Doctor J

His drumming isn't poor, it's genuinely terrible. He was decent, back in the day. Definitely. After the black album, he stopped practising and he's really, really bad. Once Metallica became 'tallica, that's where it turned to sheeeeite. Listen to any of the live stuff from the last 25 years in where he chucks in one bass drum strike per verse on the fast stuff. Nah, I don't actively dislike the guy - he's the only one who cones out of SKOM with any credit at all - and he does come across as immensely dislikable quite frequently, but I will not stand idly by and watch people defend his drumming. No. I'm not having that. On a related tangent, Mustaine has claimed that Metaliica had Dave Lombardo lined up to replace Lars at the end of the Puppets touring. Cliff's death stopped that from happening, of course. Lombardo was out of Slayer at the time so there a whiff of plausibility to it. When Lombardo played Battery in 2006 with them (I think) we caught a glimpse of what might have been.

Just because one is dim doesn't mean one can't be nice.

I saw Gorerotted many years ago, supporting Cryptopsy. They had a song called "Masticated by the Spasticated", which made me chuckle. I give it to them, that is a truly spectacular song title. I was more offended by their music, really, really not to my taste. I've played on bills with plenty of Grind and, even better, Goregrind bands. A lot of those lads spend more time coming up with manky titles than writing riffs. Very few of them lived out their lyrics, I'm quite sure. Getting offended over musical fantasy is like getting offended by horror or gore movies and books. Intent is everything. Art does not mean the artist lives it out in the real world, or wants to live it out in the real world. There are, of course, plenty of bands using music as a means to push a shitty political agenda which they genuinely believe in. Get offended at that.

So yeah then, considering they never played The Frayed Ends of Sanity, Dyer's Eve or To Live is to Die when Newsted was in the band so there were no live performances to watch or listen to 😉 It's a fine effort, a really fine effort, but the three or four solo tracks of Newsted's original playing are absolutely ferocious and you can't replicate that without using a plec - and I say this as someone who plays with fingers 99% of time.

Here's the other side of that story "We had to get the drum sound up the way he had it. I wasn't a fan of it. So now he goes, "See the bass guitar?" and I said, "Yeah, great part, man. He killed it." He said, "I want you to bring down the bass where you can barely, audibly hear it in the mix." I said, "You're kidding. Right?" He said, "No. Bring it down." I bring it down to that level and he says, "Now drop it down another 5 db." I turned around and looked at Hetfield and said, "He's serious?" It just blew me away. https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/interviews/steve_thompson_when_lars_asked_me_what_happened_to_the_bass_in__justice_i_wanted_to_cold_cock_him.html

The real crime was not getting it mixed properly, at last, for the 30th anniversary edition. They could have had a remastered disk with the original mix and a second disk with whoever giving it a decent mix. They could have righted a very big wrong but, rather spitefully, stick to their guns. They were wrong, they know it, and still refuse to acknowledge it. Those "with bass" albums, as far as I'm aware the only Newsted studio tracks which ever came out were the 4 or 5 on Guitar Hero, so there is no full album with Newsted on every track. Everything else is some dudes playing what they think the basslines are. The irony of "...and Justice For Jason" was that Newsted still couldn't be heard on it.

Some of the roadworn models sported it too, quite bizarrely. When the guitar solo goes on so long you can't even get back to your smoke, oh the humanity!

Pluck the string the other side of the nut, is this the same sound? Also, while fretted, pluck between where it's fretted and the nut. I think the sounds you're hearing are there.

I love how Ibanez (and several other Japanese instrument manufacturers) operate, continual evolution. They're not content to regurgitate the same old stuff year after year. There are some retro orientated instruments but they're continually pushing the range forward, keeping it contemporary. It's not for everyone, granted, but they stake everything on their instruments being modern and technologically up-to-date. It's a brave way to do business in a frequently backwards-looking and overly-sentimental industry. I'm gassing badly for a nice RG at the moment 🙂

Perhaps some Eerie Von stuff off the first 4 Danzig albums? Great songs but no fretboard gymnastics required in order to play along.

Probably less than what it looks like they did, which is fix an additional wood laminate beyond the nut, as it's not a nut in a slot, it is at the end of the fretboard.

Obviously, flush mounting clock hands so they don't clear the G and A tuners would largely, if not entirely, defeat the purpose 😂

Four Sabbath song titles in two sentences? I doff my cap in your direction.

You're into watches and such? You could fit a clock motor on the back, mount the hands through the hole where the D tuner used to be and, voila, a precision timepiece for a homestead wall.

Also, if you haven't seen this, this is an entertaining way to pass 90 minutes 🙂

There should have been some Tad or Gruntruck love. Both grunge, both released material in the 90's. Perhaps they didn't shift enough units.

The other bit is the missing link in the early UK Brit Funk scene - a headless Fender whose ghost was said to haunt Macari's but it turned out to be the janitor all along, fella by the name of Carlos Sultana, you had to be there.

Good idea! For me, 1970 is all about this Bit of a leap from James Taylor, granted 🙂

😂 Good one!

Yeah, the first Chic album is P and, for the rest of that era, including Sister Sledge, Diana Ross, Shiela B, etc, it was almost all Stingray in the studio. Did I read correctly that John Taylor owns Bernard's Stingray now?

The thing to be careful of with fancy switching is to make sure you're running coils in series at every point. Most switches facilitate parallel wiring and I'd imagine it could get very complicated indeed to ensure you're always running one coil into the next and then to the output. If you're not running in series, you're not getting real P tone.

Andy is right, it's a BC Rich Eagle, but you're hearing his Stingray. I recall an interview with Marcus Miller where Bernard told him he used the BC Rich basses for performances like this because they looked cool but he thought they sounded terrible.

Skipped through a few tracks and they sounded fine to me.

I'll start by being clear I've never played a Ray34 or a Ray35, I have no idea what they're like, so this is half speculation and half my own experience with EBMM Stingrays. I picked up my 3rd proper EBMM Stingray, a mid-90's one with the fancy neck, in a trade a few months ago. All three have all been lovely basses, for sure, but I sold the first two over the years. I'm thinking I'll probably sell this one eventually, too. As I say, it's a really nice bass, I have no complaints, it's really nice. However, I honestly think it's worth more as a trade item or if I sell it than it is as a bass. What I mean by that is I can pick up what I think would be an equally good or better bass for less money, albeit from a less fashionable/prestigious brand. That's just me, though. I sold my first Stingray when I picked up a Godlyke for half the money on the forum here. It could do everything the Stingray could do and more, was better built, IMO, and was a bit sexier too. I still have it. I bought and sold another Stingray since. @martthebass is bang on, I think. It's an itch you just have to scratch. Been there, bought the t-shirt, etc. The only way you're going to know is to get a full-on EBMM Stingray. Just don't expect a night and day difference for the extra outlay. They're consistently great basses and It might just be the bass you always wanted but it also might not be everything you think it might be. I appreciate this is probably not helpful at all.

120bpm? Do you want a speeding ticket? That's disco, man. Do you doom on gallons of Red Bull? 😂 We've gone down to 45bpm for some stuff. Doom is double-digit bpm at the very most 😁