NancyJohnson

Just spent an enjoyable two hours going through this book. If Geddy Lee wasn't so damn nice, I could honestly hate the guy for snagging so many beautiful instruments. Have to say that after 200 pages of drooling content, it's just information overload. The content steers you round the ultimate question of, 'Whatever happened to that <insert manufacturer here> bass?' before drawing you in for the last few pages of the really important guitars. There's no envy here in the slightest; it's just a lengthy journal about vintage bass collecting. He's been a successful musician for donkey's years and now he's simply kicking back and reaping the rewards of that. It's a beautiful publication.

Days In Europa was the first album I bought in the 1980s.

Yep. The 'Bean. They were amazingly talented and raw. I find it a bit disconcerting what they actually turned into, but hey ho.

Oooh, now you've done it. I know it's all subjective, but I was lucky enough to see them several times before they became the immaculately groomed and coiffured playthings of Simon Napier-Bell and they were insanely good, brilliant even. Those first two albums (and the Live In Japan EP) are still in regular rotation in our house. I may listen to Obscure Alternatives again this evening now...

Big Country were in no way Skids v2; there was certainly provenance through Stuart Adamson, but this was a wholly new band. The Crossing was a great album, truly wonderful and I'd happily put on record it's a more complete record than anything Skids put out. Steeltown lacked the consistency of the first album, by the time The Seer came out I'd moved on.

I had a quick look when I got home. Well worth the sub-£20 I paid through Amazon's pre-order. The cover price is $75. Woop.

It's all about diminishing returns. I've always had these girlish crushes on bands and tended to lose interest when Teresa from the typing pool mentioned in passing that they liked <insert band here>. The one that really irks me? Japan. Man alive, they were incredible until they did the change of direction around the time Quiet Life came out and Sylvian commenced crooning in a lower register. There's dozens more that were better early on. Dozens. Difficult second album syndrome. Van Halen, Living Colour, Fishbone, Jane's Addiction, Live, Butch Walker, Queen, Cheap Trick. Nine Inch Nails. The first two Stereophonics albums were very strong, now the band are a joke. I could keep going. Interestingly, it would be easier to list bands that have been horribly consistent.

Anyone got theirs yet?

I really enjoyed a US bass perspective on things, but after a couple of the new reboot editions, it's not great. As I buy mine through a WH Smith subscription, next time I'm in town I'll be cancelling. Sad really.

I watched a couple, deleted the rest. I understand the format entirely and was genuinely engaged at the start, but as I watched it just didn't retain my interest; irrespective of the talent on show, I just don't have feel I have any connection with these delta blues players at all and it really dragged. There's a ton of great drummers out there, obviously I'm uncertain whether there was any coverage whatsoever of guys like Mike Portnoy, Neil Peart or William Calhoun. If you want to watch a great/entertaining drummer documentary, try the Clem Burke one. It's brilliant TV.

I saw the OP and thought to myself, nope, no new gear required for 2019, not even strings. Feeling happy at that, it dawned on me that I'd actually spent about £3k in 2018, but if you want to count deliveries in the last 365 days, my Lull arrived between Christmas/New Year 2017, that rises to nearly £9k. Feck.

Nah.

I stopped all that malarky November last year and don't miss it in the slightest. I just think of the £££s I was haemorrhaging in weekly (and frankly unnecessary) rehearsals and petrol running around southern England. This, combined with the fact that I was losing precious weekends trawling around with three unpleasant asshats, playing to crowds of less 25 people, with promoters not paying out, when I could be spending quality time with my wife and friends was a bit of a no-brainer. I'm enjoying just being part of a studio project. Might try and find a band at some stage, but now? Nah, not worried.

I'd honestly give Facebook a punt and drive things yourself. Start something new. There's plenty of musician groups on it. As an aside, JMB is a strange site; too many idiots, too many people bigging themselves up or bragging about albums already recorded and gigs waiting. It has potential to be brilliant, it's beautifully simple but for the idiots who use it. Interestingly, I found a very decent drummer through our little village FB page, I'd posted a desperate plea of, 'does anyone know a drummer?' and it went from there. Everyone knows someone who knows someone. Good luck finding something.

I haven't owned a Warwick in years, but I'd like nothing more but for every Warwick to roll off the production like with black hardware. This alone makes some very pretty natural finished instruments just pop.

There's a loooong thread elsewhere about this!

We recorded at the guitarist's studio, which is spread over three rooms off his house in Sandhurst, Berkshire. I used a variety of Tech21 stuff - GED2112/BDDI and the dUg DP-3X - but in the main we ran two feeds, effected and clean. The guitarist produced. The bass tones from the clean feed were pushed through the Ampeg SVX VST-plugin; I don't think we used much of the effected stuff at all. As an aside, it was a very strange recording process. We hadn't played anything as a band at that point, I was just called and asked whether I wanted to 'do some bass', so I just turned up like an eager puppy. It was like, 'I need four bars here, sixteen bars there,' and so on. There weren't any complete songs, but about four or five days later, I would get an email with a very rough sketch of the song I'd recorded earlier; this carried on for 8-10 weeks, I'd go in, do stuff, then go in and revisit the old stuff, do new stuff. We had 20 songs at the end. A couple we just reworked parts into other songs...there was one we didn't touch but ended up not using, which was called Box Of Stupid. It had some Trump samples on it. It just didn't fit, so we parked it pre-mastering. We start #2 in about six hours.

You bought it? Thanks mate. Honestly, you didn't need to do that. PM your email address and I'll send you a couple of other things. There's a radio edit of Light 'Em All Up (changed radio chatter, no use of the word b*stard) and a bass and drum mix of 3rd Shock Army Sniper (I did this on my own over a couple of takes and just left it with the guitarist to do whatever he wanted). Thanks!

If you have Spotify/iTunes etc. it's been up on there for about a month. Bandcamp as well (amazingly we've already recouped the outlay of recording it). I'll post a disclaimer here...it's not an easy listen, but as a collection it kind of works well. It's more shouty and aggressive than we planned; it just evolved that way the further we got into it. Just search on 'Lutz' and 'Nowherebound'. Cheers!

...well in a somewhat bizarre turn of events, I interviewed for a position last week and the agency just called and told me I'd got the position and start on the 17th. Amazingly, I'd initially turned the interview down, largely questioning my abilities, but the agency were told the decision was unanimous and I was head and shoulders over the other applicants. Feeling a bit happier.

I'm knocked out that my band (Lutz) have had our album listed on a couple of these top ten releases of 2018 things; I'm assuming this came out of the New Music Saturday podcast and a few people have just picked up on it. At the very least, it affords me a little smile after what has been a fairly traumatic year in which I lost my father-in-law, my mother and my job. [Edit: I also emerged from the wreckage of losing my band, the band I formed eight years ago, to a bunch of fairly unpleasant interlopers.] 2019 has got to be better, eh?

I was looking at this on a very small phone. I'd concur with this not being a Fender neck from that period as well. At that point Fender joints were a standard rectangular four or triangular (to accommodate their micro-tilt system. Too many laminations and the fingerboard wouldn't overhang at the dusty end.

Whaaaat? This doesnt compute.

If it were me, I'd bolt everything together first to see whether it intonates properly, which would obviate the necessity of filling holes in the neck and neck pocket. If they're both genuine Fender parts, the holes should match up. Beyond that, you're simply making good on filling the gaps in the neck pocket, sanding and staining. Borrow some clamps. Any decent woodshop should have a decent stock of veneers; I'd take the bolted together bass along and see what fits. This would save you sanding time.

Aside from the Hamer Cruise Bass, the Ex-Factor was the only other bass that gave me an instant wobble from the first time I saw it. John Taylor at Live Aid. It was a, 'What the feck is he playing?' moment. Never played one, I doubt I've ever even been close to one, but it's always been there in my mind. Had my inheritance money come through, I might have taken a cheeky punt at this one, but right now, noooo.