jacko

eight

My first bass was a homemade fretless gibson Rd lookalike. It's in a bag in my loft. second was a fender prcision / rickenbacker bastard. also in a bag in the loft. (in fact I still have every musical instrument I've ever owned including my primary school descant recorder).

I'll be wandering over to have a look at yours then. 40 quid's a bit steep for my pocket.

Just bought Derek's Sansamp. Perfect transaction.

p.m'd

"Can you turn down a bit" was the usual ridiculous request once my old covers band started doing weddings. With 2 guitarists in the band I thought it pretty unlikely.

I was at the Glasgow show earlier this year and you couldn't have summed it up better unless you'd mentioned how bad sherwood is and how loose and 'mistakey' howes solos have become. Left disappointed having happily followed their shows since around 1974. Almost the happiest I've been was in the mid 80's when YES came back from their Hiatus and I heard 'Our Song' on radio 1. Didn't know it was the B side at the time but it could have been any of the songs on 90125 and I'd have been ecstatic. I know Howe hated Rabin's contribution but when trev left the band he had been in it longer than Steve. I really like both 90125 and Big Generator. Bought the last 2 albums - fly from here and heaven earth for completion but I could only bring myself to listen to them once.

Sons of Apollo last night in Motherwell of all places. Support bands were Meh!. SoA were as excellent as the lineup suggests. Portnoy was a joy to watch as usual. Nice to see a drummer having so much fun especially with his old DT mate derek sherinian. Jeff Scott Soto was in excellent voice and handled the dream theater covers better than James Labrie has in recent years. I'd not heard or seen ron bumblefoot thal play before so it was pretty cool seeing him shredding very accurately on the fretless neck of his doubleneck guitar. As for Billy Sheehan, I felt he was the only minor let-down of the show. As per the last Mr Big tour, his tone was very dull, over compressed and too distorted. Very difficult to pick him out in the band tunes and his solo spot was the usual un-musical hundred mile an hour mush. Still, A great band - I hope they go onto bigger things. Interesting point - my main gigging Alembic weighs just over 11 pounds and I feel like I've had lead weights hanging from my shoulder after a gig. Billy's doubleneck Yamaha weighs in at 20 pounds and he played it the whole night! He must have solid steel shoulders.

Then I'd suggest you broaden your horizons by visiting the Albert Hall on the 8th september. Plenty of St George's cross' with nary a footballer in sight.

No point having kit if you're not going to use it. I take 2 alembics (fretted and fretless)and a full mesa rig (titan, 410, 210) to most gigs. Sometimes have to leave the 210 behind if it's a small venue. I bought the stuff cos I enjoy playing it so I do.

Whatever the number, it'll be one less than the combined population of bassists think they need.

Yours is no disgrace - Yes. Saw them mid 70's and was blown away by squire's overall performance but it was the walking bassline in this that really got me interested in playing bass.

Just been spinning Yes' second offering 'Time and a Word'. Haven't listened to it for 10 or 15 years but it still sounds fresh and most definitely 'Yes' music unlike the last 2 albums which I found truly boring). What is really remarkable is just how inventive Chris Squire was back then - His playing comes across really prominently on the original vinyl (apparently due to the sound guy having the bass turned down in his headphones so he kept turning chris up) so it's really easy to make out every note. Unfortunately Pete Banks guitar takes a bit of a back seat but there's still plenty of wonderful music on there.

surely the simplest thing to do would be to set the levels on all your instruments at soundcheck then touch nothing. Saves a fortune on fancy pedals.