NancyJohnson

I did about 20 songs for a project slightly before the pandemic. Subject matter? Russian nukes Surveillance Telephone surveillance Living in an iron lung The Spookwaffe (a group of black escort fighters during Ww2) A heavily edited version of the Kings 'we are at war' speech The third shock army snipers Oppenheimer Drowning in a submarine Being in the belly of a tank Borodino Sleeper agents Drinking vodka from the sandals of heathens The Heavens Gate cult The Jonestown suicide event American marine peacekeepers in Afghanistan Cheery, eh? We had a few more things in process before the project folded and moved on to something else. We just used to get a little obsessed with old photographs; for instance one of the group of people that assassinated Lincoln and how one guy had the looks of a current day male model. We did a rough demo of a track called Behind Confederate Eyes on that one.

When the original models came out, the control knobs were in a line. Yes, I know, these models aren't historically accurate blablablah, but it looks nicer in a line and you can use a right-angled jack and loop the cable round the strap button.

https://open.spotify.com/show/4sG8ibrTnGjSJSuer6iLA9?si=5b4ca490eee94981

Uncertain whether this is posted here, but the the Geddy Lee biography is up on Spotify Premium. I've got the book but I'm finding sitting-down-to-read time limited, so this is a nice treat!

The only bass I've never taken out in a live context is my 5-string Lull. It arrived while I was between bands and while I've rehearsed with it a few times, it's never seen a stage; it's also a bit heavy (oversized Thunderbird NR and quite a slab of mahogany). The value of the thing doesn't really come into it, it's more about suitability of the projects I've worked on.

Lest we forget, the stacked knob closest to the output jack is a push/pull as well, giving double stacked knobbage.

I told a friend of mine about an Integra that was on eBay about a year ago. It was about £100.00. Mental. It needed a bit of a set up, but it was stonking.

All you need do is swap the tone control and the output jack around and you're set!

Old Bass POD.

I was at one bass at one point. I think I was about 14 years old.

I just listened to the deluxe edition of Def Leppard's Pyromania. I'm sure that the original was staple listening amongst our jolly troupe when it came out. I'd read a review recently in which someone had written that the bonus content - a live show from the LA Forum in 1983 - was 'all killer'. God, it's just awful. Off the scale terrible. How this band ever got to, and continue to be, as big as they are, is truly beyond me.

Perhaps to give this context have a listen to the track below. Ignore the vocals as the originals will be removed/redone. I would imagine any vocals would be all done live, so realistically we'd be trying to reproduce this with bass, guitar, drums and three voices. https://open.spotify.com/track/6EHEcJSm1OJrvlRgGG7Uvi?si=XEUoHOgUSeK_r1H4_5z4KA

The drummer we have in mind should be fine with a click.

Interesting twist following the recent backing tracks thread. Had a coffee yesterday with a guy I'd worked with remotely during the pandemic; he seems very keen on resurrecting our long-dead lockdown project. Musically it was pretty straightforward, live guitars and bass, live vocals, drums were all drawn from live loop packs (Beta Monkey), loads of voice/keys/noise samples. He's keen to try and take things out live, utilising everything that sits behind the musical elements. Think of Public Service Broadcasting. I'm not entirely certain how this can be achieved on a budget, so am looking for a bit of advice. Could we strip all the guitars/bass from the original recordings and just route these through front of house and somehow give the drummer (or all of us) an in-ear mix so we know what we'd be playing along with? Suppose a bare bones solution at this point. Laptop running a DAW etc.

When we had some building work done last year, we had a just in case contingency in the event of emergencies. A week before the work started, the boiler went. Then the garage door broke and when the builders were working at the back of the house it became clear the extension roof was rotten. I had about £8k to play with. All gone. No holiday. No joy. After everything was paid I had under £3.00 left in the bank. ☹️

Limited by design specifications, you'd have to think all these cheapish/entry level basses must be coming out of the same handful of facilities in the far East. This week they'll be making Harley Benton, next week Fazley, the week after something else. It would be interesting to have owners of these just break them down and see the similarities. Given the level of secrecy, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if stuff like Limelights were sourced from the same locales.

The Badbird is a direct replacement for the two piece bridge of yore; it does not replace the three pointer on the existing holes/studs (the bass will not intonate). Scott did make a prototype two part bridge to replace the three-pointer...it required an anchoring plate to hold the ballends and a long throw harmonica style bridge unit that floated/sat on two of the studs. I don't believe he actually put it into production.

I borrowed a Watkins bass and a WEM Dominator from a bloke a few doors down. I guess I was 14 or 15. We had a three piece band, sharp learning curve, then through sixth-form this kind of expanded to a group of about eight to ten members and it all got a bit interchangeable. Some 40 years on, over half of our merry band make a living from the music business; two run a successful mastering business, another writes/produces/sessions, others are touring musicians/session players, one has a career in set design (TV and film). My plans dissolved about 35 years ago after a meeting with a Polydor A&R guy. So close. So far.

I was offered a Reverend artist endorsement a few years back; never too it up. Liked the Thundergun, reverse headstock.

The principal of backing track usage is fine if you don't need a full time keyboard player or your budget doesn't extend to a string or horn section. Obviously it's all a matter of how you want to do it and the cost thereof. Feasibly, you just have your whole set on a DAW running on a laptop/tablet. You should be able to split/assign the backing tracks to front of house and other content (click) to some kind of in ears. You'd absolutely have to be on the top of your game too; no room for mistakes, no room for swing.

Not particularly rare. No real correlation between price Vs rarity either, just selling for what equates to current market value. It's like estate agents going, 'I sold one just like this last month for ££, but reckon you could get £££ for this.'. (Don't get me started on estate agents, that's a whole other thing.). When I had my Thunderbird fire sale, most went for £800-900 a pop; pretty much what I bought them for. Luckily(?) for the used market, as Gibson frankly don't care about their bass range at all, since the 90s relaunch finishes are pretty much limited to black, sunburst or ivory; there will be a handful of special editions (the Nikki Sixx models, Rex Brown, Simmons, plus the Gothic/Yamano ones). You should be able to find any of these easily enough.

Stewart Copeland's Klark Kent anthology.

We supported a band of young'uns years ago, who thought that swapping guitars every song and using backing tracks (keys/pads/backing vocals) was the way to go; the drummer was using a little iPod Nano which was jacked into FoH via a mini-jack. It was a collision of problems. It was all very odd; as the iPod was going to FoH, you could hear the count in and then silence; they were absolutely reliant on the on the drummer keeping exact time. Of course this was never going to happen; they were always playing catch up or slow down as they were never in sync with what was being played on the iPod, so the backing tracks were coming in late or early. I'll remember their final song until they put me in the ground. The lead guitarist (frankly, I've never seen a guy so in love with himself; his girlfriend was nearby swooning and I definitely saw him mouthing, 'I love you,' to her), swapped to a different guitar, the wrong one as it happened, which was tuned down a full step. So you had the backing tracks coming in wrong, the bass and rhythm guitarists looking as though they wished the ground would open and the lead guitarist oblivious he was horribly out of tune, all the while whispering sweet nothings and pointing at his mates. Oh, the hilarity.

Mine is a late 70s Primary Bass. Friday night Gumtree purchase. It's a thing of beauty. (It needed a ton of work to get it up to speed...it was effectively a body/neck and Schaller tuners. Everything else needed changing as it was either non-functioning or missing bits. Aria Pro II produced Precision/Jazz Primary/Precise bass models. The Precision I have does have a Jazz brother...I check eBay periodically, but they're all £££.