casapete

Reminds me of a story from when a good friend ran a music shop. A lady and her teenage son came into the shop and asked about PA amps for his first band. My friend recommended a brand new HH mixer amp, and she asked if they could try it out at a rehearsal with his band. My friend duly obliged, giving them a boxed one from stock and letting them take it for an evening. They both came back next day and said it had been fine and was just what the lad wanted - then said they wanted an unopened one as the amp they had tried out was now technically second hand!

I also remember using a Peavey cab that contained 1x15 BW with 2x8 inch speakers above it. Called Megabox maybe? That worked fine too.

My choice would be the BF Compact. Had mine probably 10 years now, done countless gigs and changed my life by being so easy to move around. Still sounds fine to my ears too. Honourable mention also goes to the Peavey BW. Had a few of these over the years, and always loved them, (along with another underrated Peavey cab the 410TVX). At the time one of the few 4 ohm fifteen inch cabs available, my first one IIRC only had a top mounted badly positioned strap/handle and used to bang my legs constantly when shifting it around. I think the later ones had the side handles but still were an awkward lift, especially given the weight. Ran mine with a Peavey Mk4 210 watt head which was a great pairing, wish I still had it.

Yup, first time I saw Springsteen was a defining moment for me - Newcastle City Hall, May 1981. Played for well over 3 hours including a solo acoustic section. The E Street Band were just phenomenal too, certainly one of the best gigs of my life.

Unearthed my stash of song parts recently when I moved house. They are all the tunes I've played since the late 80's I would imagine, including proper parts and arrangements (anyone here remember Pop Plan stuff?) along with chord parts and the odd lyric sheet. There must be well over a thousand as they take up 3 large plastic tubs with the lids on. I've been thinking about getting rid as they are taking up a fair bit of space, but as soon as I do I'll probably regret it. These days (well until March 2020) I use my ipad most of the time for stuff I don't know, but must admit (as with the books / Kindle debate) there's still something good about having an A4 sized paper copy on a stand nearby when you need it.

Sounds great! Seem to remember reading somewhere that the solid colours on MM stuff often hid their less aesthetic body wood though, as they saved the prettier bits for the natural finishes so good you have an option if this is the case.

We did a gig around 5 or 6 years ago with ‘Mickey Finn’s T- Rex’. Bit of a bizarre name considering Mr.Finn ( once a member of T-Rex with Marc Bolan) had died in 2003.

Really enjoyed hearing this. Wasn’t aware how busy the bassline was either TBH. Great to hear Karen’s voice without all the layered backing vocals which for me made a lot of The Carpenters stuff hard to listen to. Thanks for posting., cheers.

I didn’t know that, cheers.

Agreed, I always believed they had the same parallel wired pickup as the standard Stingray. They were all 2 band eq apart from a few (quite rare now) passive versions. I had a couple of USA Subs and loved them, only reason for selling was I needed something lighter.

Mate of mine has a Tanglewood Crossroads. It’s a no frills basic Martin shape with a funky stained mahogany finish, and plays / sounds great. Amazing value as I believe they start at just under £100 so fit your needs perfectly.

Our two lady cellists often get complemented on their double bass playing! Why they think we’d have me on electric bass too is beyond me, but they probably think I’m on rhythm guitar I suppose. 😆

Also by Emmylou, this gem - beautiful guitar solo from one of the stellar players on this album, (possibly Amos Garrett.)

Hadn't heard this in ages - love the way they swap the melody line around, and the sublime guitar solo as well. Got me thinking of country stuff - this is one of my favourites from Emmylou.

Erm...the CK one did early on in the thread. Having not heard her version before, I’d hate to have to write out a chord chart for that one....🤣

Great version IMO too. Came off the 1981 album ‘Dedication’ produced by Steve Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteen. (OTT backing courtesy of The E Street Band) 😉

This just kills me every time -

Is ash a common wood for necks? Must admit I’ve no recollection of playing a guitar or bass with one, although maybe it’s used on more boutique instruments than I’m used to?!!

Just sold a bass to Tim, and was great from beginning to end. Top feller, a pleasure to deal with and would heartily recommend to anyone. People like him are what makes BC the fab place it is. Cheers.

Me too! With you on the Springsteen album though, wonderful stuff from someone who IMO never releases a duff album. Did you see the Apple documentary on the making of it?

I’ll definitely be watching the Aretha stuff. Worth noting that she was also Whitney’s ‘adopted aunt’ and rated her very highly from an early age.

Whilst I don’t like the overdone vocals of Ms Carey / Dion etc, I think the majority of Whitney’s stuff ( certainly the first couple of albums anyway) didn’t suffer from this malaise. She was definitely in a league of her own and IMHO was one of the great female vocalists, who died way too soon.

We have 43 gigs in for 2021 at the moment, ( and 3 in for 2022!) but as they are due to start in March I have no doubt that a number of them won’t happen. Many are rescheduled from 2020 and have already been moved at least once. I’m currently thinking things starting up again from say June onwards would still be a result, assuming the theatres / venues can last till then of course.

The main thing that would prevent me from returning to vinyl is the cost. With albums anywhere from a shade under £20 each to £30 +, it's enough to make me stick with the CD format for now. As mentioned above, apparently a growing number of people are buying the vinyl issues from bands they like as a sort of collectors item, and probably won't ever be playing them. Must admit that whilst I've always had okay hi-fi set ups, I've never gone down the audiophile route and spent eye watering amounts on gold plated mains leads and speaker cables spun by unicorns etc. For me the music has always been the important bit, and how you get to hear it less so. From my experience in record retail in the 70's, most people who bought expensive Japanese pressings and quadrophonic recordings (remember those?) tended to like music which suited that level of investment in the first place - ambient trippy stuff or the more obscure classical / avant garde material. We dreaded selling to these folk as they invariably came back to query the quality or even recording of their (expensive) purchases. All I needed then (and come to think of it now really..) for playing my music collection is something that sounds good to my ears and will last a long time. I've used NAD stuff for ages now, and only needed two CD players in nearly 30 years so quite happy with it. Also got my NAD3020 amp my dear old Mum bought me in the 80's too, and it still sounds great.

Another nail in that coffin being the disappearance of disc drives on laptops and PC’s too I would imagine. No doubt this would be passed off as a drop in demand for discs generally in computing, but still a handy option to have, in my little world anyway. Our kids ( in their 30’s) now don’t have any hard copies of music in their houses, so I can’t lend them anything or do them a mix of stuff, just send them links to check out on YT / Spotify etc. It’s just a generational thing I guess, with some people liking the ‘retro’ aspect of vinyl to complement this maybe. Could be that it’s more real to them after they’ve got used to listening to stuff via bloody Alexa / Bluetooth / wireless home systems etc? I didn’t take to CD’s very readily, sticking with my vinyl until it was hard to get stuff new anymore. Nowadays I buy a lot of my CDs for next to nothing, usually via Music Magpie on eBay. If I pay more than £2 for one then it had better be good! Can’t see me changing anytime soon either, although I do worry whether affordable CD players will disappear. When I bought my last one, I went to collect it from Curry’s near Leeds ( hate the shop but it was on a great deal so I caved in). They wouldn’t reserve it for me over the phone, so I had to just go and hope it was still there, being the last one they had and on display in the shop. The young lady on the counter asked me to go and get it from the shelf on the shop floor as she didn’t know what a CD player was / looked like! I knew then I was doomed......