NancyJohnson

Keith Richards. All the solo stuff. I like Keef.

Just spun the new Paul McCartney album, III. It's not Band On The Run by any stretch.

Bananarama. Yup. Bananarama

Over the last few months, I've been involved in a distanced studio project; I get shortish (3-4 minute), incomplete ideas by email from our guitarist/producer - rudimentary drum loops, patchy guitars, no vocals - to which I contribute bass; I generally turn something around in a couple of hours. My stems are pushed up to Dropbox, retrieved by the producer, integrated into the song project and a few days later I get an mp3 through, with redone drums, more of everything. I fix what needs to be fixed and this then goes to the singer. It's all been working splendidly until about a fortnight ago, when I just drew a 100% blank and couldn't do anything. Pretty much all the material has been in 4/4, various tempos, easy, like riding a bike, what the producer does after I've done my stuff is his concern, it just comes back to me for approval and in general there's little tweaking required and it all sounds good. I got a track through...experimental the producer says. Over six minutes, a combination of 5/4, 7/4 and 4/4, multiple tempos, more Dream Theater than say 3 Colours Red. Within this there were this very odd, almost indiscernable changes; the guitar would be (for instance) chugging along in F# and then it would do this odd dischordant thing and change key between beats. I have never felt so uncomfortable and would go on record as saying I was freaking out a bit. Don't get me wrong...the basic track was OK, good even, but I was totally lost. I looped the start and did maybe 50 takes until I hit upon something I was happy with. We've vowed that we'll never revisit the shores of prog-rock, but this was after a brief discussion about whether we're actually hard-wired, by association, for 4/4 time signatures and because these are buried so deep in our concious that these are the norm it's a mans work to not play four beats in a bar.

I have a mate who owns a sapphire blue one...Japanese market edition. Just adding something else, two or three years ago, I had an extensive dialogue with Thomann about custom colours (at the time, Thunderbirds were only available new in sunbursts, although they'd done black and white/blonde models previously); they hadn't given much thought to it, but were generally receptive to a Thomann Special but they baulked at the minimum quantities Gibson were saying they needed to order. I've never understood why Gibson basses are generally limited to cherry, sunburst or black, especially given that the spray booths are painting/finishing Les Pauls/SGs in a multitude of colours/finishes. Anyhow, let's see what happens and I may dip my toe in Gibson waters again. Unless, that is if Korg finally agree to pull the trigger on a Euro Spector X.

Very cryptic post over on the LBO saying there's some 'exciting Thunderbird news coming in 2021'. This was posted by the the guy that makes the Badbird bridges. My long dalliance with Gibson ended about five years ago, but I'll admit I'm interested in what the news is. Custom colours? Chrome? Two part bridges? NR models? IIs and IVs? 60s specs? Bicentennial reissues? Maybe Mark Agnesi has seen how well the Epiphones have been doing and believes it's time for Gibson to cash in.

I had a Frank Sinatra playlist on this morning. Right now Aerosmith. Rocks/Draw The Line/Live Bootleg. Interspersed in this playlist, the bonus stuff from this period from the Pandora's Box set.

XTC in glorious 5.1

I'm writing-off 2021; no gigs, no holiday(s), etc. but admire your optimism. Vaccine or otherwise, it's going to take a long, long time for everyone to get it here, let alone elsewhere. I'm still of the mindset that there'll be some 21st century version of Typhoid Mary out there to throw a spanner in the works. Its going to get worse after Christmas, trust me. Viruses have little respect for (religious) holidays or how they spread.

Lining up 4 days off. Quiet WFH day, so a bit varied. Christmas crooners earlier (Doris/Bing etc.), a couple of Skids albums, now the slow descent to 5.00pm with Shudder To Think.

I peruse the Thomann site an awful lot, but haven't bought anything from them in a long time; I think it's a great site for browsing and I do live in hope that I'm going to by chance hit upon a nice (unannounced) Les Paul Junior DC (not one of those horrific Tribute models) in the new arrivals, but alas no. Luckily, I only really have GAS for one bass and a) the maker went out of business years ago and b) it dates back to the mid-80s.

The first three Wildhearts albums on shuffle today. Earth vs./PHUQ/Fishing for Luckies. After this, they kind of dropped out of favour and I because more of a 3 Colours Red fan.

Just moving on a year, it's all still good, no discernable fading and it doesn't come off when I'm playing. (Obviously) the four string hasn't had a lot of use in the last twelve months (plus, pretty much all my studio work has been on the five string). I've got a John East incoming for Christmas, so suspect the four string will get a bit more use in the the next year with Lizard Sweets.

I loved mine, I really did. It was pretty much clank right out of the case. If you want some convincing as to why you don't need one, I'd only cite that I gigged it twice and I was lucky enough to stop someone nicking it on both occassions. They are too high-profile. Interestingly, I now play a five string that cost me nearly six times as much as the 4003 in the photo below and nobody so much as bats an eyelid as they don't know what it is.

I've got the AO900 head and since it's arrival I've run it through a variety of cabinets (15/6, 1x12, pair of 1x12s, 2x12, 8x10) and am pleased to report zero issue. Just remember that you can turn off the on-board distortion/bit/growl options and run it clean and, if need be, you can also just route outboard gear through the effects return and just utilise the poweramp side. It does go (very) loud; I rehearsed in the big room at Brighton Electric last year, pushed it through an Ampeg 8x10 and doubt I went past a 30% output. While desired tone is somewhat subjective, my only criticism is distortion circuitry takes a while to dial in and I've found that it responds very differently from bass to bass - if I was going the Sansamp BDDI/VTBASS/dUg, it would generally be a case of plugging in and my tone would be there almost immediately, but the AO900 seems to require a little more room to room tweaking than just going stompbox>powerstage. The head also seems more adept/alive with active basses. It's lightweight, easily fitting into one of those padded Gator 12x12x5.5" mixerbags (along with power/Speakon leads). While I'm unsure of how full the box is (and given how small clip-on tuners are nowadays), the only thing missing is an onboard tuner.

Are you Sir John Redwood MP? Come on, admit it.

Here's something for you to sit on.

I had a pair of SL112s for a short time. I can't remember what I was feeding into them...it was definitely a Matrix stereo power amp, would have been a Sansamp BDDI or the dUg feeding that. They looked the nuts and I'd concur with you in that if you're looking for loads of low end from a small enclosure, then the Aguilars have that in spades. I wondered whether the tweeters were working at one point...they were, but they were very, very subtle; the output just didn't seem to go high enough within the overall cabinet output for me (if this makes sense); they could have been a bit louder. I used them for one rehearsal, went back to the Barefaced and sold them on.

Comparisonwise, I'm obviously more tuned to comparing this against my existing kit (Barefaced Big One)...I purchased a pair of Aguilar 1x12s a couple of years ago and didn't like them so much, they were very whoompy, not much highend; the HF unit on the DG seems way better tuned to my desired tone (even with it virtually off, the enclosure sounds brighter than the Aguilars). The cabinet is very light, 25lb or something, build and finish is top notch...so long as you look after it, it'll look after you. Quickly ran through everything in my armoury. A/O head, the dUg pedal into the return, active/passive basses, fours/fives. The Darkglass kit certainly seems to favour active basses, my Spector sounds beautifully crunchy. So, nothing negative to report at this point, I won't know how well it's going to perform in a band environment for some time.

I saw this performed at the Albert a couple of years ago. Wonderful.

We've recorded 39 songs since June; once you get over the tech issues, it's dreamy.

And this my friends, is why I will never play in a cover band. If you suffer from Photosensitive Epilepsy, you might want to just look away and enjoy the music. *I've removed the link. If you've swung by expecting a horror show, you're too late.

Yep. The plan is to go with 2x 1x12s.

Birthday gift from my wife. I never fail to appreciate how much manufacturers are able to cram into ever smaller enclosures.

I'm off today. Today I'm in a Dead Combo groove. They're Portuguese...it's an odd combination of Fado, the Cure, slow New Orleans jazz. I only found out about them last year when we were in Lisbon (their music was playing in a place we were eating at; I'm glad I asked).