KingBollock

I used to love doner kebabs. It’s surprising the variety you get from each kebab shop. There was always a kebab I would have a fancy for, from one shop or another. The nicest kebab I have ever had was from a place in Rugby. It was so greasy and delicious! I once had two of them for Sunday dinner (I was living with a biker gang at the time, and they were all having a roast chicken dinner. I don’t like chicken.), much to everyone’s amusement. I tried going vegetarian once, for health reasons. I don’t normally over eat, but I eat crap. For instance, I don’t like meat if it tastes like meat, but I can eat beef and onion pies (I don’t like onion, either), pork sausages, turkey burgers and such, the crap stuff. The only thing that kept tempting me was doner kebabs. The fact that, because of my restrictive diet (I just don’t like many foods), I only had potatoes, bread and cheese left to me, didn’t help. I kept it up for the year that I told myself I would do, but caved to a kebab in the end. And then I went right off them, I can’t stand them now. Although, after my brain op, I completely lost my sense of taste for three months, and I ate a lot of kebabs in those three months. Mainly because of the really hot chilli sauce that the local kebab shop used. All I had to me was heat (spicy heat) and texture. It is a most disconcerting feeling.

Now that I would win! I must sit on the damned things at least twice a day! And when my sciatica is playing up and they’re already sore… it brings tears to the eyes…

WoW wouldn’t let me have KingBollock. So my main is called Slugsalter. But I do have several alts with names like Bollok, Bolloq and Bolloque. Which I didn’t think of until much later. I ain’t paying for a name change! There’s another gaming chap online that has tried to usurp the KingBollock name. He goes by that name on YouTube, but I have the KingBollock channel. He did get the name on Steam, however, so I went with KingBollockTheOriginal. Wish I’d just gone with KingBollockOG… I once asked him about it in the comments on one of his YouTube videos, and he told me that it was a nickname given to him by his mates… Yeah, right. Not that I’m bitter at all… After years of going by KingBollock on Epic Games, a couple of weeks ago they decided that I could no longer use the name. I changed it to KingBolloq. Not happy!

Once, in about 2000, I organised a forum meet-up in Stratford-upon-Avon. We arranged to meet at the train station. We were in our old, red, L300, so stood out. As we were driving around the car park, we suddenly hear, as loud as you like “The Royal Bollocks, I presume?!” echoing right across the whole car park! And how’s this for a claim to fame (it’s not, that’s how it is…)… The bloke that shouted that, was a fairly high ranking copper, who later got in the news after he mentioned, online somewhere, weeing on Margret Thatcher’s grave, just after she had died. He was promptly sacked.

In 1997 I used to spend a lot of time on a chat program called Palace, where you had an avatar and could move around in a room, talking with other people using speech bubbles. One day I changed my avatar to a picture of a prawn, in a welly, lying in a little bed, and changed my name (which you could do at any time) to KingPrawn. Then I changed my avatar again and changed my name to what it is now. I figured it would suit me, me being big, round and hairy… I once did a vanity search and found a site that had collected names from various places around the internet and ranked them, and I came third! Though, first and second place went to the people that made the list… I even once got a mention in PC Gamer magazine for something I had said on their original forum. I am known by this name wherever I am online. I even have friends, that I know in real life (after initially meeting online), that know me as this, though they tend to shorten it to KB. I have had some very interesting reactions from parcel delivery people…

For the last week or so, I have been meaning to look to see if anyone has actually researched what kind of weather ducks actually like.

I think people are too different to be able to pin down specific frequencies to specific effects. I also don’t believe that sounds could have such a large range of effects. If it was true, we’d probably all enjoy the same music. However, I do know that Sharon Den Adel hits a note in The Cross that does funny, very pleasant things to my insides… But then, so does Dani Filth in Courting Baphomet… I’m wondering about certain noises and whether it’s conditioning that gives them their effect, such as sirens. I have also read that one of the most distressing sounds in nature, is the sound of a baby crying (to make you want to help it).

The only Fender instrument I have ever owned is my banjo. I have nothing against them, they just don’t do much that interests me. Though the nicest playing guitar I have ever played was a ‘68 strat. However… In such a situation, I would go for whatever gets me the closest to the old, blue Steve Harris signature bass. Royal blue P bass with chrome pickguard and maple fretboard. Mainly thanks to the Live After Death video. Steve Harris was the main reason (along with Lemmy) that I play bass. He looks happy with it! http://www.ironmaiden666.com.br/2011/06/fender-steve-harris-precision-bass.html

Argh! The Boss PS-3 got me the sack from the best job I ever had… Cool sounds, though!

I am not in the mood for thinking beyond the “ohh, I wonder…” stage, so I thought I’d ask here. I have a pedal that I built, it’s two Big Muffs in one box, a ‘73 Ram’s Head and a Musket. I have made several modifications to it and plan on making more (I am even considering installing it into a rack unit, to give me more space. And I love the look of a busy rack). One thing I added was an order switcher, which decides which effect goes first. What I am wondering is if it’d be possible to make that switch (not the same switch, obviously, but a single switch) change the series order or make them parallel (A / A+B / B), and how I’d go about it. I don’t even know how useful such an option would be… I have several more different clipping options I want to add to it, as well as a boost to one side. The boost would even up the amount of transistors (the ‘73 has 4, whereas the Musket has 5). I have also added a wet/dry blend, but am now wondering, if I can run them in parallel, would I be able to have a blend that works between the two effects? All this for a pair of Muffs! I do love a pointless tinker.

This information is probably useless, but it might be interesting… A long time ago, when I actually weighed more than I do now (I would have been 26 stone), and suffered with a bad back. I went out to a quarry to collect rocks (for terrarium displays), and ended up with around 90lbs of them in a sack on my back. The weight countered the weight of my gut and, for the first time in ages, I felt comfortable (other than the straps digging into my shoulders). I had very strong legs at the time, so walking around with that weight on my back was easy. It wouldn’t work for me now, because it’s downward pressure that kills me. Just sitting up for too long (3 or 4 hours) is enough to mess me up. I do wonder, though, if counter-balancing the weight of a bass, front to back, would be helpful to someone? I would imagine it’d be a lot easier to find 9lbs the carry than the 90lbs I was carrying. I don’t know how you’d go about carrying it, however (perhaps get a strap made from a hunter’s cartridge belt, and fill the pockets with lead sea fishing weights? I don’t bloomin’ know!).

I was a bit later discovering the bass. 1986 was when it started developing my own musical identity, moving away from the music I listened to with my mum (She was the only other musical person in my family. I still listen to the music we shared even now). When I discovered heavy metal (Dio and Motörhead to start with) and played a song to my mum, she said that it was what she called “messy music”. I didn’t know she knew this stuff existed, I felt utterly betrayed! 1987, my dad decided his next get rich quick scheme was to manage a band made up of my brothers and me. He decided that I was to be the drummer (I wanted a radio controlled monster truck… I was 12. I was in my 40s by the time I actually got that monster truck!), but I didn’t want him to have it all his way and, being an Iron Maiden and Motörhead fan, I chose bass instead. He hadn’t even considered the bass and he agreed. The one positive thing he ever really did for me.

That might risk them looking like beach balls or pumpkins. I think I’d go for some sort of text around their equator. Perhaps something in Elvish or other mythical language with a fancy looking font.

I get that, too. But that is because my room is quite unique.

I adore my Warlock. It plays and sounds ace. I had wanted one since the 80s but didn’t get mine until around 2012/3. And to this day my heart skips a beat when I look at it. I have an Aria Pro II Magna Series 5 string. I absolutely hate the look of the thing, it’s hideous! But it actually sounds great and plays well, too. I don’t know how to feel about it…

I have never actually played a gig where I used pedals (or effects at all). But currently, my cab sits on a home-made riser that’s on casters. The riser is hollow and has a drop down front that acts as a support for the pedal board that slides out onto it. Because all connections (psu, amp switches and cables (though obviously not from bass to front)) run through the back, there’re no exposed cables to worry about, and I can keep them nice and short.

Westone Raider I in silver/grey. It was my first bass. I was forced to sell it and I have regretted it ever since. I even miss the smell of the case. Not actually mine. The only photo I have of mine was taken while I was playing it naked… No one wants to see that! There were photos of my 18th birthday cake, which was made to look like my bass, but my ex kept them.

Unfortunately I am not currently in a band, though there is a possible project coming up. The chap behind it wants to basically be a Motley Crüe tribute band… He wants to call it Mütley Crüe… Oddly, as bad as that name is, there is already a Crüe tribute band with that name… I am hoping that we can cover more Hair Metal bands, but haven’t got a name for it yet. The best band I was ever in, the most talented and absolutely lovely people, had the most boring band name ever… John Doe. I think that it was the singer’s idea. He wasn’t so talented, unfortunately. He fronted a band I had been in previously, which he named 66Crush… Mind you, he once wrote a song, that he was incredibly proud of, that started off with him and a woman crawling into the back of his three wheeled van…

I recently came into possession of a top hat, but it isn’t nearly as impressive as that one. And it doesn’t fit me.

I play with a strap while sitting down, allowing the bass to hang between my legs, with the neck in a classical position. It keeps that position when I stand (except that my prodigious gut tends to push the top of the bass body away from me…).

I had a Vox 2x18 cab when I was a kid. I think it may have been a Foundation, possibly. It had large wheels and a rack thing on top that worked as handles and and an attachment for the amp (which I didn’t have). I got it for £20 because someone had nicked it from an illegal rave while it was being raided. I remember it coming with a 60m long cable, too! I managed to blow one of the speakers and sold what was left for £50.

I can’t remember what my first amp was called. It was a Star something, I think. Just a little 15w combo. Laney Klipp Carlsboro Stingray 100 Peavey T-Max 500 Behringer V-Amp Pro H|H Bass Baby (combo) Hartke HD15 (combo) Marshall 1960B 4x12 Vox 2x18 Peavey 410TX And a couple of no name 15”s I don’t own the Laney (boohoo!) or the Carlsboro (yay!) anymore. I basically let the magic blue smoke escape from the Laney because no one told 13 year old me even the basics of looking after a tube amp. And I swapped the Marshall 4x12 for a crappy 1x15 because 14 year old me couldn’t carry it. It was fine while I was rehearsing in the youth club 100 yards up the road. I had nicked a low trolley from the warehouse section of the local Co Op and only had to lift the cab six inches onto it (I managed to sneak it out under their security gate one night). The damned trolley would squeal every inch of the way there and back. It’s a shame. That Klipp and the Marshall was a cracking rig together.

Short list for me, too. In order: Westone Satellite Westfield Aria Pro II Cort BC Rich Epiphone I got the Satellite P Bass while I still had the Westone, but I was given it for free by my boss’s son. Even though I liked the Satellite, I didn’t keep it for long because I didn’t see the point in owning more than one bass. I honestly believe that if I hadn’t been forced to sell the Westone, I would still own just one bass. The Westone and Satellite are the only ones I don’t currently own.

I always wanted one of the Korg DTRs but they were always a bit too pricey for me, even used. Then the Korg PB05 came out, and it only cost me £55 brand new. It looks incredibly cool! It’s not so good at picking up an open low B string, but I tend to use the 12th fret harmonics anyway, I just find it more accurate, on everything, that way. Unfortunately, they’re discontinued now and go for a lot more than I paid for mine. There’s a used one on EBay at the moment, asking for nearly £200! And then they want £23 postage, which is ridiculous because, while it is 19” long, the other dimensions are tiny, and it weighs practically nothing. Around 1989/1990 I worked in a guitar shop. Rack gear was all the rage. It took me a long time to actually get my own, but I do think a big ol’ rack, full of different coloured gear and lots of knobs and glowing LEDs, is a wonderful sight to behold. I currently have an 8 unit rack, with both my bass and guitar gear in it. But there are a few other bits I want to add, so I am going to build (from scratch) myself a floor standing, studio rack.