NancyJohnson

It's a limited release thing...if you can't find it let me know.

The set I have has been in the family for well over 100 years; I'm not going to get all righteous about it, but it's made of ebony and ivory. I recall my dad saying he'd re-inked some of the tiles and all the flowers in the 1950s. The set came with these blue-leather tile trays, but my grandfather made up small wooden trays that I have as well. Just the noise of the tiles being shuffled take me back to being a little kid. They used to play penny a point and I do remember some of the tiles having nicknames. The suits (in our family) were/are wheels, cracks or sticks, the dragons are simply red'un, green'un or soaps. There wasn't any difference in the flowers (they weren't seasons and flowers, they were all flowers). The two of cracks tile was affectionately known as 'Ma Clifford' in our household; my grandfather reached Regimental Sergeant Major at one point in his army career and I know the chap on the right of the photo below to be Mr Clifford (my grandfather is on the left). Read into this what you will.

Mah-jong was a big thing in the two generations above me in my family. Whenever there where four family members around, the set would come out...I inherited the set when my mum passed away, but nobody plays now.

She didn't do too badly either, mind.

My wife got me a John East Uni Pre-3 (going on the Lull), new headphones (discussed elsewhere). There was also bourbon (Jack Daniel Single Barrel and Woodford Estate), CDs (Pearl Jam, Gigaton and Unplugged), Westworld S3 on BluRay and chocolate.

I just saw it too. I don't know how I feel about it to be honest; yep, I know he used a Thunderbird about 40 years ago (albeit briefly/on and off), but [you] really don't know what the Gibson mindset is here, whether they feel they're bringing him back into the fold or whether they believe that there's going to be hundreds of bassists queueing up to buy one if it went into production. That said, the guys in the know at LBO are claiming this isn't anything to do with whatever Gibson are planning for the model in 2021. Phew!

It's all subjective. I find the shape very comfortable, standing or sitting. Necks vary, my white one had the skinniest neck of any bass I've ever played. Tonally? This is the important one and again subjective. One man's meat etc. What do you want it to sound like? I've always gone through some kind of processing, I like a bit of grit/dirt and through a Sansamp RBI/RPM/BDDI, for me it was dreamy, almost Rickenbacker-esque. The white one (above) was fantastic for me tonally (I only moved it along as I had my Lull coming in).

Yep.

Mine will only be ones that aren't in the pack...I don't own any Gibson basses at this point!

Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile/Deviations 1

It does seem odd (that if these are genuine), that they've gone with a Supertone bridge. It's a wonderful bit of kit and the thing I upgraded to pretty much immediately as and when my Thunderbirds arrive, but the Babicz is (while subjective) just better; the design is sleeker, it looks more traditional.

I just hope this is a joke or at the very least just an overpriced money-grab.

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.