NancyJohnson

I came to the XTC party very late in the scheme of things, perhaps six or seven years ago; it's been a joy just immersing myself in the catalogue and hearing how they evolved as a band. It saddens me that I wasn't really part of the journey at the time. Mayor of Simpleton is a FANTASTIC track and Colin's bass work is off the scale. It's nice to see Tim Smith here too; Jellyfish aside, he was also in The Umajets who made two great Jellyfish/XTC-esque albums.

Christ, that's £35.00 on Amazon. Blimus.

I just feel for these poor instruments.

If the guy is doing this, the VERY least he could do would be to apply a decent waterslide logo rather than freehanding it with a Sharpie and a green biro.

I bought a minty Euro LT a few weeks back, I've not had a look inside the control cavity but I do profess to enjoying the odd tweak tonally. There wasn't any fly sheet with it covering adjustments to the active circuit. Concerning there being a trim pot, care to elaborate when you have a play around?

Nah, I'm good...I lasted maybe 20 seconds. I just suppose that when Killers came out (1980/81?), I was probably spending more time listening to Japan and a clutch of more American orientated rock (Van Halen, Joe Perry Project/earlier Aerosmith, Journey, Styx). Mr Harris seems a nice enough bloke, I have no issue with him whatsoever, but I never connected with Iron Maiden at all. He's not someone who I would have put high on the list of having his own signature pedal either to be honest.

I couldn't tell you what Steve Harris actually sounds like to be honest. Geddy, yes. dUg, yes. Sheehan, Burnel, Karn, Claypool, Lemmy, all yes. But Harris? No. Even with a gun to my head, I could probably only blurt out two or three Iron Maiden songs. Message ends.

Good grief, have some perspective. It's a kettle lead; try it once, if it doesn't work, or solve the issue, throw it away. I'm not advocating openibg the amp and rewiring it. Lest we forget, most of Europe operate electrical systems on a non-earth, two core cable systems.

It's funny, but doesn't pretty much everyone here feel that Skank embodies their inner-author and that his responses are generally on point and written how we'd all want to write? Clearly P-dawg is also a vampire. 2.00am? Go to bed, man!

Nope, it was in reply to Nik having a pair of whatever he has. I wouldn't buy another Rickenbacker...

Or just mark it up 'pub check'. Really no harm in trying.

Recommended (or otherwise), while it's feasible there's an issue with the wiring at the pub itself, this can be compounded (if my terminology is correct) by having multiple earths on the same loop or even running effects. Quick question. If you're playing with a guitarist or keyboardist, do their amps suffer the same fate or just yours? Insofar as a solution goes, a quick look online shows that your Markbass head has ground loop switch. Try it. It will simply take the earth out of your power lineage and correct things. Also, rightly or wrongly, you could just carry a spare kettle lead with just the live and neutral connected (just snip off the earth and put some heat-shrink over the end.

I feel a R*ck*nb*k*r incoming. Imagine running that in stereo. Yep. Imagine.

My highlight? Seeing Sean after a couple of years and knowing he's well. This outweighed all the gear on show.

It was yesterday, not today.

It's all stable. No fading or anything...It's been a little quiet on the band front, but it's had a lot of use.

Isn't it generally a case though that most drummers don't have to space (or soundproofing!) to keep a kit set up at home and as a consequence they don't strictly play the drums, they just play the drums at jams and gigs? I mean, good on him that he can just survive on breakables alone; the drummer from the last band just bought a very cheap kit and used to gig with that, allowing anyone to use it, so fair play to him. When I went out with Rocket66 recently, the studio kit was thrashed to such a point that it was ready for the skip and the venue kit was literally held together with Gaffa tape.

From a shape perspective, while I'm more a Thunderbird kind of bloke over basses of a generic Jazz/Precision design, the biggest sticking point for me is that Mk2 headstock design. Doesn't matter how good the bass is, I couldn't get past a bass with a headstock that looked like a dog had chewed it. It's a deal-breaker. Just like Sandbergs.

I would love to have been able to play the drums, but man alive, given my levels of GAS over the years I shudder at the amount of money I would have hemorrhaged on drum kits and hardware. I probably would have ended up with a kit like Mike Portnoy. A mate of mine quit playing drums about a year ago, he had a phenomenal amount of top-notch gear that sold for peanuts; he always maintained that drum kits were like cars, you take 'em out once and they lose half their value, so I suppose his selling price saw that. It honestly must be party time if you're buying drums at the moment.

I've been following Mark Phillips for a while, both here and on eBay; I've always thought of his creations as sharing a heritage of sorts with the stuff his namesake Sid from Toy Story built.

Sunday is the new Saturday apparently. Well, it was for me last week, but Monday was definitely Monday for me, albeit being a little worse for new Saturday's drinking and eating. Maybe next Sunday will be like the old Sundays. Countryfile, Ovaltine, bed. And wouldn't it have been a thing if you'd shown up a day early. Just like the Picolax thread.

Cough. Sunday. Cough.