NancyJohnson

The awful thing with the 6-stringers is that frankly horrific headstock!

The only one I bought new was a NR Thunderbird reissue; that was five or six years ago. Every other Gibson I've owned was a used purchase. I've seen plenty of people playing Epiphone and (strangely) Tokai Thunderbirds, but it's a pretty decent observation that in the main you don't see a lot of Gibson basses out in the field. Only thing I can think of is that they're possibly seen as more of a vanity purchase and not so much the type of bass you actually want to take out to a lot of the old rat holes a lot of us play regularly.

Shielding or otherwise, there's an inevitability of noise when you're in the vicinity of dimmer switches etc. Played a few venues where thus has been the case. Ultimately, and if there is an upside to nit making changes to the bass, once you're up and running, no one will hear the buzz.

Years ago, I gigged with the Johnsons a couple of days before Christmas and we did it straight, but I donned a Santa hat for the last song (Christmastime Has Come To Town). We were an originals band and it was great to see 100+ punks moshing about to the last song. Interestingly, the band on after us were 'equine surf punkers' Horse Rock. Their gimmick was that they dressed the same and wore Mexican wrestling masks. Keep reading. Their drummer is great; quite a chunky guy, big beard, very energetic, plays a tiny drum kit. He was in his clothes, with a Santa suit, his mask, a Santa beard and a Santa hat. After he finished his set he was literally steaming.

I don't understand the desire for <insert year here> reissues or Signature models.

Because Gibson are asshats and they're only interested in Les Paul models.

I'll pm you here.

Aah, just spotted this. Because it's apparent the GED has developed a bit of a fault - it's at Rocky Road at the moment being looked at.

I'd been a subscriber to the US magazine Alternative Press for a very long time; my sub stopped a few months back. I doubt I'm going to start rereading these, so wondered whether anyone would just like them; they form a comprehensive journalistic collection of alternative/indie/noise but from a US perspective. Decent journalism, album reviews etc. Seems a shame to just put them into the recycling. There's an awful lot, certainly ten years+ of copies, plus some special editions. This isn't a collection that can be mailed, so if you want them, you'll need to drop by and collect (Crowthorne, Berkshire). Don't want anything for them (maybe a nice bottle of red).

While not strictly bass related, I was just reading a short piece about Joe Strummer's Fender Telecaster; 1966, black over grey primer over sunburst. He used it pre-Clash through to the last gig he played prior to his death. My wife remarked (while I was regaling her with the information), that I would never have kept anything for that long and just stuck with it, because betterment of gear is in my nature (viz. GAS) and I see little gain in vintage kit. Aside from Brian May, I really struggled at that point to come up with more than one or two people (see below) who've used the same instrument night in, night out, for pretty much their entire (long) career. I wasn't even certain that the Hofner Macca plays once in a while is from his time with the Beatles. Joan Jett (the white Gibson Melody Maker): Francis Rossi (the Telecaster with the hole in it), Anyone care to add? Not people who just play Jazz basses (ie Geddy Lee)...anyone who is still using the same gear now as they did 40/50 years ago.

In non-musical purchases, I bought a television. Been doing up the lounge for a while and have been tracking the specific model for a few weeks, John Lewis price dropped overnight, so pulled the trigger about 6.30am today. Musically there's nothing I want/need that's actually readily available from any retailer.

Going for the hat trick here, I have Hamer FBIV, a model that at last estimate accounted for 'about 25' models. Elsewhere, my Lulls...the JAXT4 ('a few') and my oversized NRT5 ('one of two'). I suppose Lull can just keep making the latter two, but the Hamer, while more prodigious, won't be made any more.

I'm actually tempted to say I'd go for that. Nice.

There's a little subjectivity on the word outshone; there's the implication that the artiste's sales have blitzed that of the original band or whether creatively (from a personal perspective) the solo material is somehow better than that of the original. A handful of names came to mind immediately; Rod Stewart, Donald Fagen, Paul Weller, but the main one for me was David Sylvian. The guy's output since ending Japan/Rain Tree Crow has been pretty stellar. Expansive, exploratory, but lest we forget, patchy in places. I adore early Japan, those first three albums, but it was very much diminishing returns for me, I fell more out of love with every album, but the bulk of what Sylvian has done is completely different from that croony sub-Roxy type of thing that was happening at the end. Large instrumental pieces, straight pop songs and installation material. He's certainly outshone Japan from that perspective, but I doubt he's outshone from a sales/unit/££ perspective.

Paul Young, AKA Ol' Wheezy.

I went a long, long time ago, some time before it became the fashionable and rowdy stag weekender destination of choice. From memory, it was hideously cheap to get completely off your face that we actually came back with money.

I especially love the version with the smoothie maker accompaniment.

Years ago, the original Nancy Johnson played a gig to a soundguy and a lone barman. We were asked to step in because illness had caused a band to pull out. This was about 24 hours beforehand. Turn up on the day, the headliners had now pulled out as well. The promoter had found an acoustic/cajon duo (bit of a mismatch TBH) and assured us tickets had been ore-sold. The duo played to us four and departed citing a long journey (Bracknell to Basingstoke, sigh) and work next day, so the place was empty. We didn't get a Grauniad review, happily.

The point I was trying to get over wasn't so much about the switching, more about if I'm gigging/recording, then I'd prefer to do the whole session on just the one stringset, be it a four or five. I've played a six string once, in a shop in Landaan. Played a seven string Conklin when I was demonstrating for EBS at a trade show 20+ years ago. I just found that the high register extended range was unnecessary for me; I mean, Steve Lawson does very well off it, but in a three piece punk band, well, it's way too many strings.

I've got both and have previously switched between 4s and 5s. While I don't necessarily experience issues switching between the two, live or session, I do prefer just sticking to the one. I don't know that I could step up to a 6...that high C string. Just too unbasslike.

I've seen plenty of stuff about bass players using guitar-configured heads and cabinets, but is it really a myth that we should only be using bass-configured gear? Not purely from a tone perspective, but also from a frequency-centric perspective? I mean by this, if I stuck my bass into a (for instance) Fender Twin Reverb and played at volume, honestly, would it fry or damage it? Back in my formulative years, I just remember being steered towards the dusty back end of the shop by a guy in our local music store, who regaled me and my dad with the rhetorical quote, 'Oh no, those are guitar amps, you need a bass amp.' This comment has stuck with me for 35+ years. I should hasten to add here that I've never run my basses through anything that's not built or sold for purpose.