peteb

As far as email goes, these days it is a less than ideal way of doing business. I got back from holiday a week and a bit ago to an inbox of 250 work emails, most of which were cr*p but more than I expected requiring a response. My boss had been away for the two weeks before me, monitors a team email account since someone left and wasn't replaced. He told me that he had deleted a large number of emails looking for business in my area when we had already said that we wouldn't be accepting applications, because he didn't want to bother me with nonsense emails when he knew I would have an overflowing inbox. However, someone later contacted me separately with a different query that I answered straight away. She then asked why she hadn't got that response when she made the same query three weeks ago. Almost certainly, her email had been accidently deleted along with all nonsense ones while I was away! You have to remember that Bass Bros offer a specialist service, operating in a very niche part of the market. They are also very good value in that part of the market. A couple of months ago, I was looking for a new bass with a budget of up to £3k. I talked to Bass Bros and another specialist, who are really good but generally a bit more expensive. Will was selling a virtually identical bass for around £450 cheaper than the other guy. When it came to part-ex another bass, he offered £500 more! I ended up selling my old bass to Will (again, for an acceptable price) and buying a bass for a little more than half my maximum budget on eBay (a Fender AVRI rather than a Custom Shop), but it was obvious that Will does offer an extremely good service in that space. Of course, you can deal with Andertons and get your emails answered straight away by a bigger organisation. But you won't get the benefit of the specialist service the Bass Bros offer, if that's what you actually want and if you're prepared to pick up the phone!

I've dealt with Bass Bros on tree or four occasions (bought, sold & part ex'd) and it has always been a positive experience. I have never emailed them, not once. I have always phoned Will, followed by sending pictures, etc on WhatsApp if necessary. Just pick up the phone, every time...

I agree, on both counts. I'm sure that they selected her because her undoubted abilities (demonstrated by having worked with the great Jeff Beck, etc), also knowing that it would help to avoid the direct comparisons with Peart that asking a big name prog drummer would have done. However, it may have a secondary benefit and have a marginally positive impact on the misogynistic climate amongst certain sections of American society.

I don't think that Rush fans are renowned for their prejudice, but the fact that a female can score such a high profile rock gig without anyone with any credibility suggesting that it is a 'woke' gesture (or whatever) is great. The tour will (initially at least) be focussed on American soil, where there are plenty of right-wing commentators with very misogynistic attitudes who are dominating mainstream media. I think that overall it is a positive thing. And, as I said on the other Rush thread, it does ensure that there will be at least one woman at a Rush show!

I think that people are missing the true significance of them taking Anika Nilles out on tour - they are ensuring that there will be at least one woman at a Rush show!

I know Danny and he's a nice guy! Unfortunately, he's not a big lad and I can't imagine him wanting to get involved with anything potentially as serious as this. It is one thing to get annoyed and call out a YouTuber over ripping other YouTubers off (and then to benefit from the resulting online publicity), it's quite another to get involved in a case going through the criminal courts in the country he lives in, with a guy who is a career criminal and who has been known to make physical threats!

Perhaps a mod should consider merging the three current threads on Rush?

I can see a downside, but you're a long time dead and it is their legacy and theirs to do with it as they please. If they miss playing together and playing those songs, then why shouldn't they get back out there and play. As you say, why the hell wouldn't they carry on as long as they physically can! I agree with you about Peart and bringing a female drummer onboard, and bringing a separate keys player makes sense. I'm also assuming that the tour won't be as long as those they did in the past. I've got no skin in the game as I don't particularly like the music and won't be buying a ticket if they play down the road, but there seems to be a great friendship there and they come across as great guys. Best of luck to them.

I don't even like Rush's music much, but I do like those two!

To be fair, it's just as likely to be a Precision with rounds, but those are the two main reference sounds that most producers want!

Why does anyone need to hear my negative opinion of their band? There's maybe two or three people who I know, trust and would ask for their opinion about a band I'm in. Generally, if someone wants to tell me how great we are, then I will be gracious about accepting the compliment (even if I won't take it too seriously), but if they have a negative opinion or think that they know more about it than me, then I will give them very short shrift. Similarly, I won't give anyone my (negative) opinion about their band.

Bought a Gary Moore live CD / DVD (yep, another one) from Mick a few days ago. All good and a nice guy...

Funnily enough, despite my best efforts, I'm in the opposite camp. I tried out loads (and sent a lot of money on one), and even though some of them have a decent enough tone, I've never found one that has a response that works for me live. I ended up selling my expensive Class D amp and getting a Handbox hybrid amp, which is an easy one-hand carry but sounds great. As far as the OP goes, I'll see your Trace Elliot and raise you an old SWR amp. For me, SWR coming onto the market was the big step forward for bass amplification. You can pick up secondhand SM-900 heads for a song these days and they are serious amps (the cabs were superb as well).

I recently bought a brand new Chord 2u rackbag (cost about £55 IIRC), but I don't need it now and could do with getting out of the house. I'm not going to post it, but if anybody wants to pick it up from north Bradford, they can have it for free.

Yea, I think that Daphne Blue / tort is possibly my favourite P bass finish, although sunburst / tort is always a classic as well...

@walshy If you had that Daphne Blue AVRI62 up a month ago, then I would probably have bought that instead...!

I'm in a Zep tribute band, so I kinda should know these things!! EB77?? Do you mean pre EB? I'm not sure that you can exactly replicate these things, but that is not to say that old guitars are necessarily good. Certainly the pre EB Stingray that I played at @walshy's display at the Leeds Bradford guitar show was extremely nice!

To be a pedant, the electric guitar on Led Zep 1 was predominantly a tele! It wasn't until Led Zep 2 that Page used the 59 Les Paul, but then again that was also released in 1969! I would agree with you about old instruments. I would also suggest that guitars from different eras have a slightly different sound / feel and that instruments that we now consider vintage were used on earlier, ground-breaking recordings leading them to be considered a reference sound that everybody thinks a bass (or whatever) should sound like. There is some magic in many old instruments. I recently played an old pre EB Stingray at a guitar show and it was far and away the best Stingray I've ever played, despite owning a few decent EBMM ones myself!

it's also the most middle class thing ever! If the OP feels that he has to apologise before playing a song that you might not expect them to, then perhaps they could jokingly announce the song as 'some might think it strange that five white guys from the south east of England could play a song about the struggles of people in a land far away that we know very little about... but we're gonna do it anyway! It's a great song and I hope that we can do it justice'...

Oh, I was taking to you all yesterday (mainly Paul) and didn't realise you were connected to BC (I was the guy playing the pre EB blonde Stingray)...!

Seeing as I've just done a gig where the guitar player's Helix went down three times, I'm not sure that it's only tube amps that are temperamental.

Just had the AVRI 63 delivered. Initial thoughts are that it is possibly slightly lighter than my 78, nicely set-up, the nut width is a bit wider and that it currently has flats on it (whether they stay is another matter). It seems to play nicely, so first impressions are all good. I will put it through an amp when I get a chance later. Also, I need to change the strap buttons, as the previous owner used a different straplock system. I’m gigging this weekend, then on holiday for two weeks. When get I back, I will spend some time playing it properly, maybe even use it on a gig. Then I will decide if I’m going to keep it or move it on, and if I keep it if want to make any changes. First signs are pretty positive!

Just had a run of three pretty decent gigs with the Zep tribute. First up was a trip to the excellent Cluny in Newcastle week last Friday. The evening started off with a bit of unwanted drama, as the police had cordoned off the surrounding streets due to some guy threatening to throw himself a bridge overhead (fortunately they managed to talk him down a bit later). The place was packed (243 tickets sold) and the band played as well as we ever have, inspired by a great crowd (we even got a big cheer walking from the dressing room to the stage). This isn’t the first time we’ve packed this place out and the management have agreed to increase our fee for next year! Fast forward to Thursday night, and a long drive down to southwest London to play an Arts Centre in Carshalton. Another good crowd, although not nearly a boisterous as Newcastle, and another good performance. We were staying a few miles away in Reigate, in a rather dodgy hotel that wasn’t as salubrious as you might hope, but it had the advantage of being pretty cheap! Me, the singer and the guitarist were sharing a room and stayed up chatting until 2:00am with a third of a bottle of whisky and a few cans between us! A drive across to Essex and a gig in Chelmsford on Friday. When we got to the venue, I checked my phone to see a text from a couple of hours ago, offering me a dep for a blues festival next Saturday. Unfortunately, by the time I replied, they had got someone else! I always like the Chelmsford gig, but to be honest, I felt a bit flat by the time we went onstage. Perhaps not as good a performance as the previous two gigs, but still more than OK to keep a decent crowd happy. Me and the singer (who were in the same car) stayed in a much nicer hotel a thirty minutes’ drive away, while the others made the long drive home, something that I didn’t fancy at all. PS. The night before we set off, I noticed that the underside of the rear wing of my car was hanging loose. I couldn’t get it fixed in time, so I popped into Lidl just before it closed to get a big roll of gaffa tape that they had on offer in the ‘middle of Lidl’. I fixed it up as best I could in the car park, before setting off the next morning (we did a better job when we got down to London). I did find it amusing that I’m in my sixties, driving hundreds of miles to do a gig in a car held together by gaffa tape, just like I used to do in my twenties!

I will put up a few pix when it comes next week!