NancyJohnson

I'd say UFO's Strangers In The Night is one of my favourite albums and I was a fan of the early MSG stuff (including the live album); saw this album was out and gave it a listen. For sure this album is a rocking affair, but I just can't reconcile the rotating vocalist choices; I just hear the songs in my head with Mogg singing and can't get past that. I doubt whether I'll give it a second listen.

Currently spinning Bux - We Come To Play. Who, you say? Bux featured Ralph Morman on vocals (better known for fronting an early iteration of The Joe Perry Project and Savoy Brown), plus Punky Meadows and Mickie Jones from Angel. Good old rock.

That's a fair old wedge for a blind purchase on an instrument manufactured and sold exclusively through two retailers. Conflicted with stuff like this. While I'm never going to buy one, even if I did I'd be asking myself how much it'll be worth (or how much I'm going to lose) when it inevitably gets moved on and whether I just should have simply have - given the inevitable comparisons - saved a bit more swag and pulled the trigger on a Warwick or Spector instead.

The DNA of the Thundergun shares little with an actual Thunderbird; the raised centre block on the body and the word Thunder in it's name... that's pretty much it. Beyond that it's got more in common with a hybrid Jaguar body and P/MM guts.

I keep thinking about buying a cheapie Indonesian/Korean Hamer Chapparel 12-String bass, amputating the neck, getting a UK luthier to clone my Lull JAXT4 body and bolting it all together. Food for thought here.

I have seen a handful of NR Thunderbirds in the MOD collection - they do come up periodically:

Much as I harbour disdain for all the big manufacturers, at least Gibson are trying to mix things up with their MOD Collection stuff; sure they're as guilty as everyone else in their custom shop offerings, but the MOD stuff is truly one-off mix and match experimentation, finishes, pickups, electrics, tailpieces/Bigsby units.

I think you'll struggle to find original parts for a Integra or even a specific bridge for whatever particular year/model that one actually is. If it was mine, I'd scrap the desire to retain originality and just pop a replacement bridge in...it would also be quicker and likely more cost effective as well. I wouldn't worry about holes not lining up or anything; stick a Hipshot Kickass on it.

In general, I replace hardware if, a) the original part has failed, b) if the original part falls short in adjustability, or in rare occasions c) fails to fulfil a visual aesthetic (ie swapping like for like hardware, chrome to black). Sure, I've swapped out BBoT bridges in the past (to both BA2 and Hipshot KickAss units), but purely down to necessity; one project bass had missing bridge parts and another bridge used to cut my wrist. I prefer the feel of a bigger bridge under my wrist so naturally either of these units fulfill that remit, but I'd also say that adjustability of the Bad/KickAss units is probably on par with the BBoT units they've replaced. On the subject of the marketing claims, I'd take these with a generous pinch of salt. Do these bridges make any differences to sustain or wood transfer (whaaaat?), it's all nonsense. Ask yourself, how long do we hit a note and let it sustain for? A second? Five seconds? Ten? Sustain as an argument is ridiculous. Of wood transfer, what? Also rubbish. Reckon if you did a blind test on two identical (as feasibly possible) basses one with a BA2 and another with a BBoT, I doubt anyone would be able to differentiate the tonal nuances between the instruments.

Where's the innovation exactly? Very likely same old shapes, same old pickups, same old electronics, same old. Imagine if Fender were a car company; everything would still look like Christine.

So easy...

Live/Muse at Brixton Academy. Everything was just awful. Hours to get there, hours to get home. Dreadful sets. Dreadful FoH sound. Too loud. Too full (over capacity?).

Nope! All real. Honest.

I tend to rip everything to FLAC and the Blu-ray content to MKV and then to MP4 with Dolby/DTS pass-through. Any stereo stuff off the Blu-Rays gets converted to FLAC with Foobar. All this sits on a NAS and just gets squirted into our surround system via Plex.

While I'd agree with most of your points, the surround mixes I've got are just glorious. It's not like the stereo mixes are dumped. By way of example, XTC's Skylarking SDE from 2016, which cost under £20.00. You're getting (thank you Wikipedia): 1. 2016 5.1 mix – same running order as 2016 stereo mix 2. 2016 instrumental mix – same running order as 2016 stereo mix 3. 2001 stereo remaster – same running order as original vinyl (includes bonus tracks "Dear God" and "Extrovert") 4. 2010 corrected polarity remaster – same running order as 2016 stereo mix (minus bonus tracks) 5. Album in demo and work tape form – same running order as 2016 stereo mix (minus bonus tracks) 6. 30+ demos/early version/WiP versions. There's also a second deluxe reissue that includes a 2024 Dolby Atmos mix on a CD/BR two disc set. £21.00, not £150.00. This is how you do this.

I suppose another facit of the SDE thing is this shameless cash grabbing by the artistes. Two bands. Firstly, take Kiss (who are no strangers to merchandise and monetising their brand) and specifically the reissue of Destroyer. Beth aside, I've always liked the album. The SDE is expanded to four CDs and a Steven Wilson 5.1 mix on Blu-Ray. I'm sure Gene Simmons could just hear the sound of cash registers ringing at $200 a pop; I'm pretty sure most of the content has been in circulation for years and that most fans would be more than happy to fork over £15/$20 for a standalone BluRay. Next up, Queen. These guys have warehouses full of money and now they're undertaking a huge reissue programme. The newly entitled SDE of 'Queen 1' drops next month (just in time for Christmas); newly expanded to six CDs (most of the content freely available, but there's a karaoke version) and a vinyl copy, yours for £150.00. £150.00. Madness, but people will still buy it. Look, I know people will say, 'Well, you don't need to buy them,' and in truth, I won't be buying them. I just find the whole milking the fan base a bit abhorrent. The SDEs I've mentioned above were £25-30 tops, not £150-200.

Aah, Signature. Years ago there was all this conjecture about the Signature brand being bankrolled by Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee; in the early days of the interwebs it was somewhat difficult to confirm. In all the years that followed, not once have I seen or read a bean from either to confirm this 'fact'.

Long post. Over the years I've bought into SDE collections; multi-CD/BluRay sets, 5.1/Atmos mixes. My personal champions being pretty much all the Fleetwood Mac, XTC and Tears For Fears rerelease stuff; when done properly these sets can be superb. The Deluxe/Expanded editions of UFO's Strangers In The Night and Thin Lizzy's Live and Dangerous are also top notch. In the subject of Thin Lizzy, yesterday me and my wife were listening to the '1976' SDE; effectively an expanded double of Johnny The Fox and Jailbreak. The question came up on the bonus content (live/outtakes/radio), my wife said something along the lines of, 'Where has all this material been for 50-odd years? If you were 30 years old when these albums came out, you'd be nudging 80 now, or dead. Who is this actually for?' In my head, I'm trying to reconcile who these releases are actually for as well, how many units will actually be sold (is it a big moneymaker considering the work involved to get it released) and should the content have been released earlier. Assuming Jailbreak had had an additional record of demos bundled in with it in 1976, would it have just watered down the original album? I follow Steve Jansen (Japan) on X, once in a while he'll drop short clips of live recordings from early tours, quality wise these are studio quality and a country mile better than their official live album or the Budokan gig bundled in the recent Quiet Life boxset, but they're never going to get released. There's an ever diminishing fanbase from that period and it pains me that we'll never hear these recordings in full. Don't get me wrong, I love hearing all this stuff, but how much time after the original release is arguably too long, or is it all about keeping the fan base hungry for more?

When I was pre-teen, I was a bit obsessed with The Sweet. Fond memories of getting a Sanyo cassette recorder for Christmas and a copy of Sweet F*nny Adams on cassette. A year or so later I was given a copy of Desolation Boulevard on my birthday. These two albums, along with the clutch of non-album singles/b-sides will forever hold a place in my heart. I've had these two albums (and singles) on rotation for about a week. They're 50 blumming years old. The production is a tad dated, but man alive, they're both fantastic albums.

I follow both of Rick Beato's channels and saw this come up last night. I watched about ten minutes of it, got (very) bored and switched to The Drain Unblockers feed (which was way more entertaining to be honest).

Gone through pretty much every conceivable speaker combination over the years. [Edit: Gave this some thought - 1x18, 1x15, 2x15, 4x10, 2x10, 2x12, 4x5, 1x12, 15/6. Bonkers. Most had a tweeter/horn of some description.] Currently I run a pair of Darkglass 1x12s and the Barefaced Big One that I won in the SE Bass Bash a few years back. Musically I play alternative rock, gnarly tone. Tend to favour one or two of the 1x12s in most situations; they're capable and it's more about portability. There's really not much difference tonally between all the enclosures. They all do clean/gnarly with equal gusto. I've done side by side tests and I don't claim to really have heard too much difference between cabinets. I suppose that you just change kit because you're searching for something different, don't really know what, as tone is fairly subjective. For me it just came down to not wanting to have to cart around huge cabinets any more and the Darkglass cabinets fulfilled that. They're small and sound great irrespective of what you push through them. I can use one (or two). Or I cab use the Big One.

Most notes. I'm thinking strings. Don't have a spare set.

There's a lot of videos on You Tube covering repairs way worse than these. Pretty certain you could plough out the damage with a router and glue in new wood and clamp. It should give you a serviceable repair.