Jonge McLengo

Just learning this one for fun. Colin Moulding wrote a lot of good basslines in XTC, but I think this is one of his best.

An actual Echorec is pretty stiff competition!

Delicious plate of wiring spaghetti

There is definitely some variation in the power supply in the UK; friend of mine lives just down the road from a substation and gear that worked perfectly well and quietly for me was forever buzzing and occasionally going wrong at his. The venue in question was a portakabin-esque place of dubious permanence. There were 3 or 4 bands on the bill, all of whom had their amps going from a single socket and all of whom left them turned on while we soundchecked. The guitar player had similar issues with his amp until we persuaded the other bands to turn their amps off until they got on stage - I believe his amp later had to have some tubes replaced. Mine started fluctuating in volume during that soundcheck and kept doing it from that moment on - that’s why I suspected it was something to do with the power supply.

What was I meant to do, give him a round of applause every time he made a mistake? We all knew he could do the part, we’d heard him do it in practice. It was just a case of red light fever, which happens to everyone and is nothing to do with the rest of the bands attentiveness. Best to let him get on with it without feeling like he’s being scrutinised.

I don’t know, it’s quite nice to have something to do while listening to the guitar player balls up the same overdub in the same place over and over and over…

I had the exact same issue with my LM2 after playing a venue with a dodgy power supply - volume would change randomly without warning. I took it to a tech who replaced some components to do with the power which still didn't fix it. Sorry to be doom and gloom but I just ended up getting rid... would be curious to know if you do figure out the actual solution!

At 13 ish with a couple of high school mates. We were all big Jam and REM fans, and needless to say we were all terrible. Still playing with them now, slightly more in time but no more successful.

The Revolver remix was pretty well done, Tomorrow Never Knows in true stereo is great. I know what you mean regarding wonkiness though. The guitars in She Said She Said miss the mark for me, though it could be a mixing choice - they sound very clean and separated, which takes away some of the impact imo. In general I feel like Giles does a good job; Hard Days Night & You Can’t Do That from Red and Hey Bulldog & Revolution from Blue in particular are really good, which makes his decisions re Walrus especially strange.

For anyone not keeping up with the stream of Beatles stuff that’s been coming recently, new versions of the Red and Blue albums have come out featuring a load of AI-assisted proper stereo remixes of some of the early stuff as well as a few of the later period songs that hadn’t been covered yet, mostly Magical Mystery Tour stuff. I reckon most of the remixes are a revelation, especially of the early stuff - it’s bizarre to hear that music with separation between the instruments, and really exposes how good the drumming is! The remix of I Am the Walrus though… very questionable. It’s like he’s tried to recreate the weird stereo mix and the second half sounds like it’s in a box, and the radio is way too loud. If you’re curious: Red and Blue. Thoughts?

Packed a couple dozen people into the small room above the Packhorse in Leeds for our originals outfit. There was pretty good sound (apparently), ‘thick bass tone’ got a couple of compliments though non-functional fans meant it got very sweaty. Good clean fun.