Graham

No, it's now a Smith & Western - an American Cowboy themed chain restaurant The Blue Anchor was there for a long time though, but closed up maybe 20 years ago

I'd assume it's the red Stingray he had, but I don't actually know

@MichaelDean I think my top three post-rock picks would be We Lost The Sea - Challenger This Will Destroy You - A Three Legged Workhorse Mono - Ashes In The Snow

Mathcore The Dillinger Escape Plan - 43% Burnt Botch - Transitions From Persona To Object Converge - Concubine

Auditioning a guitarist for an original death metal band, guy turns up - seems friendly, have decent gear and plenty of confidence. I realise we're about to waste the entire session when his opening gambit is "what tuning do you guys play in?" His face fell, but not as much as his strings, when I said "drop B" and he had to slacken them right off. Not really knowing what to do as the guy had clearly not learned any of these fairly technical songs, we ran through a couple and said join in when you can, so he strummed along with his valve amp on standby........

You're a scholar and a gent, hope you have a great time in the band. Hopefully I'll be able to pop along to the odd local show and say hi 😀

Glad you had a good show, are you taking over full time now?

I've left my band now, been thinking about it for the past year and decided to knock it on the head for now. With three challenging, neurodiverse children, now is not the right time to be in a band and I'm less reliant on the money than I once was. Got one more gig booked to end things properly - a private party at a big house we've played a few times - and then done. Hopefully I'll look at getting back into it in 2026-ish, when the youngest will be 9, but for now it'll be home playing and maybe some composition.

All my cables are Cleartone, been using them for years so this is a shame, but glad the owner is able to retire on his own terms.

The thing about Metallica in the 21st century is that they keep releasing albums that should have been EPs If the last four albums had been cut back to about 20 minutes, they'd have been fantastic. Well, so long as they didn't ruin them when mixing/mastering them

Jeff Caxide (ISIS) Flea Bernie Edwards Caleb Scofield (Cave In/Old Man Gloom/Zozobra) Liam Wilson (The Dillinger Escape Plan/Azusa) Mike Flores (Origin) And these guys, not to knock their bass playing, because it's very good, but I like them more as song writers Shane Embury (Napalm Death) Alex Webster (Cannibal Corpse)

Without seeing the map, I thought it's got to be Finland 😁 The only downside about Finland is that if you find a black metal band from there, it's best to assume they're Nazis first and then be pleasantly surprised, rather than hope for the best and then be inevitably disappointed later.

I would love to hear Opeth songs in the style of ABBA 😁

I've heard nothing but good stuff about Lankum, must check them out