Cato

Given the curren vogue for headless instruments, with several companies launching new lines in he last few years, it will be interesting to see if it has any effect on the prices of the original wave of headless instruments. In some ways Steinbergers, for example, have gone from being a bit of a historical curiosity that had a fairly brief moment in the 80s to being the grand daddies of a whole new lineage.

Broadly speaking more expensive basses 'feel' nicer to play, although obviously 'nicer' is subjective. I wouldn't necessarily expect a £1500 P or Jazz bass to sound radically different than a P or J costing half as much. One thing I have learnt over the years is that the answer to 'is a £2000 bass four times better than a £500 bass?' is generally 'no' but I would expect it to be more pleasant to play in multiple small ways such the feel of the controls, the finish on the neck, how smooth the tuners are etc. All those small details can add up to noticeably more pleasant playing experience over all Finally it's always worth considering buying used. £1500 should get you a lot of bass on the 2nd hand market

Unless something we don't know about has happened to his personal fortune then he surely doesn't need the money, he must just really enjoy thinking up new ways of taking cash off his fans.

When I started going to Glastonbury in the 90s there was a real, dangerous dark underbelly to the festival. Muggings were rife, especially later on at night when people who had over indulged were easy prey. There was no real attempt to stop people getting in over or under the fences and no bag checks on people entering with tickets so zero barriers to contraband, territorial fights between rival drug dealers happened every year. It was only in '94 when 4 people got shot that the organisers accepted there was a problem and began to make efforts to crack down on the issues. Don't get me wrong I went every year it was on in the 90s and greatly enjoyed it but the idea that it used to be some kind of peace and love fluffy hippy paradise before they sold out to corporate interests is a myth, or at least if it was ever true that era was before my time. You can argue about the line up but in terms of basic safety I reckon it's much improved today from what it was back in my day

Not sure about Franz Ferdinand but I think Snow Patrol, Scissor Sisters and Supergrass are all only fairly recently reformed after calling it a day several years ago.

I suppose the Gallup bass isn't to awful once you get used to the 'not quite a Thunderbird' aesthetic. But I'll take some convincing on the Smith guitar. To me it looks like a cartoon guitar that's been squashed and is midway through popping back into shape.

When I think of Schecter I tend to think of slightly dated black spikey guitars and basses and various 'super strat' models that are unambiguously aimed at the metal players. I do know that they've diversified somewhat in recent years into more vanilla Fender based designs but I still tend to think of them in the same bracket as ESP or Jackson in that their products aren't really aimed at me. Even The Cure endorsement hasn't really shifted that perception although it would probably help if the Smith guitar and Gallup bass weren't so odd looking.

I'm not sure why Fender get singled out for lack of innovation. I don't think there have been any major innovations in bass design that have actually stuck from anyone since the late 70s/80s when active electronics and headless instruments entered mainstream production. Since then everything seems to be tweaking the same , often Fender inspired, designs. The only other major change in the landscape of electric guitars and basses I can think of in the last 50 or so years has been the dramatic improvement in the quality of budget instruments over the last decade or two.

This interesting, it's skinny stringers again, but even Andertons are sayng that Squier Classic Vibe is superior to the Fender Standard.

As I understand it Generative AI works by scanning a source ( usually the internet but it can be a specific database) for information/ images that fit the keywords in the description it's provided and combining information from those sources to create a new image. At no point does it actually understand any of that information itself. ie. It doesn't know what a bass guitar is, let alone how it's components work, hence the obvious innacuracies in many of the images.

Just a heads up that this is doing the rounds on social media again. It look like a competition where a well known guitar shop ( the one I saw was PMT) is holding a competition to win the chance to buy a Marshall bluetooth speaker for £9.99. I'd already seen warnings about this exact scam last summer but today on Instagram was the first time I've seen it in the flesh and at first glance it looks like a genuine post from PMT, so I thought I'd spread the warning here on BC, just in case. Why social media companies are still allowing a known scam ad format to run on their platform is another matter...

Gibson went through a period of innovation fairly recently that included the infamous robo tuners and the Firebird X 'smart guitar'. It wasn't exactly a roaring success for them. I suspect it will be a long time before they stray from the tried and tested path again.

Total unfounded speculation but without the big volume wheel the Go looks less like the Fender Mustang headphone amp. I wonder if there was a 'cease and desist' involved in the sudden halting of the original run? Great to see it back anyway, mine is still my go to practice set up.

Give it 40 years and people will be talking about early Indonesian Fenders the same way they talk about Japanese Squiers.....

From reading your other posts about the band it sounds like there was a fair bit of travel involved? Maybe if you found somwthing a bit more local it might bring some of the fun back? Anyway, all the best for the future and whatever you do it'll be good to see you hanging around on BC.

I can't understand why anyone would want to go an event like that and watch it from a private box. Being part of the crowd is a key part of the gig experience for me.

The £455 seems to be for one of the hospitality packages, which, as far as I can tell are the only prices to be officially released. https://www.avfc.co.uk/concerts/back-to-the-beginning/ Having said that I wouldn't be at all suprised if general sale prices are approaching £200 which would put them in line with recent Oasis and Talyor Swift stadium shows.

I was wondering if it might be similar to the Freddie Mercury tribute at Wembley. Several shortish sets from various bands during the day followed by a 'Sabbath & friends' set in the evening featuring multiple special guests from the other bands. It would make sense in terms of giving Ozzy a bit of extra support Time will tell.

I don't think anyone going to the gig is going to be under any illusions over Ozzy's physical health. It's a celebration, a chance to say goodbye, both for him and the fans.

It's a hell of a line up. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c805m3l02v5o Despite being a huge metal fan as a teenager I haven't really listened to heavy music for 25 years but I'm very tempted to try and grab some tickets.

I stopped reading at 'bubblethumpwhip'.

I honestly think Trump would just cancel the debt. His whole international position seems to be "we're the biggest kid in the playground, we'll take what we want and there's nothing you can do about it" And it applies equally to both long term allies and enemies. How realistic that position is and whether the US really is still the biggest and baddest, I guess we're all going to find out over the next few years

International supply chains being wht they are these days I suspect that a lot of US manufacturing, including guitars, involves some Chinese components or raw materials meaning that there could be a double hit for US companies once on the cost of the components they need and again on exporting the finished product to any country with retaliatory tariffs. So even if the UK manages to stay out of the trade war it's likely that we'll stil see an increase in the price of US guitars.

Kings of Leon are heavily influenced by the Stones. Sex on Fire is the obvious one but this was probably their biggest hit prior to that.

I got one of the FSR purple ones from Andertons a couple of years ago, absolutely delighted with it. I noticed the other day that Squier are doing a Tahitan Coral one for 2025 Although personally I think I'd go for either the Olive Green or Silver Sparkle if I was to get another one now.