Russ

The whole Yorkshire “behs” schtick got painfully old after about 10 seconds. And I cringe at his YT shorts. But his proper videos have some decent bass content.

Incidentally, regarding the "old way" of recording and promoting music, kids starting out in music back in the day would have killed to have Youtube, TikTok, etc, not to mention powerful recording software that works on a home computer or iPad. I was there, in a band, recording bad-sounding demos on a Tascam Portastudio, then handing out tapes with awful, dot-matrix-printed cassette inlays to anyone who'd have them and hoping they wouldn't end up in the bin. Duplicating tapes was expensive. It was even more expensive when CD-Rs came out. It was sh*t. Getting to record in a proper recording studio was expensive and out of the reach of many young people - maybe one of your band members' dads was a stockbroker and had the money to pay for that sort of thing. The closest thing to social media was the "zine scene", which kinda relied on you knowing people who could write nice things about your band in what was basically a photocopied leaflet handed out at gigs, and which would almost certainly also end up in the bin. Everyone aspired to be signed, but conveniently forgot that meant that, all of a sudden, a whole bunch of non-musicians suddenly had a say over everything you did, and your viability as a "product" was suddenly completely out of your hands. You were completely at the whims of musical fashions and the opinions of the music press. This was also sh*t. I vastly prefer things the way they are now. Music has been democratised. Yes, the pool is far bigger than it once was, but it's also far, far deeper. There's something out there for everyone, and it's ridiculously easy for a musician to become a part of that.

It took Metallica five albums to break through back in the day. Most of their contemporaries never really broke through - Exodus, Anthrax, Megadeth, Over Kill and so on. They had the odd hit, but never really went fully mainstream. These bands still headline festivals worldwide. They're still around and doing OK. Many other, younger bands who have come up in this era of Spotify and Youtube are up there with them on these festival bills, and will also do OK. The model has changed. The music has evolved. The methods of making music are much, much better now. But good songs are still being written, people are listening to them, and people are still making a living from it. Which brings me to Charles Berthoud. The man is an excellent musician, educated at Berklee (which is why he relocated to the US), plays several instruments extremely well (he also plays piano and guitar to almost as high a standard as he plays bass), is an fantastic composer and arranger, and he's found an outlet to make a living from his skills. He knows the game has changed, and he's adapted to this new reality. There's also more than a whiff of gatekeeping bass snobbery here - if you look at guitarists who do the same thing (I'm thinking the likes of Bernth, Ola Englund, Eric Calderone, Sophie Burrell, Alexandr Misko, even well-established guitar legends like Jom Gomm, Andy McKee and Tommy Emmanuel) they don't get half as much grief as Charles, Davie, Danny Sapko and so on. Is it because they're bass players playing non-traditional bass parts and daring to push the boundaries a bit? I wish him all the luck in the world, and I hope to continue to be entertained by him for many more years.

I'd like to see a new Marshall bass head with a Class D power section, at least 800W of grunt, and the hybrid preamp section from the DBS heads (although maybe without the graphic, since they're "out" right now). In black and gold, with matching lightweight cabs with the Marshall logo prominently displayed. Do what Trace did with the TE-1200 - retain the classic tone, but modernise and simplify. They're iconic as a brand. I'd be more than happy to use one, assuming it sounded good and didn't break down like the MB amps used to. Chris Wolstenholme swore by DBS gear for years, and apparently bought up almost every used one he could find. I think he's switched to Markbass now, but those old Muse albums were all Marshall DBS.

They were stunningly good amps for the time. Their successors, the MB series, were pretty good too, but had some serious reliability issues. Plus, the didn't have the classic black 'n' gold livery... Now that Marshall are under new ownership, maybe they could start building bass gear again? After they bought out Eden, they said they didn't need to because they had a sub-brand for bass, but they've long since offloaded them now.

Holy crapulence. $24k for the sixer. 😮 And someone bought it too...

I wonder if any of his custom Spectors are going to be in the sale? I really liked that different body shape, and I've never seen one in person.

Nikko Whitworth, the former bass player from Unleash The Archers, uses fifths tuning. He's got a great, Matt Garrison-style thumb-and-fingers picking technique too.

I had a very short-lived endorsement with Warwick back in 2003, back when the band I was in at the time was doing OK, and Warwick had very few UK-based endorsers. I got them to make me a 5-string Streamer Jazzman for 20% below trade price. I got it, and the neck was... horrendous. Super-thick and hard to play. Sounded good, but it made my hand cramp up! I ended up basically saying to them, "thanks, but no thanks" and called things off, and I sold the Streamer for quite a lot more than I paid for it, so it all worked out in the end.

My sister-in-law is trans. I’ve heard some of the cr@p that she had to put up with. Some people just can’t live and let live - how does someone they don’t know dressing differently and using different pronouns affect them at all?

Lobster's back. Something seems different this time, maybe it's the studio?

I know he just toured with them for the first time in years. I think Josh Paul was playing with them before Rob came back. Hopefully they'll do some new material. Tye Trujillo, Rob's son, is also shaping up to be a very good bass player. He toured with Korn after Fieldy went on hiatus, played with Suicidal Tendencies after their bass player, Ra Diaz, went off to Korn to replace Fieldy on a more permanent basis, and has his own band. I think it's cool that they share a love and appreciation of Jaco despite coming from two different musical worlds - Marcus was talking about Jaco being his mentor and friend, and Rob made a documentary film about him and is the owner/custodian of the Bass Of Doom!

Great vid. Lots of fun to see Marcus rocking out with Trujillo during the jam at the end! Trujillo needs a new side project - I want to hear him doing his thing like he did in Infectious Grooves, Mass Mental and so on. Musically, he’s a bit wasted in Metallica, but I believe the salary is good.

I think Ampeg have a bit of a reputation problem right now, thanks to their previous generation Class D stuff. That’s why I’m not getting one (yet). Plus, I don’t think it’s a particularly attractive-looking thing. Big, sticky-out knobs, fiddly, fragile-looking little switches, and so on. I can overlook that if the sound is good and it’s going to be reliable, but, a) nobody seems to be able to tell me if they sound any good, and b) they haven’t really been out long enough to have a good measure of their reliability. Additionally, it’s a bit of a harder time to be an amp company. With the rise of modellers, IEMs, etc, less people are buying amps these days in general.

Always thought he sounded more Midlands than Yorkshire. Although the "BEHS" thing does suggest Yorkshire! EDIT: Bradford, apparently. I stand corrected.

Great player. But I find his "comedy Brummie" schtick tiresome and unfunny. Same reason I have no time for Davie, despite him being a good player.

Nice, but I’m really not on board with the whole headless thing. They’ve always just felt completely wrong in my hands, ever since I first tried an old Hohner Jack headless in the early 90s. I tried out a Strandberg bass last year, and it was a lovely thing - light, punchy and comfortable (my back loved the lightness!), but it still had that same issue as the old Hohner. The balance is off, and, for your left hand, it just feels like you run out of neck. I can see why they did it - if they want to use that same singlecut body shape they use for their guitars, adding a headstock is going to unbalance it. I’d have hoped they’d come up with a better design to compensate for that and still have a headstock.

My Sei singlecut 5 is a wonderful, amazing bass that I will never part with, but it’s had various neck issues over the years - that’s despite having a theoretically very stable wenge/bubinga construction, with carbon reinforcement rods. I had to have compression fretting done on it, followed by sending it back to Martin & co for a neck “reset”. It’s been behaving itself ever since, so hopefully it stays that way.

Now that these have been out in the wild for a while, has anyone got experience with them in a live environment? I'm wondering if they have inherited the reliability and QC issues from the old Portaflex and SVT-7 heads. Basically, I'd love to buy one - the Ampeg tone is peerless to my ears, but, as someone who's owned both a PF-800 and an SVT-7 before and had them both crap out on me at gigs, I'm cautious and maybe a bit sceptical. I've heard that since Yamaha bought Ampeg, things have got a lot better, but I'd like to hear some first-hand experience. I've heard a couple of scare stories, like the V12 being unusually quiet for something with so much power. Anyone?

There's been some decent rock stuff that might appeal to the white, male, over-40s crowd in Eurovision over the past few years. I'm white, male, and 51 and I thought Baby Lasagna from Croatia were good this year, Voyager from Australia were fantastic last year (Alex Canion from Voyager is a hell of a bass player too), Sam Ryder did a great job the year before, and Maneskin brought the glam the year before that. It's usually in there, in amongst the assorted "quirky" Eurovision fare.

Sam had stage presence, charisma, talent, and, most importantly, a really good song. He deserved his spot. When the UK delivers the goods, people vote for us. Most of the time we don't! Olly's song was forgettable, had no hook or memorable chorus, and, yes, the general homo-eroticism of the performance might have turned some people off. The staging was cool though. Switzerland earned their win. It was the only song with a proper "earworm" hook, and the staging was incredibly clever. And I also liked the Croatian entry - like a more poppy Rammstein. Ireland's Bambie Thug was also a great, very original performance and a good song. They're actually pretty talented - if you look on Youtube, you'll find videos of them performing some of their songs solo on piano, and they're great.

Always wanted a '72 Jazz. Then I played a few. The ones I tried were all massively expensive, incredibly heavy, the condition was far beyond "relic", into the realm of "battered to sh*t", and they all had that horrible gappy neck pocket that a lot of 70s Fenders had. Maybe I just never found a good one, but I'd prefer a 70s reissue at this point! There's probably some other, more esoteric options out there rather than an old Fender, but I haven't come across anything I'd actually want.

I used to have a SVT-7. And I ran into the cutting out issue during a gig, in the middle of the first song. Which is a shame, as it was a fantastic-sounding head, with just the right amount of "hair" to the tone, and gobs of power. I got it fixed and immediately sold it on. Supposedly the defect has been addressed on newer versions of the head. I've been tempted to get another, but it's a gamble I don't think I want to make. Apparently the new Venture series heads nail the SVT tone, but I've not had a chance to try one yet, and it'll be a "simulated" version, since they have no valves. Now that Ampeg is part of Yamaha, the QC is supposedly much better than it was. But, y'know, once bitten and all that.

It's a cool toy, never seen a 3D configurator before. Very nicely done. But I'm a Bongo guy - once they start offering those through the configurator, I'm in. My bank account will hate me though...

Great idea, but it kinda works backwards - the fingerboard should come up rather than the frets going down, otherwise the action is going to be too high for the fretless mode. The Novatone swappable magnetic fingerboards that were a thing back in the early 90s were cool though.