NancyJohnson

Gadzooks, yes! Spector!

Played The Hope & Anchor in Islington yesterday with The Adjacent Kings; it was one of those punk lunch things that seem to be happening more and more frequently nowadays. It's a really decent (basement) venue, far from the sh*thole it was pre-facelift. If you are playing there, take your own gear if you can; basswise there's a very tired Ashdown combo available. Happy to have run into @cheddatom who was playing drums for headliners, Headsticks. While I saw their soundcheck and had a very brief chat, I didn't catch their set. We'd literally finished, broke down our gear, went upstairs to try and cool down and our singer/designated driver was ready for the off as he had a 3 hour plus drive ahead of him. [Edit] Just as a side note, Spizz was on the bill as well. You may remember him from his single Where's Captain Kirk?. It seems we may be doing some dates with him in the Autumn off the back of this one, so all good.

Apparently there's 'furore and anger' about the Pyramid Stage having all-male headliners and also about having an American band headlining Saturday night. Isn't it all supposed to be about the music or is this just the tabloids spinning and whipping up something out of nothing? Probably the latter. What a fecking world we live in.

I'm not a fan of festivals in general and I wouldn't go to Glastonbury even if it was free and had all-access passes. My wife has been dipping in (and mainly out) since early afternoon. She asked who Generation Sex were. I didn't actually know they were playing. Bejeebus. Words fail me. There's a Guns 'n Roses tribute band on at the moment. The bloke playing Axl looks like an overweight accountant. The Slash bloke looks nothing like Slash bloke I remember.

But it didn't really go under as such, more shut down, restructure, relaunch. Although the LA store shut and they're pretty much a mailorder outlet (no storefront as such), selling their own Bass Collection basses, Brian May stuff, NS Design kit, plus peripherals.

I bought a Gibson Grabber (G3) for peanuts somewhere over in Romford, early 80s, maybe it was this place. When it worked properly (intermittently), it was dreamy, but a lot of time it just kept cutting out and despite it only being a few years old the pots were very crackly. I wasn't even out of my teens, but there was a level of kudos because I had a real Gibson. It was rubbish. One summer day in the mid-80s, I stripped the thing and spray painted the body with a couple of coats of a deep-burgundy VW rattle can over the original natural finish (which started to come off almost immediately). I used it for a bit more and traded it for some camera equipment in a junk shop in Windsor. Amazingly I saw it online a few years back, someone selling it at an inflated price as 'one-off custom colour'; the finish - some 30 years on - way worse that when I had it, but recognisable.

Or to none at all. We were mid-bill about ten years ago. Tuesday night in Bracknell. Nobody in. Zero. We were kind of looking around and going, 'Well, shall we or shan't we boys?' and then did 45 minutes to the sound guy and four mates who were under us on the card. It was kind of funny. The headliners were up in the bar, so we broke down our kit, put it in our cars and all went to the same bar while they were on. Rumour has it they played a couple of songs to nobody and just gave up.

I'm mid-bill on an afternoon thing at The Hope & Anchor this coming Sunday. Making up numbers more than anything else. We're supporting a band called Headsticks, so no pressure. Spizz ('Where's Captain Kirk?') is also on the bill. Alarmingly, while the capacity is only 70 ticket sales are pretty terrible, but hey, it's not our gig so I'm not concerned so much. I'll be on the train home before the headliners will be done.

I used to frequent the Wapping shop. Bass Centre is just down the road from me (in Bagshot), but it's not a retail location as such. I got my NS EUB from there. It was nice to catch up with Barry again after over 20 years.

With the Geddy/Rickenbacker thing, I'm sure that while the public persona of the guy was all 4001/4003 through an Ampeg some of the bass playing ilk were horrified when he was pictured with the Jazz bass onMoving Pictures (I think). I've been doing the bass stuff for over 35 years, if nothing I think that - string numbers aside - I've just become a bit jaded at the lack of real innovation with how everything sounds more or less the same and that nothing really stands head and shoulders over anything else. This prompted a blind sound test with 15 basses at one of the Bass Bashes a few years ago (video below). I don't think anyone recognised more than two or three basses, lots of people didn't even recognise their own basses!

I'm not looking to go down the route that all basses sound the same and that the different nuances get lost in the mix (that's been covered lots of times), but isn't there an inevitability that if you're emulating/copying a pickup configuration used elsewhere that there will be a degree of similarity with the source tone? I've owned four Spector basses and they all had different guts; of the last two, the Euro LT had Barts and a Darkglass circuit, the current Euro X has EMGs and a Spector Tone Pump. Tonally I'd take the Euro X over the LT every day of the week, but they didn't sound much different (the X just seems to have more attack). They've made a lot of basses and switch around the electrics at will. I'm sure players will be able to say there's a distinct Spector tone (much as you have a distinct Precision/Jazz/Rickenbacker/Stingray/Thunderbird tone), but with Spector there's just too many levels of switcheroonie to be able to say, 'Yep, that's a Spector.'

I have a distinct image in my head of this being explained to me by a sound tech when we were doing a gig at my college, early 80s. Strodes College, Egham. I recall him drawing out a reasonably simple wiring diagram explaining exactly this, explaining part of the effect down to things being partially out of phase with either side of the stereo output. There were four of us sagely nodding our heads, all the while clearly not understanding a thing he was saying. Must have born fruit somewhere along the line, all four of us ran studios at some point and two of the number run an extremely successful mastering business to this day.

Soundman: 'I say, you two, yes you, the bass player and the guitarist. Yes you. Would you be so kind as to turn your amps up a smidgen? The stage sound is a bit quiet.'

Possibly not...it's 10gb.

Didn't I send that one to you?

Moooorning kids Just wondering whether anyone has embraced multi-channel audio (I'll refer to it as surround from now on) in any capacity and - if the original tapes are available - what they'd like to see moving forward. My particular take. While I wasn't a fan of the first album, I really embraced Tears for Fears from Songs From The Big Chair onward. XTC? Loved the singles, wasn't really a big fan as such until about 15 years ago. Both these bands have undergone the Steven Wilson effect, with the first three albums and The Tipping Point from Tears for Fears albums released in surround and by my count there's seven XTC albums. While a lot of people are backsliding furiously to embrace vinyl (and I have no issue with that), I just feel that the surround releases just (literally) expand the listening experience and credit to Steven Wilson for releasing new material in this format at the same time he releases music in a stereo format. I'll admit that playback is a bit of a faff if I'm actually putting the discs in a Blu-Ray machine, but the discs are easy enough to rip and stream from a NAS. The Seeds Of Love album is mentally good. Moving forward, what would I like to see? Selfishly these would be based around personal choice. Something from early Japan (Quiet Life, probably), Extreme Pornograffiti, maybe Jane's Addiction Nothing's Shocking! or Vivid by Living Colour. Jellyfish. Man alive, the format would just live for both the original Jellyfish albums. Just for the craic some of Danny Elfman's whimsical soundtracks for his Tim Burton projects (there's a 17CD Box of stuff, loads of extra material, that's mind-blowing in it's scope, so it would lead you to believe that there has to be content to allow a surround mix.)

I used a house Ampeg cabinet at last Friday's gig. It weighed a ton. Granted it sounded lush and capable, but in truth not particularly much different to the pair of 1x12s I run. All I kept thinking was how I'd actually transport the Ampeg from the car park (three levels down) the 100m to the venue and then up a tight U-shaped stairwell. And then back again at midnight.

If it's me who makes a mistake (ie wrong notes), then I'll play the same thing again next time around. Beyond this, follow the singer. I think we're all of a certain standard, it's original material and we can just play through any issues. I doubt anyone out front really gives a toot.

I never carry a second bass. Living on the edge. My only (minor) fear is battery failure, but I tend to check these before I leave the house (with a Batt-o-Meter).

I just see guys jumping all over pedals - guys *obviously* seem to think stomping on a chorus/etc. for a few bars in a certain place will make all the difference, but in truth from front of house those nuances are lost. I run a wireless once in a while; one of those Lekato things (USB charging, tiny), headstock tuner. The Darkglass does dirty perfectly well for me!

Just an observation here, based off the numerous photos here, I'm still in awe of the pedalboards some of you guys are running. I took a (somewhat easy) decision to just nail my desired tone through the Darkglass AO head, travel light and leave everything else at home; so much so all the outboard gear is for sale here. I'm knocked out that people speak to me post gig and comment on my tone (four people on Friday in Brighton). Makes me warm and fuzzy.

So following the euphoria of last week's festival appearance, lase night was very much a back to business affair. Getting hot and sweaty to 40 people upstairs at The Pipeline in Brighton. Succinct review from promoter Andy Cavendish (who said he has '500 bands in my Rolodex'). We actually ran out of songs and played our opener again! Spector EuroX/Darkglass AO900 through house Ampeg cab.