Russ

Yep, they've really upped their game in recent years. It's not just for little sites, or people who have just outgrown Etsy any more. We've been seriously considering the possibility of moving my employer's site over to it, since Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a pain in the ar$e.

Lots of big guitar companies use Shopify, including Fender. Gibson also just moved their entire online store to it. This is probably meaningless to anyone not involved in webdev, but you can see the Shopify config code right there in the Fender site's pages.

Yep, it's just a holding page for a Shopify site. They all look like that.

There was a ton of stuff earlier today, random stuff about how to contact airlines and stupid stuff like that. Dropped Kiwi a line, and next time I looked, it was all gone.

The overseas-built MTDs, in my experience, are a mixed bag. I've played some lovely ones, and some that just felt "dead" - you know, like they have no vibe to them whatsoever. When they're good, they're very good though, but try before you buy. On the other hand, everything that comes out of Mike Tobias' workshop is superb, and they sound like nothing else.

We’re never going to see his like again. He was the ultimate musical and intellectual product of an era that has now passed, and he was pretty much at the pinnacle of the first-call session bassist mountain. RIP. I had the good fortune to try out an AJ Presentation bass when I visited Fodera about 10 years back. I’ve never played a bass that sounded so much like a piano in the low register - stunning thing. One pickup, no controls, straight to an XLR out. Unbelievably clear and deep. Huge and heavy, though - no wonder he played it sitting down!

It sounds nice for a one-knob compressor. It's not quite the Trace dual-band compressor, which is still, for me, the gold standard for onboard compressors, but it's good. Personally, I prefer to do most of my tone shaping, including compression, outside of the head and mostly just use the EQ on the head to adjust for the room (adjust bass and low mids for a boomy or solid stage, more mids for a smaller room, etc).

For me, MTV died when they took Headbanger's Ball off air and started filling it with reality TV. It hasn't existed in its original form for over 20 years at this point. No great loss and was inevitable, really. If people want to watch music videos these days, they have Youtube, although they're at the mercy of the Youtube algorithm when it comes to being exposed to new music.

I have to say, I've never played a Tune I didn't like. Quality Japanese construction, nice pickups and comfy necks. I craved a Bass Maniac when I first started playing, but settled for a very similar-looking Bass Collection.

Met him at the London Bass Show back in 2014 or so. He was there showing off his new-at-the-time Cort basses. Had a short conversation with him, but didn’t want to bring up any of his controversial stuff, about practicing with metronomes and so on. I also met Lee Sklar there, who was far nicer, more approachable and happy to talk to anyone who came up to him.

She was a regular there for quite a while, maybe she still is. I know she used to have a very nice custom Sei.

Maybe they will do some new music. All we know right now is that they're playing some shows next year. Geddy and Alex are both in their 70s now, and, as you have pointed out, have other things going on. I doubt that two septuagenarians would be putting themselves through the rigours of touring again unless it was something they really wanted to do rather than just doing it for the money.

Agreed about The Who. But they did it anyway, and they've still been out there selling out huge venues. Arguably they're in an even worse situation, with only 50% of the band still being alive! As for Zep, I thought the 2007 Celebration Day reunion gig was great - Jason smashed it, and as a two-nights-only thing, it was enough to cement their legacy, plus we got a good 4K Blu-Ray out of it, for all of us who wore out our VHS copies of The Song Remains The Same! You could apply this to any number of other bands with dead/retired members - I hear it a lot about Queen, for instance. I feel the same way about them that I feel about this Rush tour - people want to hear this music, preferably with the involvement of as many of the original musicians as possible. And that's what they get. I have no issue with Bri and Rog getting up there with Adam Lambert and bashing out We Will Rock You, in exactly the same way that I will have no issues with hearing Geddy and Alex doing The Spirit Of Radio with Aneke on drums. The same way that McCartney still gets up there and does Beatles songs at the age of 83. Their legacies are no less secure for them still wanting to go out there and play their songs. For me, I just want them to get the setlist right - the classics, of course, but also make sure their newer stuff is represented too!

If we're still on this side of the pond next summer, we're definitely going. NY is closer, but I'd love to go to the Toronto show and get those hometown vibes. Not seen Rush since Wembley Arena in 1992 and I'd love to see them again. Anika is a monster drummer and will be a great successor for Neil. I'm sure there's people out there who might have preferred to see Danny Carey or Mike Portnoy, but I think she's a great choice. She's got the chops and the groove to do it justice. As for those thinking this is cynical - it's been ten years. It's their band and the fact that they haven't done anything for ten years suggests that they are doing this on their own terms. And it's being done with the full blessing on Neil's family. The Foo Fighters were back out there a few months after Taylor Hawkins passed away and you didn't find too many people saying that about them. The Who had a gig three days after John Entwistle died!

Great instuments, but very different to a Rob Allen. They're full scale and have a more conventionally electric tone. Get one if you can though, Status are still making them as of right now, and apparently actually have a couple of them in stock.