Graham

Allfather - more riffs than you can shake a stick at from Kent Really good stuff, was number four of my albums of the year list https://youtu.be/o4R1yXSraIs?si=SWkfg0cM48peuJ7P Edit: am I doing something wrong to imbed the YouTube link?

I really like playing the Mariah Carey, it's a really fun song to play

Next one I have booked is Botch in March, I'm hoping to see Greg Puciato a couple of weeks before too, just need to sort out if I'm going to the London or Brighton date

I record my own listing stats, as I mostly use Bandcamp these days, but:

I was at Damnation Festival in Manchester this weekend, two days of music from various parts of the extreme metal end, so to answer the eternal question of "is this good for metal?" In a slightly tongue in cheek way, I thought I'd catalogue all the basses and amps I saw across the weekend. I was working the festival and saw a couple of pedalboards, so mentioned pre-amps if I saw them; everyone used House Ampeg 8x10 classics except for Bossk and Electric Wizard augmented with a second bass amp Friday The Sun's Journey Through The Night (Black metal) - Fender P/J,(VVT), House SVT 3-Pro Deadguy (hardcore) - Precision, House SVT II-Non Pro Celestial Sanctuary (death metal) - Deluxe Jazz, SVT III-Pro, B7K Ultra, Sansamp Viking Skull (Motorhead like heavy rock/punk)- Jazz, Marshall VBA400 Inhuman Nature (thrash) - Thunderbird, an old Peavey head I think Ninkharsag (black metal)- Warwick Streamer Stage II, Peavey TNT head Bossk (post-metal) - Fender Marcus Miller, Darkglass M900, unknown cab (8x10 with an omega badge) Din Of Celestial Birds (post-rock) - Ibanez EHB1005, House SVT II, Origin Super Vintage, Darkglass Alpha Omega Ultra Heriot (industrial/hardcore/metal) - Jackson(?) RIc like bass, House SVT II Katatonia (doom/prog metal) - Schecter, Kemper (I think) Sat Electric Wizard (doom) - Ric, SVT Classic + Orange head & cab Anaal Nathrakh (black/death/grind) - Dingwall Combustion 3/4, SVT III (house) Coffin Mulch (death metal) - jazz (Geddy Lee?), house SVT III Crepitation (brutal/slam death metal) - Traben 5 string, Darkglass Alpha Omega head Khemmis (doom) - Spector LX(?)4, House SVT Classic High Command (thrash) - Ric, Orange AD200 Unearth (metalcore)- Stingray HH, house SVT Classic, Darkglass B7K Julie Christmas - Precision, Orange OB1 (mic'd cab only, no DI) Undeath (death metal) - Warwick Fortress, house SVT III, Sansamp Rotten Sound (grind) - Jazz, house SVT III For my money, Unearth, Bossk, Julie Christmas and Electric Wizard had the best bass tones and as is par for the course at metal gigs and in big arenas, the bass was often inaudible or at least inarticulate. Also the bands with the best bass sound tended to be the ones where (no surprise) there was sonic room for the bass frequencies, the full on death metal bands were more likely to have rumble, bottom heavy tone

I generally use two, but I have Alex Webster's (Cannibal Corpse) book and I've been working on using three as well. Takes a lot of practice to get it right, even and not mess my head up, but getting there

I'd fancied swapping from a fuzz to more of a distortion for a while and a Rat was quite high up my list of pedals to try. So when I saw a Rat clone for £40 new it seemed to be worth a punt I haven't got the real thing to compare it to, but I'm liking the results. Sadly not got any gigs until December though, so a while before I can try it out in anger.

I've been hearing about one in development called Ampwall, early days yet though

Yesterday the sale to Songtradr was finalised and half the staff at Bandcamp were laid off. I'm now looking at options for downloading and storing my library - American labour laws suck and capitalism ruins everything.

Next one is Damnation Festival in November (Electric Wizard, Anaal Nathrakh, Julie Christmas, Deadguy, Amenra, Unearth, Akercocke, Undeath, Rotten Sound, Nordic Giants, Bossk and others) Then I've got a ticket for Botch in March, cannot wait for that one

Better Lovers in Brighton last night - it's 3/5 of Every Time I Die, with producer Will Putney on guitar and ex-Dillinger Escape Plan singer Greg Puciato on vocals Superb - seriously tight and put on a great show. Wasn't a long set - 35ish minutes as they've only released four songs so far and played those along with three new ones and a cover of Soundgarden's Rusty Cage Really looking forward to the full album and hoping to be back at the same venue in March for Greg's solo tour

I use it as a pay per album streaming service, could download the albums I've bought, but never have. Hopefully this new take-over, after the Epic one won't have any issues but I may need to re-evaluate the not downloading if starts going wrong

Bono's performance isn't great is it? I'd love to see what Tool would do with something on that scale

Been listening to the complete Mutoid Man discography ahead of seeing them tomorrow night https://spotify.link/KdJLwTNd4Cb

Pretty decent, 50th birthday party in a social club, so went exactly as you'd expect it to. Had a slight issue with my slimmed down pedal board, I think a connection came loose at one point so I went silent. No drama, just by-passed the pedal board and went straight into the amp until there was a moment to re-jig. However what it did highlight is what an integral part of my sound the TC Spectracomp is. Without it, the sound was thinner and lacked some umph, turning on my EBS amp's built in compressor was no comparison either. Just set to 12:00 on the default tone-print brought out some very pleasing frequencies and filled out the sound. It's remarkable how good the Spectracomp is, particularly for a one-knob pedal at it's price point

More manufacturers to have a paint shop like G&L - all those finish options, available to order in whichever combination of wood, colour and pickguard you want. Instead of short runs of very limited colours - you can't buy an American Precision in red at the moment, that seems nuts.

Sounds like a great project, I'd be particularly interested to hear the dulcimer like parts

Can't wait for that set

Steve's quite active on social media, you could try contacting him and seeing if he still has a copy of the original review

Anyone going to Damnation Festival this year? Electric Wizard, Katatonia (twice), Amenra, Ahab, Khemmis and Tuskar would probably all appeal to folk in this thread

I'm convinced there's certain guitarists, bassists and drummers who have learned a decent number of Megadeth songs to be ready for when Dave inevitably fires someone else

On The Burning Red, Rob asks you to "watch me fall" definitely nu-metal 😁 And yes, agreed about Supercharger

Machine Head as a rule aren't nu-metal, but The Burning Red absolutely is. I did hear a story that they'd not planned to record the cover, but were jamming it in the studio and Ross Robinson persuaded them to put it on the album