Dankology

I think I ignored the Basschat results, assuming it'd just be discussion 😃

I've had an unlined acoustic for a couple of years - really wanted a lined electric but the price on this one was too good to let go.

Where does one get one of those from - Google doesn't appear to be my friend on this one...

I'd been holding out for a fretless Jazz of some variety but with studio time booked I couldn't resist a £110 Revelation RPJ-77 on Ebay last night: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Revelation-4-String-Fretless-Bass-RPJ-77-Sunburst/264877128842 There's an odd comment about a phase issue with the pickups but I'm presuming that will be a straightforward fix. I know a couple of people here have owned the same model so please tell me what a smart buy I've made and what cool mods I might consider...

I thought I was the only person who remembered that... one of my all time favourites too, despite having otherwise little interest in either artist.

I've just had to double check London Calling's tracklisting. The Clampdown, Rudie Can't Fail, The Card Cheat, Guns of Brixton, I'm Not Down, Train in Vain, London Calling itself... I can see why it blindsided some punks and it certainly waxes and wanes over its full length but the Clash would go on to much, much worse than this. On topic though, I reckon the White Album, Tusk, Physical Graffiti and Trout Mask really work. But it's a bit hard to call nowadays as someone said earlier: almost every album that has come out since the early 90s would have been a double vinyl record back in the day. I especially like Wreckless Eric's Big Smash LP - but that's a bit of a cheat as he interleved a new album and a singles collection across the four sides.

Having worked on far too many live recordings for my own good (all very low level stuff btw) I've long reconciled myself to things like vocals and mic'd instruments being overdubbed after the fact. But what narks me is additional fake audience noise, especially when they get it wrong. The original pressing of Dylan Unplugged had a terribly obvious loop of audience whooping running incessantly through one song... I think there is a long history of dropping audience noise from one recording into another: the famous Oasis live cover of I am the Walrus I think has crowd noise from a Faces bootleg; Lou Reed Live has a John Denver audience - although I'm not sure the cry of "Lou Reed sucks" comes from the JD gig. The Woodstock live LPs have several tracks recorded elsewhere sneakily dropped in - always been particularly annoyed by this one. And speaking of Woodstock, the more recent Hendrix releases ov his set have everyone other than the basic trio essentially mixed out... Was a bit gutted when I heard the raw version of the Doors doing Gloria having spent years marvelling at what a tight "live" performance it was on Alive She Cried. I recently mixed a live recording for a reasonably well known US band where there was no chance of overdubbing anything. Cheats I used included: -muting a lot of bvs -putting the main vocal through a valvey distortion effect to thicken it up -re-amping the rhythm guitar throughout -copying a couple of passages from one part of a song to another to cover flubs -a few instances of stretching bass notes to hide chokes -loads of automated eq to kill feedback So nothing controversial or too devious but a massive amount of work to make it sound halfway decent. I can definitely understand even the most well intentioned verite project fast descending into studio trickery.

Once the machine is actually playing tapes why not play them into your Zoom 4 track rather than buying a new audio interface?

I think this is aimed more at people who have being streaming other people's material eg DJ sets or playlists. The press release/announcement that had been most widely shared does not make this clear but there is further detail out there that would suggest that this is not as draconian and nonsensical as it first seems.

Over lockdown I've been involved with a weekly series of compilations to raise funds for independent Manchester venues. Vol 15 came out today - we've so far compiled 150 tracks by 148 artists, a mixture of old, new, local and famous - all the tracks can be sampled as streams without having to pay. While not all of it is entirely to my tastes, I'd feel very sorry for the person unable to find something new, good or both in here: https://lockdownlive.bandcamp.com/

Do not do this.

I'd hope they were filled with lovely clear fluid rather than pus.

Weirdly, something similar happened to me this week - I assumed mine were caused by using a non-bass guitar for the first time in a while. As a doctor I would say leave them be and let them mend themselves. As a bassist I'd be rather more cavalier if they were getting in my way...

Thanks for the advice. Nearly fell into regretable payday temptation there... Apologies if I missed the previous discussion.

I've been looking for one for a while and these two are around the right price... I quite like the black hardware added to the Mexican one but I really like my Japanese Aerodyne so the other one really appeals too - but I don't know enough to know if this is a wrong un or not. Neither are near enough to have a look at in person - anyone care to offer some thoughts? Currently my brain is saying that the Mex is one of the earlier ones that people say sometimes have QC issues, the Jap may be a cobbled togeher bitsa and maybe I'd be better off overall with a Sire... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fender-Fretless-Jazz-Bass-Sunburst-2001-with-Upgrades-UK-Buyers-only/164351349318 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fender-Fretless-Jazz-Bass-sunburst-good-condition/184374194763

What a great story - and fabulous photo to top it 😀

I know this is 4 years old but this is a band I filmed who I thought played great straightforward rock. They died a bit of death despite a good local following... If you look, there's good stuff out there 🐵

I honestly think that we're in a potentially golden age for music now... When I look back to my really quite recent youth (I'm 41 now), it was *really* hard to hear new "good" music. On the radio you had Peel (but often spent a good deal of each show completely befuddled), the Evening Session (and put up with Jo Wiley's unbearable presenting persona plus some really pedestrian music) and Marc & Lard - where in truth I inherited much of my tastes. Later on Iearned that there were good new music shows on local radio but I had no way of knowing about them at the time. In terms of TV there was TOTP where you'd occasionally someone new and good but I do remember Channel 4's White Room as something of an epiphany - although almost every act on there was already relatively well-established. The Word was good for new bands if you could put up with the gross-out nature of much of the rest of the show . Jools's Later started duing this time and I remember seeing some fantastic new-to-me stuff: Mazzy Star, Leonard Cohen, Scott Walker as well as a load f stuff that bored me to tears. And that was it. I checked out books from the library and read the Melody Maker & NME religously but most of the time hearing new music involved risking meagre pocket money on something unfamiliar. But now... endless digital and internet stations, a dedicated national "alternative" music station, Soundcloud, Spotify playlists, even Youtube. Glossy magazines frequently have a covermounted CD of brand new tracks and then there are all the specialist blogs... I was flicking through Amazon Prime's "included" music films the other day and saw documentaries on the Dead Boys, Johnny Thunders, Nick Drake and Capt Beefheart amongst many others: the remnants of my inner 15 year old was agog. The problem now is surely one of being spoilt for choice - I'm willing to bet that whatever subgenre of music you are into, there's likely someone, somewhere, right now doing it really really well - and you can likely listen to them for free. Granted, the best stuff is not being curated and delivered through a very small number of radio stations etc but the extra effort of sifting through the chaff will pay off. And it cuts both ways: a conversation that often comes up in my band concerns just how many people we need to reach in order to be financially self-sustaining - and the answer is "not many". And if there are only 2000 people in the entire world who might be into our stuff, nowdays we potentially have the means to reach (and sell to!) every single one with no distribution, management or other overheads. All that said, I do understand that someone might feel quite differently if they had been, say, a teenager in 1966 and experienced the newly-minted cornerstones of rock music beamed into their home every time they tuned into national radio.

I'm always slightly amazed by the "who??" type comments in threads like this. This, I believe, is a musicians' forum. I can't imagine another line of work where affecting never to have heard of someone with an international reputation would be seen as a boast. That said, I do think Phoebe Bridgers is an objectionable gobsh!te albeit spot on regarding EC in this instance.

I'm not sure what point you think you're making here. The actual point is to prevent unnecessary spread in order to protect people for whom contracting the virus could be catastrophic. Not to prevent anyone at all from contracting it. That being the case your "man up" comments are at best a reflection of your ignorance or, at worst, a demonstration of your disregard for others' welfare. But you might regard that sort of thing as being a bit too PC for someone such as yourself. Or was that all "just banter"? I really can't tell - and I'm not sure that you've decided yet either.

"Live in fear"...🤪 Same attitude to seat belts, hygiene measures in restaurants etc etc? I thought not.

What an idiotic thing to say. Perhaps you should be the one weighing up the rewards and risks. The statistics and science speak for themselves. And one thing you might also want to be mindful of is that the ongoing impact of this virus on people's health is very uncertain: there seems to be an increased clotting risk associated with it and I'm not sure yet how relevant this is to the increased number of sudden cardiac (and otherwise unexplained) deaths that I've been aware of. But why not disregard all that, formulate your own risk assessment and tell anyone who disagrees to "man up"? I despair, I honestly do.