NancyJohnson

I don't really like the Sandberg headstock, that said, these VMs dropped into my timeline a few days ago. The reverse headstock works for me...

Out of boredom, just started plugging a few names of ex-bandmates into Google and imagine my surprise to see one guy I co-wrote about 40 songs with up on Spotify. About a third of these are peppered over his whole output. He actually threatened legal action against me (and the drummer I was playing with at the time) against playing any of the material when things ended acrimoniously. Tosser. I don't know what's more alarming, the lack of writing credit, the frankly terrible arrangements or the fact that he's still clinging on to material that was written over 20 years ago. As you were.

While waiting on Lull to quote me on a bass, I felt a little queasy when I saw recently that (Neon Trees) Branden Campbell's oversized non-reverse Lull Thunderbird sold on Reverb about a year ago for a spit over £2k. Maybe purple sparkle isn't my colour, but at least it would bring me a bit of happiness.

Nope...Jake Williams. He does some really interesting videos, but man alive, 'Wasssup guys!' Grrr.

Scott?

I subscribe to a You Tube channel elsewhere, where the narrator just goes, 'Wassup, guys?' at the start and it just makes me want to put my fingers in my ears and go, 'La la la la la.'

As soon as any You Tube video starts with the host saying, 'What's going on, guys?' it just makes me cringe.

Old school US rock today. A bit of Starz and then (if my ears can get past the screeching) a bit of Angel.

The Spin Doctors. I honestly don't know why.

Just before Christmas we were sorting through some unfinished tracks and decided to see whether musicians outside of the band circle would be interested in contributing. In previous lives, I'd gigged with London band Dronningen maybe ten times (and a couple of people here tried out on bass for them)...they jumped at the opportunity, we gifted them three songs, they chose one, did the vocals and guitars over christmas, files exchanged, mixed and up.

I had one of the NRs. Sunburst...had issues, fell out of love with it. Saw the ones that Macari's had; we were up in London New Year Eve two or three years ago and just asked them what their best price was, but they wouldn't even consider budging. Ho hum.

A chap over on the LBO bought one of the reissued Thunderbird NRs a while back - it was right-handed, he's a leftie, and he had it flipped to play left handed. I took the liberty of flipping his photo to convert it back to right-handed. I've been giving some thought to getting Spencer at Mike Lull to build me something new and (as we have building work upcoming), I suppose this came along at the right wrong time. It has got my creative juices flowing; the design is very subtle, it's a 'bird, but it's not quite a 'bird. Imagine this in a flat black finish (like my other two), with a two part bridge, chrome 60s pickups, nice clover leaf Hipshots. Jeepers.

I have a Big One (oo-err, Missus) - the first one. Stupidly good cabinet.

Ten minutes from me, but nope.

Haven't we done the Studio thing quite recently? Less than s month ago.

It's a Waterstone. I did a little bit of work for them about ten years ago, Bob Singer (the Waterstone CEO) and I exchanged a few emails at the time, he was trying to set up UK distribution for Waterstone, specifically pushing the Tom Petersson 12 String models. He was obsessed with 60s British Invasion stuff and adored The Jam, I recall him saying he was trying to get a Waterstone to Bruce Foxton.

It's a limited release thing...if you can't find it let me know.

The set I have has been in the family for well over 100 years; I'm not going to get all righteous about it, but it's made of ebony and ivory. I recall my dad saying he'd re-inked some of the tiles and all the flowers in the 1950s. The set came with these blue-leather tile trays, but my grandfather made up small wooden trays that I have as well. Just the noise of the tiles being shuffled take me back to being a little kid. They used to play penny a point and I do remember some of the tiles having nicknames. The suits (in our family) were/are wheels, cracks or sticks, the dragons are simply red'un, green'un or soaps. There wasn't any difference in the flowers (they weren't seasons and flowers, they were all flowers). The two of cracks tile was affectionately known as 'Ma Clifford' in our household; my grandfather reached Regimental Sergeant Major at one point in his army career and I know the chap on the right of the photo below to be Mr Clifford (my grandfather is on the left). Read into this what you will.

Mah-jong was a big thing in the two generations above me in my family. Whenever there where four family members around, the set would come out...I inherited the set when my mum passed away, but nobody plays now.

She didn't do too badly either, mind.

My wife got me a John East Uni Pre-3 (going on the Lull), new headphones (discussed elsewhere). There was also bourbon (Jack Daniel Single Barrel and Woodford Estate), CDs (Pearl Jam, Gigaton and Unplugged), Westworld S3 on BluRay and chocolate.

I just saw it too. I don't know how I feel about it to be honest; yep, I know he used a Thunderbird about 40 years ago (albeit briefly/on and off), but [you] really don't know what the Gibson mindset is here, whether they feel they're bringing him back into the fold or whether they believe that there's going to be hundreds of bassists queueing up to buy one if it went into production. That said, the guys in the know at LBO are claiming this isn't anything to do with whatever Gibson are planning for the model in 2021. Phew!

It's all subjective. I find the shape very comfortable, standing or sitting. Necks vary, my white one had the skinniest neck of any bass I've ever played. Tonally? This is the important one and again subjective. One man's meat etc. What do you want it to sound like? I've always gone through some kind of processing, I like a bit of grit/dirt and through a Sansamp RBI/RPM/BDDI, for me it was dreamy, almost Rickenbacker-esque. The white one (above) was fantastic for me tonally (I only moved it along as I had my Lull coming in).