Nicko

Have PM's you.

Unfortunately I'm NW London, otherwise you could come and try it (when Boris lets us of course).

Yes, wider than a Jazz but not bulky. No longer made though so if you're looking for one it'll have to be 2nd hand and they weren't that common.

I have an American Special Precision which has a sort of "halfway between jazz and precision neck" as standard. It does indeed sound different from my Squier 70s CV, The American has a slim C neck with a 41,3 nut width as opposed to the CV standard C with 42.8mm. They do sound different, but I suspect it's more to do with the pickups, and the bridge on the CV. Funnily enough the nut width is the same as a current US Performer, but I think it was considerably narrower than most Precisions I tried before I bought it - or maybe it was the slim profile making it feel narrower?

My spare amp was the PA. No need to carry much extra at all.

I always used to take two and never needed the backup. We did a charity gig at a school, set up the night before and sounchecked and I didn't bother with a spare. Sods law when I tried to plug in when we got on stage the jack socket disappeared into the cavity behind the scratchplate. I ended up playing the gig on a no name bass from the school's music department. I never went to another gig without a spare.

Tony James with one of his more interesting cuts

I have to say I got the Fender collection last month at that price and it includes a fair bit more gear than the Fender 2 collection available now. I'm very impressed with both the guitar and bass amps included and even with the reduced kit it still looks a bargain.

It has been a very difficult choice this month - many entries are outside my normal listening sphere and too close to call. I have voted for my favourite and everyone else gets a verbal commendation!

A somewhat controversial choice for great rhythm guitarists is Kelly Jones of the Stereophonics. The first couple of albums were just brilliant examples of rhythm guitar.

I stole my Dads copy of Concierto D'Aranjuez and it may be the reason I play guitar - I'm not sure whether this theft was before or after I stole my bothers copy of Wish You Were Here (by which time my brother was in his punk phase). The Rodrigo was Julian Bream playing but I always associate classical with Segovia.

I was referring to the clip in general. The phrase you mentioned wasn't that mind blowing IMHO - it;s stuff other guitarists were doing in the 80s.

Angus always claimed that Malcom was the better guitarist.

Left hand hammer ons, controlled feedback a bit of whammy bar, judicious use of an octave pedal and follow up with a sweep picked arpeggio? He should have put some right hand tapping and pinch harmonics to complete the full house. There's elements of EVH, Yngwie Malmsteen and Joe Satriani IMO. It's the kind of guitar widdle that is more about the artist showing what he can do than creating something most people want to listen to. YMMV of course.

Technical ability is a funny thing. There are few guitarists who have written anything that a thousand MIT type student guitarists cannot play note for note. Those guitarists may be considered technically as good as the artist that played the original because they possess the relevant technique to replicate it Whether many of them can come up with something groundbreaking of their own is a completely different issue.

Wow. I was expecting a B-.

And without the Rolling Stones, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck Slash would be a different player. Would music as we know it have reached where it is without GnR a simple throwback to stadium heavy rock featuring pentatonic blues licks? Probably. Has Slash really done anything that pushed the boundaries of guitar music. No. Is Slash any good? Undoubtedly but he ain't no virtuoso.

It didn't say influential, it said best. I don't think Slash could be regarded as "best" by any reasonable measure.

What is "best". Harrison played simple-ish guitar in a massively popular (in my mind overrated) band, Clapton, Peter Green et al were good blues players who made popular music, Gilmour played with more passion and feeling than both in an innovative band. don't rate any of them as being technically great compared to some others. EVH was a truly innovative player, Randy Rhodes reinvented metal playing and put the flash into melodic soloing but Satriani, Malmsteem and Jennifer Batten were probably more technically gifted and are virtually unknown outside of guitarist circles.

Not all vocalists are the same. My last band had a female vocalist whose idea of setting up was to sit and chat with her boyfriend while drinking a glass of wine and managing to put a mic on a stand when we'd finished. The female guitarist on the other hand was happy to lug her 100 watt vale amp on her own. The PA is and should be the responsibility of the singer. Although the band I was in bought collectively with an agreement on buying out anyone that left, when I left the band folded and the band therefore couldn't buy me out and I had to accept either buying it from them or selling it to the vocalist at well below it's value. The band I was in 4 piece rock playing pubs used a Behringer x12 and a pair of Mackie thump 12s. More than adequate although new the setup would be around £1300. Its the speakers that are expensive so go second hand for those. The X12 was lightweight and did everything we needed it to do but isn't the cheapest option and of course you need to either have a laptop or tablet to access it.

I'm assuming you're on a Pro Plan and replaced the track in Soundcloud but that shouldn't stop a new link working. As a basic user I had to delete the old version and upload a new one and that works fine (though it loses stats and comments).

Here is my entry: I had to look up the battle and when I realised it was what the film Zulu was based on I couldn't get "My Name is Michael Caine" by Madness out of my head. That lead me to doing something vaguely inspired by the UK Ska sound - not sure whether I got there or not. There are two famous paintings of the battle both called "In Defence of Rorke's Drift" which have both been criticised for glorifying empire. I've tried not to make comment on the rights and wrongs of the battle. Bass is a Squire Precision, guitars are an Epi 339 (the lead line is coil tapped though) all through Amplitube although this month I've splashed out on a Fender package and all the guitars use the new equipment. Drums are MT Powerdrums. Bongos, keys and horns are Xpand 2! and its all done in Cubase.

And from possibly the greatest English lyricist of the 80s, our Billy gives us: All my friends from school, Introduce me to their spouses While I'm left standing here, with my hands down the front of my trousers

Shotgun by George Ezra is a lesson in forcing rhymes into lyrics. The first line is "Homegrown alligator, see you later" and it doesn't get any better from there.

I agree. You can't define a genre by the time music was recorded. Personally I think the Velvet Underground are much more "alternative rock" than someone like Oasis who mainly rehashed 60s style tunes.