Cato

I've got nothing useful to contribute, just very happy to see you doing another build.

I'm sure the custom shop stuff is great but there's a certain irony that a lot of it seems to be supposedly reproducing instruments that Leo Fender originally designed to be mass produced in factories. Vintage Fenders weren't lovingly handcrafted by a single luthier. They were bolted together by about 15 different guys on a production line.

The Pretenders are a bit of a revelation for me. I'd only ever heard their Christmas single and Brass in Pocket and assumed they were a sort of middle of the road AOR band, but this is awesome.

Counting Crows: August and Everything After Maximo Park: A Certain Trogger Not a weak song on either album and, in my opinion, whilst both bands released some strong material over the years that followed neither of them ever got close to that level of excellence again.

Funnily enough he's never had a reputation (that I've heard) for being a sleaze. I say 'funnily' because there were all sorts of stories about him being every shade of @rsehole especially in the early days of Metallica and Megadeth, from generally treating people like dirt up to full on violence. I say this as someone who was an avid fan from Peace Sells to Countdown. The man is an indisputable musical genius and one of the best guitarists of any generation, but no one ever accused him of being a nice guy.

I don't own any albums but from what I've heard of 'Bring Me the Horizon' on the radio over the years they're basically a pop metal band who have they're roots in the Emo thing that manifested in the 2000s. I don't mind them, they seem to be one of the very few heavy guitar bands put together after the turn of the millenium that has the kind of fanbase that can sell out arenas.

I live just down the road from them, although I've never been to either. I'd feel a bit out of order these days turning up to try out high end gear that I've got no intention of buying, although I did just that at Musical Exchanges in Brum pretty much every weekend as a teenager. Strange that Leamington Spa has become become one of the best towns for high end bass gear in the country!

As I understand it Bassbros and BD are only a few miles from each other, so it would be convenient for anyone visiting one to drop by the other. (Although I think Bass Bros is 'by appointment only).

Cheap bin liners are a false economy because you end up having to double or triple bag everything.

Cheesecake.

Generally my reaction to Coldplay ranges from indifference to irritation, but this is a fantastic bit of songwriting, one of my favourite tunes of the last 20 years.

I think they look great. Agree about the neck dive though.

Forget Blood Sugar.... Mother's Milk is where the Chili Peppers peaked. They were almost a different band after that, still an excellent one, but they were never that raw and funky again.

I think they'll be worth less unless guitar based music comes back in a big way because there will be less nostalgia for them, but I think that will be after Gen X is gone rather than the Baby Boomers.

No idea if he's in a band at the moment. There's a video of his online where he talks about his 'journey' In a nutshell he started playing at school, went on to spend several years studying at a prestigous US music college at which point he was also gigging seven days a week in multiple bands in different genres. When he eventually returned to the UK he found himself unable to successfully monetise his skills until he got a lucky break when Davey504 featured him in one of his vids. Since then Youtube has been his main musical focus. Fairplay to him for finding a way to make a living doing what he loves.

About 30 years ago a lad I knew got himself what was at the time a pretty high end keyboard/synth. That was the first time I heard programmed bass patches that sounded pretty much indistinguishable from a real bass gutair and I wondered then if bass guitar had a future. 30 years on and we're all still here. I do think playing 'real' stringed instruments in a pop music context has become a lot more niche over the years, a growing number of big box office acts seem happy to play to partial or full backing tracks live rather than taking a full band out. There will always be a place for old fashioned bands though, although they'll probably be more prevalent in some genres rather than others.

It'll make learning a part by watching someone else a lot more challenging. Likewise those those YouTube tutorials that concentrate on visually demonstrating the fretting hand movements whilst describing notes as "second string 5th fret".

The tort and the sonic blue set each other off perfectly. The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts.

I've never been able to draw. I just don't have any natural artistic talent in that direction. If I took drawing lessons and put in 10, 000 hours of practice I would hope that my drawing ability would improve to some extent, but would I have achieved 'mastery'? I seriously doubt it because if I had the spark of genius that artistic mastery requires then surely I'd have been able to draw reasonably well in the first place.

I'm suprised at how sad I am to read this. It feels like the end of an era, there was a moment around when I first started playing in the late 80s when Status basses seemed to be everywhere , everyone from Mark King to Rhino Edwards was playing them.

It was actually not a bad instrument, yes the action was high, but being a complete newbie in the pre internet era I never realised I could have adjusted the BBOT bridge until many years later, so it was largely self inflicted.

'3 Lions' raised the bar for football songs, not because it's the best song ever, although I do like it, but because it was adopted by fans and has been an unofficial England anthem for the last 25 years. I think that's why the FA stopped releasing England pop songs for the big tournaments. After '3 Lions' any song that wasn't being sung in the stands was deemed a flop I imagine a new national anthem woukd be judged by the same criteria, if people aren't spontaneously singing it at events then it's not really working.

It's good for them. My second bass felt so easy to play after learning on an 'Axe' bass that had an action higher than that. I've never had that feeling on an instrument since, pure bloss. I had forearms like Popeye too.

I think the Suicidal Tendencies gig was always going to be temporary for the Bruner brothers. They're both part of 'The West Coast Get Down', which is a collective of jazz musicians who have been playing together since they were teenagers and have in the last few years been making big waves in the jazz world, as well as becoming some of the most in demand session musicians for genres from pop to hip hop. I like Thundercat's solo stuff, but I can see why it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea.

There's a guitar shop near me that's 'by appointment only.' Looking online they do stock a couple of fairly niche makes I'm interested in, but I think I'd feel like a time waster if I made the appointment to try them out and ended up not buying anything. To fair I've only heard good things about the place, but I'd be far more likely to visit if I could just casually drop in and have a browse.