NancyJohnson

While the seller might be 100% genuine, the pursuit of products via Gumtree/PreLoved worries me intensely. Too many scammers. You might be better off hitting up someone here who lives locally to handle purchase/shipping. I've done it a few times for members here.

[quote name='radiophonic' timestamp='1496741710' post='3313505'] Elixirs look to be very pricey! D'Addario Pro Steels look like a more affordable option, if indeed they do last longer. Probably worth a punt for next time. They claim brightness, although that's not the be all and end all of course. [/quote] I've been using Elixir Nanoweb (#14077) sets for a while now and they do last for yonks. The set I've got on my Lull went on on 4th November 2016 and seven months later they still sound bright. OK, yes, they're c.£35 a set, but I'd have been on my third set of Dunlops/D'Addario by now (and maybe my fifth set of Rotosounds...hehe). If you want very cheap, but decent, check out Soldier branded strings on Amazon. I needed some cheapies to do a set up on something and paid £6.00; they're perfectly fir for purpose. They're pretty good if you want to swap strings every couple of gigs.

[quote name='Kiwi' timestamp='1496825890' post='3314039'] Slightly off topic but they've become masters of social media marketing, completely hit the ball out of the park. Mind you, it's taken them 8 years, as it would anyone in their shoes. Occasionally I've contributed a bit of silliness to Lee's facebook posts and sometimes he's responded. He seems like a genuinely nice guy, which I'm sure is why they're doing so well. [/quote] Felt the videos used to be fairly quaint, but now not so much, they're just churning them out. I used to really enjoy the bass stuff when it was Lee Anderton and Nathan King; I'd sit through anything they put out as there was a degree of gooning about and definite chemistry between them, but the King/Voss ones (starting off with the Spector videos 7/3/17), all that kind of disappeared. As an aside, I am eagerly awaiting the return of Phil X and The Drills to the Fretted Americana channel. Damn you, Bon Jovi.

Never used them, but... Reckon that if you want to go the backing track route the key words here are [i]discipline [/i]and [i]rehearsal[/i]. There is no recovery when things go awry. We played with a band who did use them; credit to them for trying but it was all a bit hands on as they were firing them off via an iPod nano. It was a disaster in the making really...the drummer was pushing play but clearly didn't have enough time to drop the iPod [i]and [/i]do a four count, so backing vocal and keyboard backing tracks were coming in at the wrong time, plus the drummer didn't seem to be able to play to a click, so timings were going up and down. Just to throw something else in, their lead guitarist had a bit of a look-at-me thing going on and was changing guitars every song to accommodate different tunings; the rhythm guitarist just used a capo. Go figure. On the last song, the lead guy had the wrong guitar, tunings were off [i]and [/i]the backing vocals and keys were coming in early as well. Terrible.

I'm not going to go starting a new thread, just curious...any date set for the 2017 bash?

We played at the Royal Agricultural University in Cirencester. It was a benefit for the Swindon Rockets wheelchair football team. Good cause, but all a little ad-hoc...we turned up, bands were literally pulling straws for their place in the running order (we pulled the shortest, so were first on). Too much gear on the stage, too many surplus people on stage ('Could your wife perhaps stand elsewhere with her arms crossed, rather than in the way of everyone?'), too many people a bit too keen to ensure they had their guitars in racks right where you needed to be (you just wanted to shout, 'Yes, I know you have a Rickenbacker, sir, it's very lovely, but if you leave it there it's most definitely going to get dinged.'). Needless to say, we didn't get a soundcheck, but I was told retrospectively we played to the most people. So, wooyay us. That said, it was a pinch-yourself-you-can't-believe-it amazing place, they've filmed Poldark there: This is us (yes, I know, there's some noise on the image):

We gigged Saturday and a couple of the blokes in the band were talking about Ringo Starr. Our wisecracking drummer would only go so far as to say he was great in Thomas the Tank Engine.

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1496609734' post='3312735'] Cheers, Blue, people will definitely take notice of you with the Thunderbird. We'd all like to think it's our technique, musical ability, and personality that gets us noticed, but I increasingly think it's just down to the impact we make on stage. The look of the bass and the player makes a real difference. [/quote] I would concur that in the circles I play in, the Thunderbirds always garner attention. No one really cares about Fenders (etc.), as they're ten a penny. Strap on a Thunderbird and I'd guarantee positive comments. Look, I've said this before. I'm a slightly podgy bloke that's now pushing 50. When I'm using a Thunderbird, I feel like the rake thin guy I was in my 20s. It takes years off you. It takes pounds off you. They're like magic. That said, someone buy one of mine in the For Sale area..

[quote name='mikel' timestamp='1496421901' post='3311344'] I was right, its a Troll. The Dave Clark comment is the clincher. Go and play somewhere else. [/quote] You know, I had a teacher at school who said once that there's always a bully in every playground.

[quote name='mikel' timestamp='1496391371' post='3310958'] Or I have just fallen for an almighty Troll. [/quote] [font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Nope, sorry it's just an opinion. Simply because I'm not a fan of The Beatles (aside from the handful of songs that I knew already), it doesn't entitle me to an opinion. This isn't anything about the type of quote (now attributed to Jasper Carrott) or that line in Red Dwarf where Holly says:[/font] [font=courier new,courier,monospace]HOLLY: Well, for instance, in this universe, it could be that Hitler won the Second World War. It could be something even more incredible, like perhaps Ringo was a really [i]good[/i] drummer. [/font] [font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]I only listened to SPLHCB yesterday and again last night. With the exception of Within You Without You, it's a decent listen, it really is, the musicianship/vocals are great, but my immediate thought was what the hell is going on with the drums. [His] approach is almost child-like; the sort of thing that my 10 year old nephew would do when prompted to come and play along. I do wonder what The Beatles would have sounded like if someone like Dave Clark had drummed for them.[/font] [font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]I don't buy into the Dave Grohl comment above that he was 'a f***ing badass' just because he could get a crowd going by playing consecutive hits on the floor tom and kick. It was The Beatles! For the love of god, Ringo could have just farted in a paper bag and the crowd would have gone crazy. It's the same kind of mindset that voted Danny Bonaduce the second most famous bass player behind McCartney.[/font]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1496351319' post='3310823'] Mike Portnoy summed it up. Ringo changed what a drummer could imagine playing. Ringo went further than rhythm drumming and became part of the arrangement, part of the song. 2 drummers changed drumming, Earl Palmer and Ringo Starr. [/quote] I thought you'd done a typo there. You do realise that I was getting ready to go to bed, don't you? Now I need to investigate.

[quote name='DBerriff' timestamp='1496347725' post='3310788'] [url="https://flic.kr/p/T9ijYN"][/url] [/quote] Hmm. I don't want to get into a chicken or the egg type of discussion, but, well...

[quote name='bumnote' timestamp='1496348760' post='3310795'] The remark was actually made by Liverpool comedian Jasper Carrot. Another internet myth bites the dust. [/quote] Damn. He still sucks.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1496342770' post='3310752'] And your drumming heroes are..? [/quote] In no particular order; Mike Portnoy, Neil Peart, Steve Jansen, Mick Tucker, Buffin, Mark Wren, Will Calhoun, Tony Thaxton, Andy Sturmer, Adam Wade, Jamie Postones (some bias here, as he's a mate an' all), Jimmy Chamberlain, Josh Freese, Terry Bozzio, Danila Guglielmi. Kind of struggling now.

Christ on a bike, Ringo Starr is a sh*t drummer. I didn't realise that there might be some truth to the legend that Ringo wasn't even the best drummer in The Beatles. He just doesn't/didn't seem to have a clue.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1496324785' post='3310524'] Ringo Starr..? [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Within_You_Without_You"]Wikipedia: Within You Without You ...[/url] [/quote] No, you misunderstood. I was using the Ringo element as a metaphor, much in the same way as GH only got a song or two. I know full well it's a Harrison tune...my mumma didn't raise me as a mouth-breather.

There used to be a decent guitar store in Reading that stocked Sandbergs (or more to the point, they had Sandbergs in there). I played a few and they played and sounded great, but visually (and here's the kicker), that headstock is a dog. Every time I see a Sandberg I'm always draw to the damned headstock. Incidentally, I have a mate who is a Sandberg endorsee. He's recently been taken to converting his basses to two strings (E & A); removing the E & G machines and stringing them in the A & D positions. He sounds immense even though he barely comes up to my shoulder.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1496316920' post='3310420'] One had to 'be there'. [/quote] I remember a bloke I used to play with always said that they [i]had [/i]to give Ringo a song, more out of sympathy than anything else, but for love of [i]whatever [/i]where were their heads at to include [i]Within You Without You[/i] on the album? This is my first listen to SPLHCB and it sticks out like a sore thumb. Anyhoo, given that The Beatles (Wikipedia tells me) barely stepped out of the studio in 1967 and that the Magical Mystery Tour followed around five months after SPLHCB, for me at least, I think I'll put together a 50 minute playlist, let's call it [i]'Sgt Pepper's Magical Mystery Tour 1967'[/i] (see what I did there?) and cull some tracks from both and make sure Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever are included.

I'm a little too far down the replies here to really have any impact on the thread itself and I would profess from the outset that I'm really not really a Beatles fan as such (I do get warm and fuzzy hearing Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever, along with A Day In The Life as my mum used to play these to me when I was a kid). Since the material became available on Spotify, I've bookmarked the albums and have had brief forays into the catalogue, but the appearance of the Sgt Pepper reissue has prompted me to have what constitutes a 'proper listen' with fresh ears. All in all, it's a nice listen with the exception of [i]Within You Without You[/i]. It just ruins the flow of the album and had my finger hovering over the fast forward botton. Shockingly awful.

Last night at rehearsal we jammed around something new for the first time; it has an eight bar intro, but annoyingly we only recorded a version with a four bar intro, so I've done a nasty edit below. Warning, it's a new song, so lots of mistakes and it was recorded on a little field recorder, so sound quality isn't great. At present, the bass line over the start is just based around F#/C#/B/F#; frankly I don't like finishing the sequence on the same note on which the next part starts (even if, as in this instance, that final F# is played off the 9th fret on the A string). We played the start maybe thirty times while I tried to make it a bit more interesting, but for the first time in yonks, nothing came up. I've tried today, nada. In my head, I kind of know what it needs, but my fingers are doing the business...Any suggestions? [url="https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwPWKz0CLJz-U3FNbGs2amJiakU"]https://drive.google...U3FNbGs2amJiakU[/url]

[quote name='Rich' timestamp='1496048999' post='3308300'] Red Lion Brentford, South Hill Park, Cellar Bar... man, this thread is bringing back some really great memories. [i]*wistful sigh*[/i] [/quote] When you start out you think that at some stage you're going to hit paydirt and be playing to sold out rooms. The Cellar Bar could be so good; they have no problem selling out for Friday night comedy, hell, I've seen pretty much every mainstream comedian there at some stage or another. Music not so much.