Clarky

The last line of that newspaper link is great: "Pickles are enjoyed by many cultures all round the world" .... unlike ....

No idea but its a newly popular viral (I am told). Real or not, it made me snigger

[font="Garamond"]Nickelback fans, sorry. Not really![/font] [font="Garamond"][url="http://video.boiseweekly.com/video/Nickelbacks-Chad-Kroeger-Hit-By#c=LMJHCX0WRP5DFD82&t=Nickelback"]http://video.boiseweekly.com/video/Nickelbacks-Chad-Kroeger-Hit-By#c=LMJHCX0WRP5DFD82&t=Nickelback's%20Chad%20Kroeger%20Hit%20By%20Pickle[/url][/font]

I just took delivery of a beautiful Rob Allen MB2 fretless bass from Markus. The bass was superbly packed to withstand whatever any courier could possibly throw at it (it was coming from Germany) and dealing with Markus was an absolute pleasure from the start. Highly recommended

[quote name='0175westwood29' timestamp='1339402969' post='1687796'] come on guys! i can honestly say that every english festival ive been to ive had an awesome time! there is nothing like camping out the whole weekend! be it rain or shine! you cant help the rain! at reading a few years back it was so hot that the ground was so hard you couldnt get pegs in and there where people complaining! yeh it expensive but how much would seeing all of those bands cost you? and Tenacious D are awesome live! if you dnt like them thats different but i bet there was a whole crowd singing along no? andy [/quote] You make some reasonable points (although for me and my two boys it cost close to £500 so it was a pricey way of seeing Prodigy and Metallica; we missed the the only other band I really wanted to see, Opeth, due to aforementioned traffic jam on Friday) But you are missing one thing here. This is an internet forum and this is one of the 99% of meaningless posts written by someone who just fancied a rant and should have been doing something more constructive than sitting at a computer

Oops turns out this wasn't necessarily the final version (hence why its still password protected) and I shouldn't have posted it publicly. Ermn, well I'm glad those of you have seen it enjoyed it but I had better remove the link and password from the OP

[quote name='0175westwood29' timestamp='1339361028' post='1687525'] wait a min! you stayed in a hotel!! give some fairness man the weather was a bit of a factor as well! [/quote] Yep, I'm 48, I'm not staying in a sodding camp with the 18 y/o's! And as for the weather, it was appalling on Friday (leaving the festival arena as a mudbath) but had no impact on the travel

[quote name='Jigster' timestamp='1339342502' post='1687092'] Really enjoyed that Clarky, and an almost victorious pose from yourself at the end - yes they only featured the bass player's mug twice, but the second time was the closing shot!! Yey! [/quote] Not so much victorious, more like .... err, have they stopped rolling and what do I do with my face now I've stopped playing?!

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1339349999' post='1687251'] How many takes were required to get that one? [/quote] Each take was performed live (the girls had hidden mic's, while the acoustic guitar and mandolin were DI'd and the double bass and djembe drum were picked up with a boom mic). IIRC we did about 6 or 7 takes in all but the first three had to be scrapped due to a faulty mic for Laura (the Spanish-speaking dark-haired one). Once mic problem fixed, we did about 3 or 4 more takes and the producers chose the best one.

Well I got the bass back from Malcolm Healy on Friday and he fixed the cracked/split part plus a rattling tuner for the not-at-all-exorbitant cost of £48. Phew! I had visions it would be much more than that. Given the tuner's been fixed (was previously held tight by one of wife's hairbands) my double bass is actually better than it was before so all good in the end

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1339340154' post='1687050'] Does your guitarist play a R/H acoustic left-handed? [/quote] Good spot, he does indeed play a r/h guitar "upside down". Think he found it was all that was on offer when he was learning to play guitar as a lefty and its stuck with him. He's very good and it doesn't seem to hamper him in any way

We recorded a video a few weeks back with Another Lazy Sunday ([url="http://www.anotherlazysunday.co.uk/about-us/"]http://www.anotherla...co.uk/about-us/[/url]), a small, friendly organisation that is devoted to producing videos and concerts and promoting a group of unsigned music artists. [b]Edit: I didn't realise this wasn't the final version and so I shouldn't have posted it, hence I've removed the link for now. Sorry about that[/b]

Good idea. Someone posted a week or two back that www.stringsdirect were offering a 10% discount if you typed JUBILEE in the checkout page (in the voucher box). Saved me £4 on a Warwick EMP 5-string set so well worth it.

Just back from Download festival - Prodigy on Friday and Metallica last night were both excellent but I decided to skip the third day as I could foresee horrendous traffic problems. They really don't have a clue how to control the traffic. It started on the opening day when it took me two hours to do the last 2 miles to the car park on Friday (by the way there were loads of cars stuck deep in mud on the car park field, wheel-spinning like crazy, which will likely have to be towed out by tractors some time this week). Yesterday we decided to skip this farce and take a taxi from our hotel .... which was fine on the way there but we queued at the rank for two hours on the way back ... and we were in the first 50 people in a queue that stretched back many hundreds of yards. Basically total gridlock in the area, no cars moving anywhere and taxis unable to get out or enter the drop off zone. One posh businessman chap was on the phone berating the traffic control people who were refusing to do anything, saying the system had worked for ten years so why should they change it, seemingly oblivious to the nightmare they were causing festival-goers? There were people in wheelchairs, kids and tired adults all needing to get back to homes/hotels/campsites. By comparison last year's Sonisphere and Reading festivals were organised with military precision. I certainly won't go to Download again and - judging by the people around us in the taxi queue yesterday - I am far from alone. The incompetence also extended to the festival itself. My son's mate was in one of the opening bands for Friday but his band's set was cancelled because the festival weren't ready to open on time - can you imagine how p*ssed you would have been if that had happened to you and your band? Oh well, at least Prodigy and Metallica were on good form - as mentioned - and best laughs of yesterday were had from the utterly hilarious set from spoof metallers Steel Panther \nn/

Here incidentally is some nice flamenco-style playing on a BO 6 Thumb: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oB8Ffzpv1U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oHl1C054I8&feature=channel&list=UL

Much though I loved the NT Thumb referred to in my earlier post, I quickly decided I wanted 5 strings. However, after researching I found that the NT 5 has quite narrow string spacing so I have swapped for a BO 5 "broadneck" (20mm spacing). This feels very comfortable on my right hand (I am primarily a Precision player and also dabble ineptly in double bass), although the sheer bulk of the neck is taking my left hand a little time to get used to. Compared with a NT, the BO is obviously a less lavish bass : the EQ has fewer options and its not as lush in body woods (ovankgol/wenge vs bubinga/ebony). However I have to say this new bass is really inspiring me (in part I think because of the physical challenge and in part as I am trying to learn a bit of flamenco-style bass on it). I am really very chuffed with it