Rich

There speaks a man with no Thunderbird

The Mekon fingers are a clue, aren't they?

The Old Rugged Cross - trad

My ABG is a Tanglewood 'Rosewood Reserve', a really lovely thing of loveliness. I hated the feel of the phos-bronze strings, so just as an experiment I fitted an old set of Elixir nickels from one of my gigging basses. SO much better!

Wooden Tít Be Nice - Beach Boys

Yes, my thoughts entirely. A J/P/Ray along those Tele lines would look amazing I reckon.

pSyChO.

I'm quite taken with some of the examples of 'steampunk' instruments I've seen online. I'm half tempted to have a go at a mild steampunking of a bass, as it would fit quite well with the quasi-Victorian/Edwardian stage image I'm currently putting together for one of my bands. Have any of you lovely people ever done anything in a similar vein? I don't envisage doing anything quite as complex as this Jazz, but I am quite taken with the milder look that's been done to this Tele.

What do you understand the term "luthier" to mean?

Scarlet - Rolling Stones ft. Jimmy Page

Same bass, same cab, I don't drink

Oh I do love a sweeping generalisation.

I was really hoping nobody would ask me that... TBH it was just one of those je ne sais quoi things, an indefinable 'something'. Perhaps it was the EQ centres, I don't know. But even with the EQ flat it just sounded... better. I'm sorry for the vagueness, I wish I could nail it down.

I spent a very pleasant day with @MoJoKe a couple of years or so ago trying out the Marcus heads, and was really impressed. I far preferred them to the 'ordinary' MB amps. I was completely sold, and intended pulling the trigger on a Marcus 800 head until a Shuttle 9.2 came along at a price I couldn't resist.

Not really an issue unless the OP's going to be skiing, which he hasn't mentioned. I know I wouldn't... I like mountaintops, and have never seen the sense in throwing myself off a perfectly good one

Likewise with my Line 6 G55. First thing I did was get one of obbm's excellent braided cables to replace it. FWIW I've had Trantec, Nady, Shure, Ashdown and AKG wireless sets in the past and the G55 is better than all of them. The Ashdown was totally unfit for its purpose, just made a wall of noise with a mangled signal. For rehearsals I've got one of those tiny cheapo Ammoon rechargeable sets** in the gig bag and it does fine for that. If I was buying a new wireless now I'd definitely investigate that Harley Barley one, it'd fit a treat on my wee pedalboard and would free up rack space. ** apparently they do a 5.8GHz one now too. Interesting.

My practice amp is a Behringer BX600 60-watt 1x12 combo. Remarkably heavy, but also remarkably loud for its size -- it's easily loud enough for rehearsals with my horn-sectioned band. I found the sound to be a bit muddy though, so I added a crossover and bullet tweeter and now the tone is really pretty good. Including the mods, it owes me about 40 quid.

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine - Henry Burr and Albert Campbell

And that's before we even touch on the whole art of proper mic technique. Some people are totally clueless there.

...apart from the fact that a properly-played one is a great thing to have.

Weirdo - The Charlatans

Not strictly a covers band. They released a number of albums of original material too. The purely Hendrix and ZZ Top stuff came later.

One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer - Amos Milburn

Glass half empty... it's an unpaid gig. Glass half full... it's a free rehearsal space.