is a bit grim. I was one of the first people to order a neck. I put it on a Warmoth G4 body. It's great. Here's me messing around with it. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DI4jCnQCDyb/?igsh=ZzgwNW5reDlzNXl5

It depends what the mistake is really. Some people are morons for editing stuff like that which actually sounds cool. I always say to people I produce, "You can have perfection or personality. You can't have both, so choose." Virtually always, bands or artists will choose the latter. Those who drone on about "getting stuff perfect" are generally nightmares to work with and also have no filter as to decide when "that'll do" is the right thing to do. Then they wonder why it sounds slightly lifeless. Which is why I made a rule to not work on those types of records and weed out those folk.

Which is why I said to order a few!

There is that. I've recorded people in the studio and slowed the song down by 5bpm so they can do it. I did get clocked for it by one of the other band members once who politely asked "what the hell are you doing Andy?" I politely told him to "shut up" whispering very quietly saying I'd explain afterwards. It was the other guitarists band and he was really, really good. He just couldn't quite play his own solo at the tempo they'd chosen. He would have taken years to get it right in bits as it was at least 45 seconds long and intensely complicated. Sometimes preserving someone's ego in the moment is worth it. Miming live is fraud to me. There's something that's been lost by all this and that's spontaneity. None of these clowns can play on the hoof. Like listen to a live album and you hear things being slightly messed up. That's gone now. In one of my own bands, the guitarist becomes intensely irritated by the fact that I freestyle loads of bits of songs. The point was I improvised when I recorded them, so I play them differently every time I play them. Which I feel is being true to myself and what I did on record. People like this Giacomo glock can't do that as everything has to be perfect and they don't have the facility to adjust themselves to anything else. Hence the miming and ludicrous striving for "perfection." Oh, and he ripped folk off too. Classy.

There's nothing funny about it. It's a fact. The secret of a great bass tone is that on it's own it should be almost unlistenable. Check out any band in the rock fraternity who the bass player is renowned for their tone. It'll be much, much harsher than you think when you inevitably find it on YouTube isolated. When I've recorded bass players in the studio you'd be surprised how many don't know this and even when they want a "clean" tone are surprised when I make it sound like an overdrive tube amp. Even a dirty tone if you want to hear thr top end is way more crazy than most people think. This is why I despise Glyn Johns as he took Entwistle's tone from him for arguably the best material The Who ever did.

The problem is that Glyn Johns made him roll all the treble and most of distortion off his signal. Then he took a high pass to it and cut all the remaining bits above about 3kHz. So it makes it more difficult to tell. To me, most of the stuff on Who’s Next the bass sound is garbage because of that. There's no sustain to it or harmonics and it's virtually dead. Though to be fair, the Who By Numbers bass sound is a travesty even further. Glyn Johns gets so much praise for things, yet he managed to undermix and ruin the sound of arguably one of the greatest rhythm sections in rock ever by making them stylistically go against what they naturally did. Let's make John play with less treble! Let's take away half of Keith's drum kit! Tosser.

He'd started using the Non-Reverse Thunderbirds at the Young Vic when they were workshopping the Lifehouse shows. That was before Who's Next was recorded. He still recorded Who's Next with Frankenstein.

My dear boy, you should have taken orders! I would have had one!

They're very good pickups. There are some things to be aware of. You have to get the route lowered as they're deeper than normal MM pickups. Secondly, and I've no idea if Martin has addressed this as I bought the pickups 2 years ago. I had to wait a long time for the neck as I was one of the first to order one. The channels where you would put the screws instead of being straight up and down were flaring out from the body of the pickup. So I had to have them filed so they'd be able to be properly adjusted. Were you to order from him, I'd ask if he's sorted that issue out. He seemed to be aware of it when I asked, so I'm assuming it's been rectified by now and he's very good to deal with. Sonically, they're excellent and work very well with the Lusithand filters. Plus, having bought a fair amount of stuff from Nuno, I can tell you not only does he really know his stuff, he's also a very good guy as well. In the video I'm playing through a sansamp psa 1.1 into a Vanderkley 2x12. Both pickups are equal and the filters are not even the full way open, nor are they pulled.

I've got a bitsa bass I made with Herrick multicoils, lusithand preamp and a Klos graphite neck. Happy to say it sounds amazing. I'm just messing around here, but if you're interested. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DI4jCnQCDyb/?igsh=ZzgwNW5reDlzNXl5

Townshend has changed his tune on the reasons for this at least twice. In 2002, he said that they got Pino as someone who could learn the set almost overnight. In 2004, he seemed quite uncomfortable with all the sonic space he had to fill because of Entwistle's death and said so. It wasn't until about 2008 he said that he got Pino to facilitate his self upgrade. Debate for yourself which one you believe. Jon Button is just an extension of this. He can be paid less than Pino and will no doubt be happy to be shouted at by Roger to turn down and play next to nothing to facilitate the skewing of the band towards the guitar. Nobody hears him live because he's just picking up a paycheck and isn't doing anything interesting at all. The interview he did with Scott Devine a while back was hilarious in how much stuff he actually got wrong both playing and factually. If Kenney Jones was the wrong choice in 1978 then there has never been a right bass choice post 2002. The Who (with Zak) were 4 equal musical parts until 2002. They've been finished since then and should have quit.

That could be one of the most hilariously inaccurate things I've ever read. Pino never sounded anything like Entwistle. Ever. Pino is brilliant as a fusion player but as a rock player? Nope. His tone is way too smooth for that band. Don't even get me started on Jon "iced gem hair" Button. He plays even more sparsely than Pino did. Which just doesn't work. The band died in 2002 with Entwistle.

Entwistle hadn't used an Alembic onstage with the Who since Live Aid in 1985. The 89 tour he played Warwick Buzzards (which are ironically even heavier) and from 1996 he played Status Buzzards which weigh nothing as they're a one piece graphite mould.

I don't think that's true. I think most people have a clear idea of what they want to do musically once they've been doing it long enough. Whether that be some covers for cash or the most brutal, tech metal you can imagine. Obviously within that there are ranges of what one will do or even consider. I must admit, if someone used "pacifically" in a sentence that wasn't referring to the largest ocean on earth, I'd be wary too. I think "meat up" is just a step too far down that road really. I get a fair amount of digital auditions on Bandmix. Some are interesting, most aren't what I'd want to do, so I politely decline. Sometimes it's actually a message from a person that isn't bulk mail in that way. There's no sense in making oneself unhappy about something that should be fun. From personal experience, @NancyJohnson is a really good bass player and songwriter. Why would he want to work with people whose material he doesn't like? I wouldn't either just as I'm sure you wouldn't. Whatever bar we set for others to cross is arbitrary and of course unfair and possibly unrealistic in terms of some people's talents (or lack of them thereof), but I would say that in the last 10 years I've not compromised on mine and I've been much happier for it.

Ironically, when I spoke to Ian Klos on the phone he asked me about headstock shape. He was determined to not have the 4 in a line Fender as he wanted a better balance. I suggested 2+2 with more like an Ibanez or Status (obviously without stealing them I hasten to add). I've actually never had a bass that was 3+1. It's curious actually. Alien almost.

That 3 mile drive is killer in the current economic situation.

Well, a while back (2 years ago in fact), Klos started offering replacement necks. I had the idea of "wouldn't it be cool to have a Wal with a graphite neck?" So, I ordered one. There were massive delays as they were tooling from scratch. No big deal, I'm a patient man. I ordered a G4 body from Warmoth as well as some Herrick multicoil pickups and a Lusithand NFP Special preamp. Along the way, aside from the wait, other things raised their heads. Herrick pickups were too deep to fit in a standard MM hole. Fine, get the route deepened. What I didn't know was the pickups were actually too big anyway as for some reason, the holes where the screws go to fix them to the body. So, I had to have the cases files down. Funnily, Martin said he was aware of this issue and yet they didn't put it on the product page. Hopefully, they'll have sorted that issue now as he makes really good gear. As the neck holes had to be drilled I wasn't doing that. So, I got it back last week and here we go. So, does it sound as I thought? Yes. It's not quite Wal sounding as the Lusithand filters go to about 4kHz rather than the Wal's which only go to about 2.8kHz. So there's more top end if you want it. Kind of like in the realm of Modulus sounding top end. The preamp and pickups are insanely loud. I had to wind down the preamp gain about 50% to get an equivalent sound as with my Wal, with no clipping. I did ask Ian Klos for some other things as well. He's a really nice guy and I spoke to him on the phone for about an hour one day. So, I had the nut width made wider to accommodate my playing style. I also had the radius altered, string spacing changed and a hipshot for good measure. The body is a Warmoth G4. Walnut body with a Black Korina top. Bridge is a Babicz with Harley Benton knobs. This is the 3rd thing I've bought from Nuno at Lusithand and he really knows his stuff as well as being incredibly helpful too. Herrick pickups are great and the peeps at Klos make great gear too if you like graphite. I can honestly say it's one of the most comfortable necks I've ever played. With the demise of Status going wood only, if you want a replacement graphite neck, you could do a lot worse than order one of these. When I get a moment, I'll upload a video of me noodling around.

Yeah, and they can do one for that price too. I posted on Tech 21's Faceook page and asked how many they would sell if the price in the US was the same as here which was at the time $712. They replied with a care emoji. Really?!! Really?!!!! It costs more than an HX Stomp which guess what, you can do everything this does and a whole lot more, plus it has presets and midi control as well as 2 inputs so you can run a bass in stereo which is in stereo like an Alembic. Unlike this which is just parallel from a mono signal. Their stance is totally wrong to me. Summarised, it's "but it's not us! We have no control of the price gouging idiots at Rocky Road!" Now, either they really have no control and Rocky Road is price gouging us, or they're doing what Ernie Ball did which is keep the US price artificially low by deliberately making everywhere else more expensive by charging the importer full US list price. I think it comes over that they don't care about you at all if you're outside continental US. Which makes it doubly ironic they replied with a care emoji to me.

In case anyone is interested. The OP text was Richard Osman. I can't remember if it was an interview or just on a show, but I've definitely seen it.

It's probably best we don't know.

I met him in Glasgow in 98 or 99. I don't know if they still do it, but Stiff Little Fingers used to play the Barrowlands in Glasgow every St. Patrick's day without fail. He was just walking through Queen Street station and obviously, one had to have a quick chat. He was a really nice guy.