NancyJohnson

I'd concur with Brains here. I'd always go with a twinned pickup bass over a single pickup one; it's just my preferred start point. While my preference is for Thunderbird reverse/non-reverse shaped basses (well, OK I'd also swing for a Kubicki if I could find one), I just think the new breed of Stingrays with the sparkly bodies and the toasted necks look sublime. Tonally, I don't give a rats to be honest, I can tweak my gear so that everything sounds more or less the same.

I ran a dual channel set up for a while (different prestages, Matrix stereo power amp, multiple enclosures). On a very basic level, as the bass wasn't dual channel (or stereo), after a tuner I'd split the signal via a Morley ABY box and then shoot these outputs into a pair of @Tech21NYC units, on one side I'd run the signal through a Rolls SX21 crossover then into a Sansamp GT2; the Rolls allowed me to strip out the lower frequencies before they hit the GT2 and gave me a fairly sweet dirty top end. The other side went through a Sansamp BDDI, providing a fairly controllable lowend rumble. You know though, for all the fussing and outboard, the Tech21 dUg does all this. I just wish the unit had been around years ago to be honest.

Never quite got the whole this-used-to-belong-to thing.

There are many, many, many songs. Way more than three. Thing is, this country is/was a sucker for a gimmick 7", alwys has been, be it The St Winifred's School Choir or Clive Dunn or Terry Wogan (or any other singing DJs or actors who release music. be it David Soul or the bloke from Minder, or Windsor Davies and Don Estelle) or Mr Blobby or Benny Hill or The Tweets or the forking Simon Park Orchestra. I listen to a lot of BBC Berkshire and their limited playlist; I'm dreading the time when they play Stop The Cavalry again and again and again and again and zzzzzz.

Almost certain I have a set off a Bronco that would do the trick. Give me ten minutes. [Ack, no. I must have passed them on. Sorry.]

Man alive, don't you sleep old friend? It's 4.09am.

This: And this: And this: Oh this: This too:

Wouldn't that have been a thing.

I actually recall the BBC getting all angsty about Statue of Liberty by XTC, what with it's lyrical content containing the words nearly naked and in my fantasy I sail beneath your skirt. When you think back to BBC radio in the mid-late '70s, many of the execs/producers/programmers who were controlling the nations listening habits were geriatric suit-wearing, pipe-smoking old farts so it's no wonder they were banning stuff and trying to uphold common sense and decency. What what. The were completely out of their depth; it would be like someone coming to me and asking me to throw together content for a show on New Zealand grime. This was also the era of Mary Whitehouse and we all know what a piece of work she was.

Listen to Heaven's Gate by Lutz on #SoundCloud It'll be replacing this. Something similar...

Evening bonny lads. One of our tracks has been denied an upload onto digital media as a sample we wanted to use is already in use elsewhere. Weirdness is that the person speaking is long dead and the audio was lifted from a You Tube upload. The main thing seems to be that it's a first dibs thing. So, I need someone to read a prepared piece for us so we can stick it into the track. Caveat here is that we need an American accent, delivered by a middle-aged to elderly gentleman. Oh, you'll have to record in isolation and email the file to us. Any takers?

I haven't watched it in years. Is it still on? @ahpook hit the nail on the head; it's too eclectic and that, for me at least, makes it pretty much unwatchable.

Never had any desire to go and see my old band...it took a while to get over everything that happened, so why bother? I've moved on. I understand that, without me as primary writer, it's taken two years for them to expunge my material from their set and I'm advised the new songs sound like someone throwing scrap metal down a concrete stairwell. Interestingly, from a Rock Family Tree perspective, the current line up of that band doesn't have a single member from the original line up, but past members have spawned other bands, so that's a good thing. My current project (Lutz) contains three ex-members and interestingly myself and three other ex-members are having a beery evening shortly to discuss throwing something together.

I gave some thought to installing the guts of a Rickenbacker into another bass (I'm not certain whether it was a Thunderbird body or a Jazz), but bailed for precisely the reason you posted - that the string spacing was such that there'd be some overhang. Ultimately, I just bought a 4003! It just seemed more hassle than it was worth to be honest and I would never have been happy with the end result.

I prefer solid colours over sunbursts or oiled finishes. Preferably black, although (as posted elsewhere), if I could locate a Hamer Cruisebass I'd swing for any colour to be honest.

I don't have favourites...probably easier to highlight the handful of tracks that don't do it for me personally. The beauty of the whole catalogue is simply how it ebbs and flows from the angular poppunk early on through to the majesty of the later material. The releases that get little mention (Transistor Blast and Coat of Many Cupboards) are equally good. I'd honestly find it difficult to say to a new listener 'Start Here'. The official collections (Fossil Fuel/Tiny Circus/Beeswax/Upsy Daisy) are all good, but I'd say grab yourself a copy of the Complicated Game book and throw together a playlist of the 30-odd songs covered in there. It's all encompassing.

Sorry...will be in contact.

While it's not my chosen delivery format, there is something wonderful about the 5.1 stuff that Steven Wilson has done with XTC. Drums and Wires is immense. Immense. I suspect the Dukes stuff might be more about getting yourself in a comfy chair and letting it just wash over you.

If anyone gives a damn, Steven Wilson has sprinkled his magic pixie dust on XTC's psychedelia alter-egos The Dukes Of Stratosphear material. Psurroundabout Ride sees it's release on CD&BluRay in less than a month. A smattering of bonus materials and All The Dukes' material in 5.1 psurround as well.

I did the gig last Friday and if nothing it just reaffirmed that the effort just isn't worth the result. Collectively we assembled in leafy High Wycombe from mid-London, Littlehampton, deepest Kent and my commute from Denham. Venue had undergone a bit of a facelift since I last played there, but really not in a good way, it was as if everything that made the venue what it was had been stripped away. It stank of disinfectant too. PA half the size of the old one, no monitors working, nasty house kit, sound guy was useless. They were also charging on the door ("£3.00 or whatever you can afford"). Whereas in the past the place would always have 40-50 people milling around, this time I doubt the place achieved double figures. To be honest, we played fine despite everything and just left by about 9.15pm, tucked up in bed by 11.00pm.

Oops. Well this went in the wrong section. That'll teach me for trying to do stuff on my phone.

I peruse the basses for sale section two or three time a day just seeing what's up there...while I have no real wants or desires; I've got four cracking basses I love, but I do admit to the harbouring of nugget or two of ache for a handful of basses that I've only played for a few seconds (Rickenbackers, heh) or ever seen photographs of. While there's some beautiful stuff on sale, for me a lot of it is just eye candy. I think where I'm going with this thread is the observation that some gear just never seems to come up. When I was offloading my Thunderbirds to fund my Lulls, I seemed to have sparked off a landslide of Thunderbirds for sale, now though things seemed to have settled and there's none for sale (much the same as it was before I started hoovering them up...I think I was up to 12 at one point). Granted some of these manufacturers don't trade anymore or are highly desired, viz. Hamer/Kubicki (I'd pull the trigger on either a decent Cruisebass or Ex-Factor today if one came up), or companies only building a handful of my desired models (Spector Forte 4X), or that some basses are just keepers (the PJ version of the Fender Jaguar). I bitterly regret not buying the Jeff Ament Hamer 12-string that was on here a couple of years ago. Ho-hum. Lunch over. Back to the grind.