Jackroadkill

Excellent - the scene of 1996's Mafia riot!

I wish there was more Goth over this way. We're right out in the sticks and the best way to get gigs is to play at Young Farmers Club dances, where they will riot if you don't play Hi Ho Silver Lining, Summer of '69 and Don't Look Back In Anger.

I saw this offer too, and I really want one.... We're a bit thin, wallet-wise, in our house at the moment, so I suspect I'll miss out on the deal. Glad that they're a good bass, though - they look superb from my laptop.

A man after my own heart, sir.

This stuff, categorically!

Did you used to play the White Horse in High Wycombe in about 1998?

Can someone make a device the stop the other guys in the band from widdling/blast-beating/talking/meditating etc between songs at rehearsal, please?

When I had my first taste of what happens to a band when there's sniff of label interest things went sour. I'd formed a band in the early '00s with (someone who I thought was) a friend and we'd done local gigs etc. He was an inveterate networker / social climber, and we had a rock/metal show on our local radio station, which he used as a vehicle to get to know people at record companies. The band wasn't bad, but in retrospect it wasn't anything that special either and would have needed a lot of work to come up to the standard we already thought it was at. My "friend" sent copies of our demo (remember that?!) to dozens of record companies and one of them showed some interest. Not in a "sign here, boys, and we'll make you rock stars" way, more of a "let's see if we can pan any flakes of gold out of this crap" kind of way, and at that moment things went berserk inside the band. My friend and the singer/bass player (I was foolishly on guitar at that point) decided that rather than continue to learn our craft and write songs that sounded like us, they'd rather churn out awful nu-metal lite dross that aped what was selling well at that time. There was talk of things like "albums containing 14 potential singles" and other hideous cringe-worthy nonsense. The punk in me snapped at that point and I left by escaping out of the toilet window at rehearsal. The band continued in various iterations and I watched them become more desperate as time went on until the "friend" made one too many feck-ups and had to run back to Canada with his tail between his legs. At that point I was heartily sick of the whole idea of "making it" and didn't play again for two years. I've never been interested in being a professional musician ever since, which is lucky, because I don't have the drive or the talent.

Aye, they're like an airborne buzzsaw, aren't they?!

Agreed; superb cover.

Actually, I'd like someone to market a power supply that works by magic and cuts mains leads out of the equation.

To use the C90 get-out clause - Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on one side and A Night At The Opera on the other.

I’d like a Mustang with a full-fat 864mm scale length.

Thus far I've only bought two sets (one for each bass), both Rotosound RS66LD's at £21.95. I'm tempted to try some flats at some point so that'll mean buying another bass to put them on. That's the right way to do these thing, I assume?

Let me know if you lot ever make it anywhere near this neck of the woods. I'll bring the hairies down out of the woods - I played your track Way Down Below to a few of my pals and they'd be well up for some face-pulling. We don't get out much, but for music like that we'd make an exception!

In the same vein - Alexandra Burke's version of Hallelujah.

I prefer that to Tainted Love, to be honest.

OP, just do your thing; if other people aren't keen, they can do their thing their way.

Marilyn Manson's version of Tainted Love was just an embarrassment. I think that might have been the point that ol' Brian tipped over into being a sad, fat parody of everything he'd set out to destroy.

It's all very well you saying that, but which van is best for metal?

Played our third gig with DJ5 last night. It was a charity gig in a village hall, complete with a "PA" that last saw action when the desk was run by a brontosaurus, but we played pretty decently and went down well with a roomful of punters. The sound was awful, as it tends to be at these things - hollow stage, tiny FOH, poor monitoring etc, and the lighting was four par-cans that were literally in my left ear, but we all had fun and it was great to get out and play again. The band's coming together well now, and we're all finding our roles in it. We debuted three new songs (If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next, Breaking The Law and Kick Out The Jams) as well as playing a one-off of a version of We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, featuring the vocalist's 13 year old girl (my god-daughter) on vocals. Sorry for the crappy picture quality; although many photos were taken, none of them seem to be of any use! After our set we were asked if we wanted to headline two nights at a big biker rally in Cardiff next year, so we must have done a halfway tidy job of things!

I like it as is is; distortion's very easy to over-use on vocals, and what you've got there sounds like plenty to me.

I like to think that was my musical pinnacle. I've not managed to top it yet.

Yeah, in hindsight it was funny, although at the time I felt like I'd been royally had.

We do. Here's the singer wearing a t-shirt with the singer's face on it.