Barking Spiders

As I work I'm going through excellent Underworld's Drift box , one of my fave tracks being pretty untypical of the duo and reminiscent of their Freur days

Between the age of 6 and 11 I mostly listened to my dad's eclectic collection of 45s and 78s. Fave platters were an EP by the Red Army Ensemble which had tunes The Brave Don Cossacks and Song of the Plains, Guantanamera by The Sandpipers and Going Home by Ken Colyer's Jazzmen. When around 12 I tried some of my oldest brother's metal/hard rock and prog albums from the late 70s/early 80s hated them from the off, much preferring my older sister's 70s collection of mostly 45s' which, included Sparks, Hello, Glitter Band ...A year or so later I half inched my other sister's collection of punk 45s and then that nailed it for me. Still listen to my own collection of first wave punk albums and singles and they still sound fresher than 99% of contemporary stuff today

I've had three fretlesses over the last 20 years - Dean, Vintage and Cort - and have sold all 3. I really only bought them because of the 'mwah' sounds of Mick Karn in Japan and Pino Palladino on No Parlez but you can't just play like that on every song. Other than the 'mwah' sound I don't see much point in them. Might as well stick with fretted. Unlined fretlesses look cool admittedly, while lined ones are a bit like trainer wheels on bicycles.

Pixies are arguably my fave rock band, based on their original four albums. I've had several chances to see them in the reformed line-up but haven't as I don't want to risk tarnishing my memory of seeing them live in their heyday

Recently got myself remasters of The Chameleons first two brilliant albums. By my reckoning they were the best of the 80s post punk bands, alongside House of Love. Here's a corking tune from What Does Anything Mean Basically...

Oh I dunno, makes sense to me if you were a newbie stringing for the first time. Kind of has a logic to it

You'd think so but the computer say no!. The metal community is most definitely missing a trick here

Not quite.... there is such a thing called imperforate anus where the hole is missing or blocked! So the number of opinions > number of ani.. Judging by the above vid of Tina Weymouth it looks like either she might have one herself or she's celebrating its treatment

Guitar/bass shredding's definitely a competition. I mean there's no musicality, nowt you can whistle, no song structure, no feeling, no soul, nothing that bears any resemblance to music as most peeps understand it etc so by default competitiveness is all that's left. I rest my case m'lud.

Go through your Motown collection and isolate the bass parts, not just the James Jamerson tracks but also those featuring Bob Babbitt and Nate Watts (specifically Stevie Wonder albums). Another great player used by SW was Scott Edwards, who also played on loads of classic disco/soul tunes by the likes of Tavares, Hall & Oates, Aretha Franklin, Bozz Scaggs and hundreds more. Two other players I 100% recommend are Bernard Edwards (obvious but essential) and Leon Sylvers III who produces and plays bass on Solar albums by e.g Shalamar, The Whispers etc. My personal #1 is Louis Johnson. Just check him out on any Brothers Johnson stuff but also Jacko's Off the Wall and Thriller.

No steps close to any bass players I quite like. I've been living in around the Costwolds region for a long time now. A decade plus ago me and my then missus got lost while out walking and nearing a house we approached a lady who looked vaguely familiar and asked for directions back to our starting point. Seems we'd inadvertently ended up trespassing on her land but she was very pleasant about it and didn't threaten us with a 12-bore either, which was nice. It were Sade no less. Also shared a urinal with Keith Allen in a pub...kinda, there were two vacant ones between us though!

Not heard this before but seeing MM is on bass sold it to me. Good stuff👍

More great lost tunes from the 80s... First up, this which features a cracking bassline from no less than Mark King And on the subject of bass players, here's a long lost funky dance number from 1984 by Brilliant which featured Youth from Killing Joke and a pre-KLF Jimmy Cauty Finishing off with the vastly underrated Fashion whose great album Fabrique has some tasty bass sounds..

Thanks but I've seen this too. Pre-sale means first dabs to members/subscribers etc rather than the general public. Nowhere mentions day tickets on sale to the general public

My missus wants to see Metallica and would be going with others as I'm not interested. However, because I bailed out of Sonisphere 2014 and she missed them then I said I'd pay for her to go and see them at Download. I've checked Ticketmaster, Eventim, LiveNation etc websites but there's no mention of day ticket sales. Anyone got any idea?

Much modern / current mainstream stuff is dire mainly because most of it's made to a formula using certain well worn chord progressions,very limited dynamics, computerised instrumentation, excessive use of Autotune. etc etc. That said even in our formative years most contemporary stuff we'd have heard on the radio was disposable toot while a lot of non-mainstream /underground stuff was dire...or so you came to realise as fully matured adults. I'm now 52 so the 80s was my era. I still enjoy listening to a fair bit of post-punk and synth/electronica bands while the stuff I couldn't stand back then I still can't and some bands whose music I thought was great then I now avoid like a dose of botulism e.g. The Smiths, Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, The Wedding Present, The Cure..... Some modern stuff is OK which I often find through Rick Beato's YT channel when he goes through what's in the Spotify/iTunes top 10 etc. It mostly seems to be music rooted in country and not Cardi B 🤬I do own both Sigrid albums, which are terrific slices of electro pop. Also have Future Nostalgia by Dua Lipa which is also great and the Weeknd's last two albums.

On an 80s post punk ting this weekend. Here are three belters from three very underrated bands IMO..

If I were still playing in bands it'd 100% have to be the -ocracy model. I've been in several bands 'led' by 'it's my band' types who only wanted me to play simple root notes sh**. I never stayed around long enough

I'm down to just a Sterling By Music Man StingRay Ray4HH Bass Candy Apple Red and a Cort GB64JJ in natural finish. Other than a bit of bridge adjustment to cut out a bit of fret buzz past the 15th fret viz the Ray, I'm 100% happy with what I've got. If I was minted I might go for US-made StingRay and a Fender Jazz of some vintage but as I'm now just a hobbyist I can't justify shelling out the wonga on those.

TBH I didn't realise he hadn't died long ago considering his prodigious....ahem... 'tastes'

These days I frequently find myself wishing I could be back in the 80s on a loop. Best decade of my life. Here a couple of bangers from Simple Minds that take me right back...

Most of my fave bands are from the electronica genre but I feel a slight shudder if I read an article where it's said such and such was influenced by Pink Floyd or...gulp... Prog!!!. This heinous accusation is sometimes levelled at The Orb and at Banco de Gaia. Utter tosh though as both acts owe a much bigger debt to dub, Kraftwerk, other krautrock bands and Arabic music.

Thing is where do prog rock musicians figure on the sh@g-a-groupie scale and what is the hot babes:males in audience ratio? SAG scale: Go home alone to bedsit with Dominos pizza------------------------------------------------------------------> go back to hotel suite with at least half a dozen 20 year old groupies and a couple of sacks of charlie I'm thinking there are no prog musicians at the right end while if you're in Motley Crue you're probably likely to have fallen off it

I really like the original and I like that reggae version equally. As I see it what % of Dog & Duck punters would know a Weeknd tune if it smacked them in the kisser? From what I see of your average Dog & Duck patron, probably less than 10%. Now, if you were to play in a student bar/venue then you'd be quids in. Fraid I don't care for that Feuerschwanz cover though.

I'm with your drummer on this one 100%. There are certain bands whose music I wouldn't touch with several bargepoles end to end and so would never join any band that covered them. I've only ever played in bands that specialised in funk and soul as I don't strongly dislike any songs in those genres enough not to play them.