Russ

She was a regular there for quite a while, maybe she still is. I know she used to have a very nice custom Sei.

Maybe they will do some new music. All we know right now is that they're playing some shows next year. Geddy and Alex are both in their 70s now, and, as you have pointed out, have other things going on. I doubt that two septuagenarians would be putting themselves through the rigours of touring again unless it was something they really wanted to do rather than just doing it for the money.

Agreed about The Who. But they did it anyway, and they've still been out there selling out huge venues. Arguably they're in an even worse situation, with only 50% of the band still being alive! As for Zep, I thought the 2007 Celebration Day reunion gig was great - Jason smashed it, and as a two-nights-only thing, it was enough to cement their legacy, plus we got a good 4K Blu-Ray out of it, for all of us who wore out our VHS copies of The Song Remains The Same! You could apply this to any number of other bands with dead/retired members - I hear it a lot about Queen, for instance. I feel the same way about them that I feel about this Rush tour - people want to hear this music, preferably with the involvement of as many of the original musicians as possible. And that's what they get. I have no issue with Bri and Rog getting up there with Adam Lambert and bashing out We Will Rock You, in exactly the same way that I will have no issues with hearing Geddy and Alex doing The Spirit Of Radio with Aneke on drums. The same way that McCartney still gets up there and does Beatles songs at the age of 83. Their legacies are no less secure for them still wanting to go out there and play their songs. For me, I just want them to get the setlist right - the classics, of course, but also make sure their newer stuff is represented too!

If we're still on this side of the pond next summer, we're definitely going. NY is closer, but I'd love to go to the Toronto show and get those hometown vibes. Not seen Rush since Wembley Arena in 1992 and I'd love to see them again. Anika is a monster drummer and will be a great successor for Neil. I'm sure there's people out there who might have preferred to see Danny Carey or Mike Portnoy, but I think she's a great choice. She's got the chops and the groove to do it justice. As for those thinking this is cynical - it's been ten years. It's their band and the fact that they haven't done anything for ten years suggests that they are doing this on their own terms. And it's being done with the full blessing on Neil's family. The Foo Fighters were back out there a few months after Taylor Hawkins passed away and you didn't find too many people saying that about them. The Who had a gig three days after John Entwistle died!

Great instuments, but very different to a Rob Allen. They're full scale and have a more conventionally electric tone. Get one if you can though, Status are still making them as of right now, and apparently actually have a couple of them in stock.

One thing I have noticed about G&L's recent strategy is that they reserved a lot of the really good stuff for one retailer - Sweetwater. There were lots of limited edition Tributes (including some lovely black'n'maple L2000/L2500s with blocks) and various nice custom shop one-offs with lovely finishes and interesting pickup combinations - there's a stunning P/MFD L2000 with a blackburst finish up there right now. By effectively only having one retail outlet for all their good stuff, they were massively shooting themselves in the foot.

There’s still graphite in there, but only in the same way as many other makers now - stiffening rods in the neck. They did this before back in the 90s before going back to the full graphite necks. Apparently the newer Statii with the wood necks are very good and sound very similar to the all-graphite ones (the phenolic fingerboards and Hyperactive pickups are responsible for much of the sound) but Status’ USP was always the graphite neck. Mike Walsh at Zoot was supposed to be tooling up to produce graphite necks - I’m wondering how far he’s got with that. He could be one to watch, since he now makes his own pickups, circuits, etc too. Back on topic, sort of - I played an L2000 with a Status graphite neck back in the mid-2000s. That was a good bass - extremely bright sound, but thick. Total slap machine. If Fender are going to keep the Tribute series going, that’s a good thing. Fender’s factories in the Far East are very good, with great QC. I just hope they don’t just keep them in a holding pattern, with the exact same products, colours, etc. It needs to be differentiated from the BBE era somehow.

I passed up a Wal for £250 in Cash Converters back in the mid-90s. It was a Mk1 with the V-shaped neck carve and it felt horrible in my hands. Would probably be worth a fortune now though. It was pretty much entirely because of Justin Chancellor of Tool that Wal got their second wind. After Aenima came out in 1996, you never saw a cheap Wal again. And now they regularly go for five-figure sums used and have a six-year waiting list if you want a new one.

In terms of custom instruments, that's not usually the case - people like to pick their own choice of woods, hardware, pickups, neck dimensions, number of strings, fretted/fretless, etc and the chances of selling it on the used market mostly rely on someone else who's in the market for that sort of instrument having the same taste as you, and not wanting to deal with the lead time or additional expense of ordering their own. Almost all basses, possibly with the exception of Wals and old Fenders, depreciate like used cars. Anyway, you buy a bass to play it, not as an investment. Then again, you're supposed to buy a house to live in it, and I suppose that doesn't stop people looking on them as investments...

I think the difference with the likes of Wal, Status and Jaydee is, as a brand, they're known for a particular sound sound since they make their own pickups, preamps, etc (and hardware, in some cases). Most of the rest of them use commodity pickups, preamps, etc. Nothing wrong with either approach, in my opinion. Out of the "new breed" of builders, I'd say the likes of Alpher and ACG have their own sound, since they make their own electronics, etc. Bernie isn't exactly one of the new breed, but GB would count too, since he uses bespoke pickups and electronics and his basses are known for having a certain sound.

There's probably more custom bass luthiers out there now than there has ever been, but most of them are pretty small scale operations. Yes, the majority of the market is still FSOs, but you're starting to see more interesting instruments working their way into the limelight - the rise of Dingwall has been a big deal in that regard. Ibanez continue to be pretty brave with their designs, considering they're a mass-market manufacturer. You're not seeing so much of the alternative-material instruments, although you've got the likes of Klos picking up the baton dropped by Status when they stopped making aftermarket graphite necks, and it seems there's quite a big market out there for carbon-fibre acoustic guitars from the likes of Enya and Lava. At least, in the UK, we've got the likes of Shuker, Sei, Overwater and GB still making great custom instruments, although it's very sad (but understandable, given Rob's desire to retire) that Status have had to downsize so much.

Technically, Modulus and Status are still around, but obviously not producing at nearly the scale that they once were.

I've gone through a few phases over the years. I used to go for a very mids-heavy sound and quite heavy-handed technique to try and cut through in a band with two guitarists with Dual Rectifiers. It sounded decent, but a bit boxy and it peaked out a lot. Then I decided to go back and re-engineer everything and try and get something closer to the Tony Levin sound, with my own twist. So I started using a moderate amount of compression (I used to avoid it if possible), scooped out everything around 800Hz and started playing with a much lighter touch to "play" the compressor, so the bottom end bloomed out more, but still kept definition in the high mids and treble so the sound cuts through. A bit more mids, and a little wash of DG-style distortion gets added for when the guitarist goes off to solo to fill things out a bit. I'm also not averse to a bit of delay/reverb, and love me a bit of ambient/shimmer reverb. It took a while to get to this point though, lots of experimentation with playing style, basses, effects, gain staging and so on. It's the sort of thing that only really comes with time and lots of listening.

The only "name" players I can think of who played G&Ls are Jerry Cantrell, Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith and Cass from Skunk Anansie. I'm sure there's been plenty of others, but those are the only major ones that come to mind. Cantrell now has something going on with Gibson/Epiphone and they've worked with him on a signature Les Paul and an acoustic, Tom Hamilton plays all sorts of different basses and always has done, and Cass uses Alusonic basses now, so they've all moved on. I also owned a Saab. Still got my eye out for a nice 2012 9-5!

It appears to have longer, somewhat less "lumpy" horns than the regular bolt-on Thumb. Might be the angle though.

They did do a limited edition one a couple of years back that did have the proper Thumb body shape, where the horns were the right length - they should have changed all the bolt-on Thumbs to look like this: My dream Warwick would be a Streamer set up like a Thumb, which they've done. I'd just want a sixer! Sorry for the digression... back to Bongos now.

I've always found the original, through-neck Thumb to be a lovely looking beast and have done since I first saw one back in the early 90s. The bolt-on version, like in this image, is a funny looking thing though. I wonder why they couldn't exactly recreate the body shape in bolt-on form?

Mark G just confirmed on FB that there's going to be a gig bag coming. So that's cool.

The alternative is getting a camera case or an actual rack, which, to me, seems kinda pointless if you’re reducing the bulk by ditching the wooden sleeve! Surprised about the weight - it only has one more metal panel than the normal version (on the top) and that has to weigh less than the sleeve. Has to be a mistake.

I like the look without the case - it's smaller, and probably substantially lighter too. But they should sell it with a gig bag, like they did with the first-gen Rootmasters. Although maybe not with the wool lining!

I'm looking forward to trying them out. I'm just hoping they're not otherwise generic (and not very good) bass amps dressed up with a badge with some historical brand cachet, like Guitar Center did in the US when they brought back the Acoustic brand about 10 years ago.

The current NS Radius range of basses are rather nice - I was surprised. The higher-end ones have a graphite/maple sandwich neck, but even the cheaper wooden-necked WAV models are really nice and apparently super-stable. They're more a spiritual successor to the 1990s XQ series than the good ol' cricket bat though.

Epiphones, despite having lower quality hardware, pickups, electronics, etc, were a lot more consistent than US Gibsons. You got some great Gibsons, but a lot of bad ones. A friend of mine was after a new Les Paul and tried out at least 20 in order to find a good one. Supposedly they've got that under control now though.

Gibson seem to be on a bit of a path to redemption in that department. They're doing well with Mesa/Boogie, they've resurrected Tobias, and, by all accounts, the new instruments are excellent, and they have apparently addressed a lot of their QC issues recently. Having said that, I still can't see it happening.

At one point, I had four. I sold three of them thinking I was wanting to go in a bit of a different direction, but I miss them! Here's three of them. I still have the red 5-string.