Doctor J

Fair play to all of you. I was abroad at the start of the month and didn't even get close to finishing anything for this month. A top selection submitted, as usual 👍

It featured in La Bamba, if I recall correctly.

I love instrumental music. There are some fantastic ones in the Metal world, often a nice change of pace and mood in an album context. And then there's the wide, wide world of Jazz.

There are lots of late 70's and early 80's Fenders getting bought and sold. Anyone who remembers them around the time knows they can't all be good ones 😂

I was probably more sensitive to it when I was younger. A few of the albums I loved in my late teens were played on late 80's Ibanez SR800LE and SR1000E so I have a soft spot for those two models in particular. Cliff with his Aria and, before that, Ric, of course, definitely made an impression. I've tried to play as many different basses as I can over the years, though, and find what's right for me. Much as 4003s are cool, I can do without the bastarding right angle of the body digging into my forearm when I play. I've yet to find a Fender I'd want to keep forever, so it doesn't matter how many people play them, I just have no interest. I know what I like and I like what I like, these days, regardless of who played one or not. There's a definite period of late 80's to early 90's where I am drawn to instruments of that era but not because of any group of players, probably more that it was the time when I was really getting into playing bass and guitar. I also didn't have the money to explore the fantastic exotica of the time. Players, though? Nah, past that stage, I think.

The Original AC/DC isn't taken. Checkmate!

Paul Turneround and call Andertons.

To someone I don't know? Nope. Plain and simple.

Nope, that's how it came from the factory

Yep, my 77 had it too, which had a factory clear finish.

Sakae are not what they were.

Not all takeovers are Gibson/Fender seek and destroy missions. Korg resurrected Vox. It's not necessarily a death sentence here.

A pic would help to identify the model. It is an older SR1000e or one of the newer ones? My 89 has a Gotoh Omni-Adjust bridge. Later models came with an Ibanez unit, the Accu-Cast B IV Gotoh were pretty helpful when I contacted them about obscure bridge parts in the past https://g-gotoh.com/contact-us/?lang=en And I've heard Ibanez are responsive too https://www.ibanez.com/eu/support/contact/

Facebook and the likes are making it much harder to access information on their sites without logging on. As someone who doesn't participate in social media, I have given up clicking band links to FB/Instagram, etc. as it's usually a dead end. I'm a music buyer and a gig-goer but I've no interest joining Facebook to find out when your next gig is. I am not going to chase your information around the internet. I'm sure I'm not the only one, so I'd recommend every band have their information somewhere which doesn't require a log on. It doesn't need to be your own website, but don't put your info exclusively in the FB basket and think you have told the world.

They're not. They were hand made in Japan in the early 00's.

Nothing new to add, really, other than every time I pick up my Orion I think I could probably do without my other basses.

Here's the Venus with an 04 Standard 5. I think it was from 2003. Great bass, but I couldn't live without a forearm contour.

Looks like it took 21 minutes to come to that conclusion?

Yeah, that natural Venus used to be mine. Slab top, binding, no inlays.

I took up drumming about 7 years after I started playing bass. I saw bass and drums as musical bedfellows and definitely felt I get a better understanding of what I should be doing on a bass by playing drums. I ended up playing drums for a few bands in the late 90's. After about 10 years of not drumming, I took up sticks again a few years ago. It's great fun, helps me musically and is also a real challenge to get good at. I'd recommend it to everyone.

Indeed 😂 Please excuse me, I'm off to let everyone know where Chelsea United went wrong on Saturday in the FA World Championship Final

It's gas to see so many who dismiss it as a joke, avoid it, don't like it and haven't listened to the music, still weighing in with their insightful interpretation of the event they didn't watch, simmering with outrage at how unfair it all is 😂 The voting, Ukraine aside, was, if anything, less geographically motivated than usual and certainly anything but political. The UK won the jury voting, Ukraine came fourth, behind Spain and Sweden. The juries consist of music industry types and musicians. If there was a grand political vote at play, surely it would be seen in the public voting? However, the UK came 5th in the public vote, even behind Serbia, whose stance on the Ukraine invasion is, at best, lamentable. Boris and Truss have made a lot of noise recent weeks but the UK's reluctance to take in refugees has not been forgotten. Still, surely the UK would at least be ahead of Serbia in public opinion if there was a political slant to the public voting? What has Spain done, politically, to get public votes other than send an attractive, scantily clad lady with a very well choreographed and performed song (whether it is to your tastes or not, it's the kind of thing the young people seem to like) for three minutes of well executed light entertainment? Moldova's bar-room punk polka didn't go anywhere with the juries but the crowd on both Tuesday and Saturday absolutley loved it, so it's no surprise the public voted for it. Serbia's quirky effort was very memorable and well done, for what it was. It's worth mentioning that, even if you didn't like Ukraine's song (if you even heard it), the mixing of traditional and modern music styles, including hip-hop and electronic music, is quite popular in the East. Quite a few former Soviet states are reasserting their cultural history, after years of oppression, and mixing it with modern music. It's a big thing, just listen to Shum by Go_A from last year. Ukraine's song was not without merit. This year, the UK sent a very likeable guy with a great voice and a massive social media following, along with a song which people seemed to enjoy listening to. I mean, it's possible people voted for him because Boris visited Kyiv long after the Premiers of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia had done the same thing but, let's be honest, it's very, very unlikely. It's a Saturday night light-entertainment show. Occasionally, one must trust Occam's Razor. This is one of them 😉

Got to have some Jim Glennie from James 🙂

Don't worry, young people, there'll be a thread for bands "featuring..." coming along any day now.

Speaking of political voting, I thought it was great to see Spain's post-Franco progression into a vibrant democracy finally being recognised by the teenagers of Europe.