Russ

2024 can do one. I was unemployed for 3 months, one of my cats got cancer and passed away, the band was out of action for most of the year (firstly our drummer's mum died and he was overseas for 3 months, then our guitarist had a mental health episode and was out of action for another 4 months), and then there was all the Tr**p f**kery in November. I am so ready for it to be over. Not sure 2025 is looking much better though. The world is truly going to s**t at the moment.

I think you’ll find the vast majority of Brits here on Basschat (as well as most of the rest of the world) are utterly appalled with the results of the recent election in the US. And, as a Brit currently living in the US, I’ll add my name to that list. As well as the names of pretty much everyone I know here (all of whom are “normal” Americans).

It's US-based and most of its users are American. There is a decent number of non-US folk on there though, who sometimes have to remind the US-ians of strangely obvious things like how, elsewhere in the world, US Fenders are the foreign imports... little things like that don't occur to them! I'd strongly advise anyone from overseas to stay out of the TB Lounge section of the site if they're a paying member... some of the discussion in there gets ugly, is very US-centric, and some of them don't seem to like hearing from foriegners.

We're allowed to digress where relevant, and it's definitely relevant, when Sire are doing a better lower-priced MM-style bass than MM themselves. The Z series sound more like a proper Stingray than any of the Sterling range, whether it's the new cheap ones or the more expensive ones. There were similar discussions back in the day when Ibanez came out with the ATK range, which sounded much more Stingray-ish than the "official" lower-priced Stingrays of the time, the OLP range. On the upside, maybe this will encourage MM to up their game.

Not sure the MG analogy holds water - remember the MG Metro, Maestro and Montego, the ZR/ZS/ZT, etc? It's not like they haven't tried to reinvent themselves before! But, for anyone who really wants an MGB, there's plenty of old ones out there, the same way there's plenty of old Shergolds out there. MG decided they want a new, younger demographic, not men in their fifties and sixties whose dads might have owned an MGA or MGB. It's a rather limited market, after all. Similarly, Shergold have identified who they want their audience to be this time around. Younger guitarists who want something with a classic name but modern design - not the small-ish number of older players who probably have the means to buy a proper vintage Shergold anyway.

Agreed. They could do what Eastwood do - just churn out cheap reissues, or they could do something new. I’m actually quite happy they’re doing the latter. They’ve taken the less easy option. There’s plenty of old, used Shergolds out there, and, for the most part, they’re not expensive for vintage instruments - why bother with a reissue when there’s quite a few originals out there that aren’t selling for silly money?

The old Shergolds had big paddle headstocks - most modern guitar makers wouldn't do that now because they're more aware of balance and ergonomics, and big headstocks make instruments neck-heavy. I'm sure there'll be either a reissue series or a series of updated versions of classic models eventually, but I don't think that's what they're interested in right now. They want to be relatively contemporary, and basically sell a ton of instruments to British indie bands. There's always the Wilcock range if you want something that looks a bit like an old Shergold.

The new ones are all designed by Patrick Eggle (who used to make those PRS-ish guitars back in the day) and are original designs. I'm sure they'll come out with some reissues eventually, but they're pushing the new stuff right now. Personally, I'd have thought doing things round the other way would make the most sense, but it's up to them!

I already have them. Maruszczyk Frog 6A Swamp ash bodies, quilted ash tops with "ceruse" finish. Roasted maple necks Ebony fingerboards Delano Xtender pickups w/ramp Noll 4-band EQ, with series/parallel/singlecoil switches Black hardware (with coloured knobs to match the ceruse colour - blue on the fretted, red on the fretless) Luminlay block inlays on the fretted, Luminlay side dots on both I guess people have been taking notice of my basses, as I've noticed that Maruszczyk have subsequently built several others to the same spec!

Yep, they restyled the Z series before release because they got a lot of comments that the bottom horn on the pre-production models looked too "bulbous". Looks a lot better now. Nice to see a manufacturer taking feedback from customers before the instrument is even released! Although they've obviously ignored any and all calls for them to redesign their fugly headstock!

+1 on the NuX. Or whatever Zoom pedal you can afford. Always hated living in badly built flats. I lived in one once and I had a very "pubby" couple living upstairs who would noisily fight regularly, things would crash and break, but then they'd make up, and it'd be even noisier (squeak, squeak, squeak... uhhh). I don't think my bass practice ever bothered them!

There is a risk, but it's minimal. If that happens, you either say it was there being repaired, or you feign ignorance and pay the fee.

You could probably fly to wherever it is in Europe on Easyjet, Ryanair, etc (even the Eurostar) and pick up the bass in person, and bring it back with you, probably with no questions asked, for less than the cost of the VAT, import duty, etc. Customs are going to be keeping an eye out for shifty people with suitcases and unusual travel histories, not some bloke with a gig bag.

Great little venue, been there a bunch of times. They have everything on there, from touring, big-name bands to tribute bands, to local first-timers. Essex (certainly the bit from Southend up to Colchester) actually has a pretty great music scene - lots of places to play, and loads of bands. And people do actually go out to gigs!

All of them were. Bernth was the guitarist for Austrian black metal band Belphegor, and Ola Englund has been in a bunch of bands over the years, including Six Feet Under and Scarpoint, and currently plays with The Haunted. He also has his own band, Feared. I think my point is that, right now, they’re most known for being YouTubers rather than gigging musicians, and it’s good to remind people that they do a lot more than ar$e about in front of a camera.

It's good to see these Youtube musicians going out there and playing live. All three of these guys are fantastic musicians, and they will also be doing a song or two together. Gutted I won't be in the country to see it.

Revelation do a CAR P-bass (well, a PJ), the RPJ-77, they're not expensive, and they're actually rather good. https://www.revelationguitars.co.uk/guitar/rpj-77/ It's a proper CAR too, shiny and the right shade of red.

He definitely left a bit of a bad taste in our mouths with his behaviour that day. I've met quite a few "famous" musician types over the years, and most of them were very nice, normal people doing a job and glad that people liked what they do (Stu and Derrick were very much in this mould). Others were obviously living in their own little bubble and were nice enough but a bit weird, but very few were unpleasant and/or obnoxious. He was one of those few. Never really enjoyed Jamiroquai again after that, especially with their subsequent, post-Stu change in direction. The footballers were great - one of my colleagues at the studio was a huge fan of Spurs, and Jamie Redknapp in particular, to the degree that he named his son Jamie. He told that to Neil "Razor" Ruddock (one of the guys we had come down to do some mocap stuff for us) and he pulled up Redknapp's number on his mobile and called him up, and put my colleague on the phone with him. That made his year. Ruddock's a big softie really!

Interesting story... back in 1997 I was working for a video games company, and we had a motion capture studio that we would rent out to clients when we weren't using it for game stuff. One of the clients we got was Sony, who were making a Minidisc ad that was going to feature a little CG character made of Minidiscs that would morph into Jay Kay doing his funny dancing. So we had to motion-capture him doing the dance. The place was in a warehouse on a sleepy industrial estate in Croydon, and, even when we had big name people there (we did a football game where we got several Premier League players down) it was always quiet. Not on that day - the place was full of Sony people from Japan, they brought a Winnebago down for Jay Kay to use as a changing room (the Premier League footballers were perfectly happy to use the toilets) and then he shows up in a souped-up Mercedes. Stuart and Derrick were with him, and they hung out with us and were very cool, but Jay would only speak to my boss, and very much had that "I'm too important to talk to you" vibe going on. Everyone just thought, "d*ck". Still, we did the job. They made the ad, and I got a Jay Kay anecdote out of it. For what it's worth, this was the ad (or one of them, anyway - apparently they made several, but this was the only one I could find, and it doesn’t have the morphing thing):

I'd quite like to hear a whole album from these three. Berthoud holds his own here, he gets a solo, and some of the harmony parts him and Bernth are doing are fantastic. Shame Ola is kinda in the background of this one, although he did get the first solo.

I have a Behringer U-Phoria audio interface. I recently upgraded to a Universal Audio Volt and it's... a little bit better? Sound from the input into Logic is pretty much identical. Output sounds a little bit better (probably a better DAC in the Universal Audio interface). Not much in it, to be honest. I've still got the Behringer connected to one of my other computers.

Eve is no longer going, but Doug (Eve's main man) is a member of Bass Upfront on Facebook, and was saying recently that he's considering opening up, but only for custom commissions. I played some Eve basses back at the Bass Guitar Show in 2014. Lovely things. Incredibly light too.

Hasn’t Dirnt jumped ship back to Gibson? I’ve seen him pimping the new Epiphone version of the Grabber online recently. Or is he “non-exclusive”?

Hopefully they’re more like the Trace Elliot people then. I’ve heard good things about their current range of guitar amps, that they still have that wonderfully fuzzy Hiwatt sound, so hopefully someone there knows what they’re doing.

Abe Laboriel is an absolute monster, and, considering his sheer number of credits, should be far better known than he is. The man just bleeds groove, and has invented more techniques and different playing styles than practically anyone else! His son also plays drums for Paul McCartney... The only other players I can think of who just ooze groove the way he does are Bobby Vega and Richard Bona.