NancyJohnson

Quite a few years back, I witnessed a double header of Brian Connolly's Sweet and Les Gray's Mud at the old Guildford Civic hall. Brereft of any of their old bandmates, Messrs Connolly and Gray stumbled through greatest hits sets backed by musicians half their age; Gray was like the leery old uncle that parents warn you to avoid at family gatherings and Connolly was body ravaged and in the throws of Parkinsons, led on and off stage and glued to spot in front of his mic-stand. These two aside, I suppose the other bands I think should have retired with dignity are Kiss, who are probably 20 years into their farewell tour and Motley Crue, who tore up their Cessation of Touring contract pre-pandemic. I suppose everyone wants to remember their favourite bands when they were young, lithe, thin and not bloated, grey, middle-aged and not being able to hit the notes (viz. Vince Neil). Reckon Noddy Holder got it right. And probably a few of the old punk bands bailed before their time. Keep 'en hungry.

Italian powerpop:

There's a rare as hen's teeth Yamano Thunderbird on eBay. Sapphire blue. Price is great (£1,600), but obviously you'd need to factor in shipping/taxes). There's another one on Reverb, but about £700 more. Gibson made 200 of these for Yamano, Japan back in 2000, other than the colour it's all stock. I borrowed one of these when I gigged in Italy a few years ago. The colur was stunning. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325400316009?hash=item4bc35ec869:g:KFAAAOSwdrljWeZd&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAA4PbGzdc%2B9mQV5zdiT77barzyinwl52LSe1SeqCugxl75nZNxfzoKGakoi26Drh4kKro46hZWMLBaMcM9X30pJDf%2B6%2BSE3LXfhRvi2yRkxAhJKOWZfUBxJuw0wRPWmBIItrpLhpbGxOhUDyd9QerBsyjMAPA%2FJeIAa5xy87g9Js7BVdxn67dW%2F9Iv9TNUKLyq4yDuTzakjGFEn6Mtan5aa8xEQcxtQ8mofqbWVtKdWxvp7e%2FD9TD1AGIREMuAqjmX3imzwdfrDraVCdhBKrVZAxggoe3Vhq%2BUOi0RnR9%2FaJ%2Fh|tkp%3ABk9SR6CUwqCMYQ

Brief update. I just installed a Tonerider Generator humbucker in the bridge position on an Epiphone Phantomatic...there just wasn't the space for two Wago connectors in the cavity, so I ended up going the old route and using the same connectors I'd used to install the John East preamps. They're on Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06WGM9W7S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1). They're like £7 for 20 pairs.

I used some little push/pull connectors when I hardwired my East preamps, way easier than screwing into a Lego style block. Wago connectors are fantastic, it has to be said. I've never considered using them in a guitar application. I've got to put a humbucker into a guitar later this week. Top tip!

I have an LT with Bart'sv(unused/surplus/for sale kids). It's got a Darkglass tone circuit. Don't read this as being Darkglass=dirty mush (like the Stingray/Darkray); it's just an active circuit AFAIC, cut/boost. I know people get all wound up about what's under the cover, but the Darkglass circuit works fine and is perfectly functional; it is just one facet in the entire signal chain. I've got John East circuits in a handful of basses and don't really see much difference in what each circuit gives over another, my desired tone comes from outboard gear (GED/dUg stomps).

Never had issue on any strap depth (so far)...the only ballache is where the strap hole is too small.

IMO the European Spector basses are great quality for a production line made instrument. Fantastic fit, finish, workmanship. Can't really fault them. I think you get an awful lot for your £££ compared to Fender/Gibson stuff.

If it's a like for like swap, do it yourself! It's pretty easy.

I've got some old boards here...

Plenty I've bought because I thought I'd like them, but only one I didn't like initially but got on a trade. MusicMan Bongo 5HH. It's one of three basses that in hindsight I have regrets about moving on. It was a superb thing.

They look a bit home made.

I watched the Christine McVie documentary yesterday, I think I may have recorded it about a year ago. There's one bit at the end around the time FM took on Neil Finn to handle guitar duties where Christine McVie says something like, 'Oh, I love Lindsey, but we had to fire him.'

I'm in a little village about seven or eight miles east of Reading. Nothing here. Locally Bracknell has a couple of venues, The Cellar at South Hill Park, The Acoustic Lounge (not strictly acoustic). Reading is better, quite a few small/decent places, Face Bar, Sub 89, Purple Turtle, The Butler, South Street Arts, The Turks, Velocity, Oakford Social - there are a few that I've played but not certain whether they're still open; Readipop was great, there was a bar in the Town Hall I gigged once. There was one place in Reading, old metal pub called The Rising Sun. It was a fantastic place. The inside was wallpapered (walls and ceiling) with pages from The Beano and The Dandy and for good measure the place had a old rowing boat in one corner (riding on a sea of papier-mache). I played there just the once...the place was absolutely rammed, literally people falling onto the low stage. When we were loading in we got heckled by a group of metal-boys nursing pints of lager but the level of heckling reduced with the more gear we bought in. Reckon we played about an hour and aside from a gig I did in Milan, I'd say it was one of the best gigs I've ever played. The bar staff said we were the loudest band they'd ever had in there.

I liked SlTs...bought them in the US. They felt nicely rough/gritty. Closest from a feel perspective is the Markbass LongEvo. Very similar in feel, and as they're coated, they last for ages.

I've been on EQX 102.7fm all day. They're a tiny radio station in Manchester, VT, they just do alternative music, all good. Found so much new stuff through them. They broadcast from a quintessential/beautiful house in a little village in the Green Mountains, about 40km northeast of Albany NY.

Charles Berthoud, yes. That's the guy. I mean, there's no doubting the guy can play, but for me it just seems all a bit unnecessary.

I've never been remotely interested in playing like Flea/Claypool any more than I've been interested in bands that sound like RHCP/Primus, so have never even tried emulating what these guys (and a zillion of other players) do. Oddly, its getting to the point where I feel marginally embarrassed to say that I'm 'just' a rock/indie/punky/post-hardcore player.

The video below was delivered to my Instagram feed earlier. I've honestly no idea why. It's just some bloke doing tricks with a football. It struck me that these (cough) skills (cough) have little or no relevance in real world football, where the opposition are more interested in kicking lumps out of you rather than how good you are at keepy-up. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CkfPgCDAXzV/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= To a degree something clearly short-circuited in my head at such an early hour and I was reminded of some videos I got from a client one time of a bloke slapping and popping a bass that had D-tuners on every machine head. It was frankly unlistenable. They asked, 'Can you do something like this?'. My answer was, 'No, and why would I, this is unusable in the real world and frankly it's a bit sh*t.' The response from them was, 'Wot, are wuu a likkle bit jealoush?' (this was the actual spelling). That was the last I heard and I never got paid for the rest of my work. There's the real world at work for you.

Interesting how people's entry points to bands alter one's perception. This album was the beginning of the end (of Rush fandom) for me; mud.

I think the first time I was aware of bass was Steve Priest's bits towards the end of Rock & Roll Disgrace and the bass breaks in Man With The Golden Arm. I wasn't playing at this point but it was just something I loved the sound of. I suppose my more formulative grounding would have been Geddy Lee (All The World's A Stage), Sparks (Martin Gordon era) and bass-heavy singles by The Stranglers (although I was never a fan). Despite loving Kiss, I couldn't see anything of merit from Gene Simmons' tone. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, but the reason I loved Thunderbirds was more about Overend Watts and Jackie Fox than Nikki Sixx. Shhh.

I try to read some of the more technical posts here and it's like I just go word blind; I'm not saying this data isn't useful in some capacity to some people, but by and large surely, given the amount of Poweramps and stomps out there, a lot of this is no use to anyone? As previously posted, I ran (several) rack set ups for 30+ years. Not once have I suffered from anything not working or under performing. Not once did I refer to the manual of any unit to read up on input sensitivity (or anything). The only thing I didn't do 'properly' was to always have the poweramp outputting at 100% and controlling the output volume off the pedals/rack kit. Maybe I was just lucky.

For many years I ran a 4U rack, a dual channel Matrix Poweramp (2U) that could be bridged for more output, Korg tuner (1U) and a variety of Tech21 units RBI (5/5), GED2112 (initially great, developed a fault, distributor hopeless 5/5 to 1/5), VTBass (sold on, didn't like it). The great thing about the different pre-stages is you're just amplifying the manufacturer's unit uncoloured and it's pretty simple to swap these around for different applications. I also ran a board with a dual channel set up BDDI/GT2 which I ran into the Matrix and into two cabs...this kind of emulated the dUg tone. If @tech21nyc had rolled out the dUg pre in a 1U unit, I'd probably still be running the rack to this day.