Graham

Oh, I quite like the Smooth Criminal cover, partly because it's fun and also because it is very nostalgic for me - I was exactly the right age when it came out

There's a number of nu-metal bands who did some awful, earnest covers Disturbed - The Sound Of Silence Limp Bizkit - Behind Blue Eyes Machine Head - Message In A Bottle

I really like this Capdown live album, it really captures their energy with (or so the liner notes claim) no overdubs https://open.spotify.com/album/6MuvnSI9rxIqUgiLbLw8Ja?si=CKdZOZq1QMqLPN5yV14g7A&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A6MuvnSI9rxIqUgiLbLw8Ja

I've just thought, back when I was in a Melod-death band, the guitarists were in drop B, but I just played in B standard as I'm not a fan of drop tunings. Made for some awkward fingerings (and who hasn't in their youth?) But I preferred that to the intervals shifting and messing with my head

I like Carcass because they tuned to B, so it's easy on a five string But most metal seems to be in C or C# tuning, which is just a pain. Or modern stuff which is super down tuned to low F#/drop E where the bass is almost pointless

So many metal songs I've never learned as I can't be fecked with messing about with tunings, even on a five string

Can you get pantomime gigs in December? A drummer friend made his most regular income for the year in November/December playing pantos

I did see them play Mariner in full in 2016, best gig I've ever seen

I love Mariner so much, quite possibly my favourite album of all time

I started thinking about this after my mother's funeral last year and made a Spotify playlist of the three songs I'd want so my wife could find it easily should it be necessary Arriving: Cave In - Youth Overided (live from Roadburn) The only thing that makes this explicitly live is the applause at the end and in all likelihood it will have been faded out by then. This was the opening song of an acoustic set the band played in tribute to their late bassist and is a beautiful arrangement of a brilliant song. https://youtu.be/ATO-9zPeJ5w Reflecting: We Lost The Sea - A Gallant Gentleman I thought something instrumental would work well here, so immediately went for post-rock. This is from the album Departure Songs, written after the band's singer committed suicide and they decided to continue without a vocalist. All the songs on the record are about true failed journeys, this one about Lawrence Oates the explorer who walked out into the freezing Arctic to give his companions a better chance of survival Departing: Mutoid Man - Bandages Cave In are my favourite band, so more Steve Brodsky is appropriate. This is a very emotional song and quite appropriate I think https://youtu.be/Hme25THmo9o

I don't go to arena/stadium shows for pretty much this reason, but how different is it being sat behind the stage watching a screen to bring at the back of an arena, watching a screen and some tiny people in the distance?

Napalm Death had different line-ups for each side of their debut album, which changed for second album and then again for the third. Was pretty stable after that

There was a time when Mutoid Man were using matching Aria guitars and basses with Nick playing one of those, it looked great https://youtu.be/T5PXu34mYGA

We drop the key 3 semitones down to C, so it's possible it doesn't sound quite right to the audience maybe? Or perhaps we're just not playing it very well 😁

Runaway Baby by Bruno Mars never goes down as well as I think it should

Russian Circles earlier, Cult Of Luna now

I've been thinking all day and can only think of a handful bassists in metal bands who play pointy instruments There's Derek Boyer of Suffocation who used to play a BC Rich Warlock and now has this headless, multiscale Devil's Choice bass. Likes to play it down by his ankle, I've always thought it looked uncomfortable Then there's Jeff Barrett of Blood Incantation who has a (I think fretless) BC Rich Mockingbird Last one I could think of was Jeff Walker of Carcass who plays the vaguely pointy Fernando's Triturador There will be others of course, but I've really struggled to think of many pointy bass equipped bands. I reckon within metal you still get a fairly standard distribution of brands

Thinking back to the basses I saw at last year's Damnation Festival Converge - Fender Precision At The Gates - Warwick (Corvette I think) Godflesh - Fender Jazz Pig Destroyer - ESP/Ltd 5 string Insanity Alert - Fender jazz (House bass) Full Of Hell - A Fender I think Irist - Fender Jazz We Lost The Sea - Sadowsky jazz 5, also uses a Fender P5 Misery Index - Warwick Bell Witch - Seven string Ibanez Ithaca - Fender Precision Pupil Slicer - 4 and 5 Stingrays, also uses a Modulus Flea Mastiff - Warwick Thumb So, mostly Fenders with some Warwicks and a smattering of others

Cheers 😀

I'd like to change the pickup in my Ray25 to a Nordstrand MM5.2, but I'm a little unclear which model I need. They have one with "ears" and one without, I think I need the one with ears, but it's difficult to be sure I have tried emailing Nordstrand, but they've not responded, so Basschat, do I have ears?

Two this weekend, both pubs not too far away Friday was The King's Head in Seaford, I quite like it there nice folk if a bit quiet as it was so hot and most were in the garden Saturday was The Garden Bar in Eastbourne; I'd had a very challenging day with our autistic/ADHD children to the point of unsuccessfully trying to find a dep, but by some stroke of luck managed to get the youngest settled for bed before going out with just enough time unload, set-up and start playing. I was running almost entirely on adrenaline so gave a very energetic, cathartic performance - really needed it and it went down very well.

So......called BD about 15:00, turns out the pickup is not actually in stock so they've refunded. Won't order from them without calling and checking first in future, which doesn't really meet expectations for a web retailer in 2023