Doctor J

Same band as above but this took place a few months before that story. We had a decent support slot on a Saturday night with a quite popular local band at the time. When we went into the dressing before soundcheck, there was a guy in there who we didn't know but was quite chatty and seemed sound. He was damp, though. Damp, as in wet, from head to toe. He claimed he had been "in the Liffey" earlier. As I said, though, he seemed sound, so, no harm done and assumed he was meant to be there. At some point, our singer and the main band's roadie got chatting and, eventually, shared a spliff - something our singer had never tried up to that point. I went about my business for a while and returned to find the lads a bit stressed out. They had been getting along with the damp guy, who turned out to be a harmonica player, so he and our singer had a harmonica jam, which I'm glad I missed. The damp guy then said "Anybody messes with me and they get this!", took an iron bar out of his jacket and started whacking the dressing room wall. The lads had to get security and this guy was removed. This had spooked our singer immensely, which would have repercussions later on. We were stinking out the place, really going down badly with the biggest crowd we had played to up to that point. The singer from the main band used to dress up as a Vegas-esque character, which our singer was not aware of. The main band guy came on stage to try to get the crowd on our side a little. Our singer, quite stoned, seeing another weird looking character coming towards him, reaching for the mic, rammed his elbow into yer man's throat, screaming "You're mad!" and an onstage scuffle ensued. Security swiftly entered the scene and we wisely left the stage.

Ah I have so many of these, mostly with one band. Back in the 90's my band were doing our first headline show and, foolishly, the guitarist and I consumed a quantity of... let's say... stuff before doors opened. As we were getting ready to play our set, the guitarist came over to me, looking quite pale, and said "I can't feel my hands." He couldn't really feel his feet either, as it turned out, so had to do the gig helplessly wobbling atop a small bar stool, his hands fumbling for notes in the fog. Not a great look for a rock band, it must be said. I was physically fine but, instead, was experiencing intense paranoia and every gap between songs seemed to take an excruciatingly long time. As a result, I was giving the singer a hard time between songs, pleading with him to hurry up introducing the next song so we could finish and I could hide somewhere. Unknown to me, what had started as banter between him and some mates in the crowd, had turned nasty as the set progressed and there was huge tension between him and a lot of the audience. During one of the following songs, our singer simply walked off stage, went straight through the crowd, out the door and did not come back. When you've tried to figure out how to do the second half of your set without your singer while a rather hostile audience looks on, in the midst of a paranoid meltdown, it changes your perspective of what 'train wreck' really means 🙂

If those legs get tired, rub in some dancing cream, make them feel much better.

For some reason I had tonight in my head as the deadline for this and only started it yesterday so it's rough as foook. I wanted to do some jingle-jangling with the 12 string I picked up last year so this is chord based in a way I don't usually do stuff. I still wanted to have a little space freak-out in there somewhere, though. The technical stuff : Drums are Yamaha kit into Behringer pres. Bass is a PRS EB4, guitars ares are a Gretsch 12 string and a Bacchus strat, all into an Avid Eleven. Poorly screeched vocals into an SE mic. Noises are courtesy of Reason, space voice from Talk Any and all mixed in Protools. About the song: We've never been able to see further away but, these days, rarely gaze past our hand

50/50. I had a 4003 and went between both, depending on what I was trying to achieve at the time. However, much as I loved the sound, I was unable to ever find a way to play it which could reasonably be called comfortable, so I ended up selling it and bought something with a forearm contour and which didn't have that poxy metal bracket.

I managed to put off even starting mine until this morning so will have to do a sneakeroo submission before Lurks gets home from work tomorrow.

More of an assembly job than a build, but anyway... I have an old ESP 51-style Precision, single coil pickup with a slab top. I love the fat, farty sound out of it, but I need a forearm contour and I'm much happier with a J-sized neck. Last year, I ordered a 54-style ash body in trans-white (the Mary Kaye finish) from Warmoth which has been waiting for an accomplice. Today, the postie delivered the neck, ordered from Warmoth late last year - roasted maple, Jazz nut width, tele headstock, side-dots only with banjo frets. The smell of the roasted neck is utterly delicious 😂 Anyway, I'm thinking a humbucking old-style P pickup is the way forward, rather than a proper single-coil and, perhaps, a serial/parallel option via a push/pull volume knob could be very interesting. A Cabronita style scratchplate in mint could be very tasty, too. I'll go with something a little sturdier than the original early-50's style bridge and, of course, it won't be strung through the body anyway. I'm undecided whether to add a bridge cover or not. I think a pickup cover would just get in the way. I have some parts but need to get more before I can really start putting it all together, but this is the starting point.

Hey, guess what... https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/nevermind-baby-is-still-suing-nirvana-1284031/

It's all about perspective isn't it? Chris Square is a legend if you look at bass from the right angle.

First thing which came to mind was the Washburn and Rudy Sarzo gurning with one. Then I saw Steve's post and it's bang on. What is the thinking behind the string guide on the G string, is that extra bind point really necessary?

Elixir stainless steel 45-105

That white ESP Phoenix in the FS section. I have no need for it and it's absolutely ergonomically catastrophic for how I play a bass. Still, would you just look at it 😍

Apparently? To reference something you posted earlier in this thread - "if the same thing had been said about, say, West Indians all hell would break loose" Do you think a negative generalisation is ok to say when you're not saying it about black people?

There was someone on the forum here who posted a pic of their Ibanez many years ago. It had really old Elixir strings on it and the coating had degraded to such an extent that it looked like they were coated in white fur and were ready to go and live in the forest 😂

It's worn Elixir nanoweb coating, no?

I have, more than once, then my tastes and requirements have changed and I'm on the hunt again. Those moments of contentedness are quite delicious, however.

He used a Steinberger XM2 and GK head to record AJFA.

His drumming isn't poor, it's genuinely terrible. He was decent, back in the day. Definitely. After the black album, he stopped practising and he's really, really bad. Once Metallica became 'tallica, that's where it turned to sheeeeite. Listen to any of the live stuff from the last 25 years in where he chucks in one bass drum strike per verse on the fast stuff. Nah, I don't actively dislike the guy - he's the only one who cones out of SKOM with any credit at all - and he does come across as immensely dislikable quite frequently, but I will not stand idly by and watch people defend his drumming. No. I'm not having that. On a related tangent, Mustaine has claimed that Metaliica had Dave Lombardo lined up to replace Lars at the end of the Puppets touring. Cliff's death stopped that from happening, of course. Lombardo was out of Slayer at the time so there a whiff of plausibility to it. When Lombardo played Battery in 2006 with them (I think) we caught a glimpse of what might have been.

Just because one is dim doesn't mean one can't be nice.

I saw Gorerotted many years ago, supporting Cryptopsy. They had a song called "Masticated by the Spasticated", which made me chuckle. I give it to them, that is a truly spectacular song title. I was more offended by their music, really, really not to my taste. I've played on bills with plenty of Grind and, even better, Goregrind bands. A lot of those lads spend more time coming up with manky titles than writing riffs. Very few of them lived out their lyrics, I'm quite sure. Getting offended over musical fantasy is like getting offended by horror or gore movies and books. Intent is everything. Art does not mean the artist lives it out in the real world, or wants to live it out in the real world. There are, of course, plenty of bands using music as a means to push a shitty political agenda which they genuinely believe in. Get offended at that.

So yeah then, considering they never played The Frayed Ends of Sanity, Dyer's Eve or To Live is to Die when Newsted was in the band so there were no live performances to watch or listen to 😉 It's a fine effort, a really fine effort, but the three or four solo tracks of Newsted's original playing are absolutely ferocious and you can't replicate that without using a plec - and I say this as someone who plays with fingers 99% of time.

Here's the other side of that story "We had to get the drum sound up the way he had it. I wasn't a fan of it. So now he goes, "See the bass guitar?" and I said, "Yeah, great part, man. He killed it." He said, "I want you to bring down the bass where you can barely, audibly hear it in the mix." I said, "You're kidding. Right?" He said, "No. Bring it down." I bring it down to that level and he says, "Now drop it down another 5 db." I turned around and looked at Hetfield and said, "He's serious?" It just blew me away. https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/interviews/steve_thompson_when_lars_asked_me_what_happened_to_the_bass_in__justice_i_wanted_to_cold_cock_him.html

The real crime was not getting it mixed properly, at last, for the 30th anniversary edition. They could have had a remastered disk with the original mix and a second disk with whoever giving it a decent mix. They could have righted a very big wrong but, rather spitefully, stick to their guns. They were wrong, they know it, and still refuse to acknowledge it. Those "with bass" albums, as far as I'm aware the only Newsted studio tracks which ever came out were the 4 or 5 on Guitar Hero, so there is no full album with Newsted on every track. Everything else is some dudes playing what they think the basslines are. The irony of "...and Justice For Jason" was that Newsted still couldn't be heard on it.

Some of the roadworn models sported it too, quite bizarrely. When the guitar solo goes on so long you can't even get back to your smoke, oh the humanity!