taunton-hobbit

Sho 'nuff gotta be funky, but right now I'm listening to Mose Allison - Seventh Son ....'nuff said.....

Oh good - it's turning into an 'I remember Stonehenge when' thread...... I've got colour slides (remember them?) somewhere of the Henge around the late 50's....no fences, no cafeteria (& no other people). Went with mum & dad in a 1939 Morris on the way to Cornwall....I remember trying to climb on the stones (cos you could). Bucket lists are for people who feel insecure about their reality (imo).

Saw the Man twice - once at the Royal Albert Hall, about 1969 I think, and again at the Barbican (inventing America) in '98. The RA gig was loud & competent....musically great, The Godfather worked hard, but somehow missed the spot. At the Barbican, it was all overloud and messy. Had the feeling that James had taken too much of something. There were false starts, wrong starts and no starts, all of them at tremendous volume. (we are talking silly LOUD here) - shame, because funk, soul & reggae are very much my thing. Nevertheless, the world of music is a quieter (& less energetic) place without The Hardest Working Man.....

'Hybrid' amps are nothing new - stuff a valve input stage on to a class D solid state and you get something fairly close to a cooking great valve amp without the drawbacks - try it with a Crown xls - it's an interesting mix..........

Amp hurling - nothing like welly wanging. I recall a wet Friday night many moons ago when my (then) girlfriend was carrying my Marshall Plexi 100 (original!) across a quarry-tiled pub entrance floor....... She went one way and the amp went another, both hitting the floor with a dreadful crash. Being the perfect gent, I left her to get up and rescued my amp, which rattled 'orribly. I took it to my local tech the next morning who replaced every valve and tutted over the split in the corner bend of the chassis. He ran it up, and it worked flawlessly (& continued so to do until I sold it on, about 18months later, with the split still there..) - Probably says a lot about early Marshall amps (and girls in wet shoes).