Rayman

Glenn Hughes last night at the Ritz in Manchester. Still absolutely fabulous, I love his pick playing, and his voice…. Absolutely mesmerising, still, at 74yrs old. Amazing performance. Sophie Lloyd supported and came onto join in on Burn. She’s a decent guitarist, although her stuff wasn’t really my bag.

Absolutely my all time favourite player, and he rarely gets any credit….. the bass lines for XTC on Drums and Wires or Black Sea, are absolutely outstanding and completely original. Nobody sounds like that…. go and listen to Roads Girdle The Globe from Drums and Wires, and give your ears a treat.

I do it all for us, but unless there’s a joke to be had, usually at the expense of someone in the audience, I keep it to a minimum. I think it’s important to have a bit of chat between songs… but the big no no as far as I’m concerned, is introducing individual bands members. Literally nobody cares.

Yeah I don’t think I’ve seen a Steinberger in the flesh, it’d be interesting to try one. This Hohner sounded surprisingly big, and much darker than the P bass. It was a nice contrast.

Good one last night. I used the TC rig rather than my usual Ashdown, and it sounded great, lots of clout via the 4x10. The P bass was magnificent as always, but it was a lot of fun using the Hohner B2 for a D tuned number. Cool venue and a very lovely audience.

The Blossoms, Stockport. Great little venue. Leaf is the promoter, not the new name of the band. Our smallest setup due to the size of the place, so just the ABM500 combo, but it sounded pretty good, although I could’ve done with raising it up a bit. The P bass was great, a bit zingy with new strings, but very happy with it. Cool little gig.

Yeah I knew you were a Stranglers fan. I’m really looking forward to recording it on the new record. It should be a great partner to the Thunderbird, which is already sounding ace on the first couple of songs. Also it’s going to be fantastic live.

2004 with the S1 switch…… I’m not entirely sure where that falls in terms of models.

Finally…… I have got my hands on the one. I was 16, when I first got into bass. A mate played me “Live Xcert” by The Stranglers…. and I was hooked. Jean Jaques Burnel playing a black/maple Fender Precision. Yes mate. 44yrs later, and 100’s of basses…. like all the basses, and finally I have the one I should have had in the first place….. I’ve owned most brands except Fodera , but one bass always eluded me, the one that started it, at least in my head. I have no idea why it took so long tbh… Anyway, there you go, better late than never eh?

I don’t know how big the magnet is on the back of a Celestion 12” speaker…. but that’s what I used as a bass rest for about 5 minutes. Then it dawned on me what I’d just done. Schoolboy error.

🙁

Can anyone assist? I have an active bass, that I was doing some work on…. I needed to put it face down on a raised surface, and that raised surface was an upturned speaker, with a giant magnet on the back… so, after resting the bass on the speaker, on its pickups….. 🤦🏻‍♂️, it now doesn’t work. I assume that the magnet has affected the polarity of the magnets in the pickups? Anything I can do to reverse the damage?