Stub Mandrel

More seriously, classifying music into genres is like classifying animals into species. It has no intrinsic value or meaning, it's just a handle that helps human beings conceptualise how different music/animals are related. For animals cladistics (bases of common ancestors) is far more objective and insightful, similarly a Pete Frame Family Tree tells you a lot more than grouping bands by genre. It's an analogy that will stand a fair degree of stretching, even if it isn't perfect.

Musical categories are just so Robert Christgau knows who to slag off.

Just received a set of Jazz bass mutes, great condition, in box with leaflet. Well packed, rapid despatch. Cheers!

If anyone has a set of '62 reverse action tuners going for a song, please send me a PM 🙂

Is it fair to say that most genres start off wide-ranging and fuzzy edges and become increasingly specialised, or at least subdivided into highly specialised sub-genres? I think for my daughter trying to explain drum'n'bass, American EDM, house music, R&B, techno, trance, dubstep...

Hello Sloppy Shroppies.

Their songs on the Woodstock album bear testament to that. For me, Truth by Jeff Beck is the earliest album I feel comfortable classing as heavy metal. Probably my best random album purchase ever. I don't feel Electric Flag or Iron Butterfly quite make it, for example.

But did it have width? We need to know.

Tortoiseshell scratch plates*. *How can they be pickguards if I don't use a pick**? **And even if I did, it would be a plectrum.

You should run bass building courses.

SQUEMAH! (I'll get my coat).

People buying Triumph, Enfield and Norton motorbikes (or even Minis) don't seem to share this squeamishnesh.

I'm looking at options for a light, mid-sized head that I can sue for small gigs but with the power if I need it to drive a full stack. I like the 'traditional' sound of Orange and Ampeg so front runners are Protaflex 350 or 500 or the OB1-500/300. Alternatively, Trace Elliot Elf, but would need a mild overdrive for some styles.

One thing that is usually missed is that heavy metal had its roots in heavy blues music, but it took a prog-like route towards more complex song structures and a wide range of influences and styles, rather than being loud, distorted rock and roll like AC/DC (very rooted in the blues). Possibly what stands out most about early heavy metal is the abundance of influences like folk, ballads and even jazz. <edit> when I was at uni, a lot of discussion revolved around whether, in the future, heavy metal and prog would be seen to be the successors to classical music. We certainly felt many classical composers would have been into the same music as us - Wagner, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky.

Does that make Elastica the progenitors of Heavy Rubber? I used to know (via a forum) a guy who re-programmed a vibrator to be replete with all sorts of adventurous variations. Apparent it was very much appreciated. He also designed an early LED luminaire that burnt down a petrol station due to an unforseen failure mode. This lead to some safety concerns about said toy... Back in my day Zeppelin, Sabbath and Deep Purple were your starting point for defining heavy metal. The question should be why has heavy metal forgotten its roots? And the answer is probably that most of the 70s heavy metal bands are now seen as passe and tame.

Are ALL Snow Patrol bass lines that boring?

I sooo need a cape like that.

Yeah, but he does have six number ones and his own record label - and writes for BTS. Oh, you mean Billy Sheeran...

I finally tried a Thunderbird (OK the upscale Epiphone version) and was surprised how well it balanced, to be honest. Still bordering on fugly, but I liked it.

I was there for this tour, I even have the t-shirt! I didn't know it had been recorded, and by the BBC too.

Like so many things it's all a matter of taste, but the internet seems designed to stop people accepting we can prefer different things. I tried out an active 2019 MIM Jazz A/B with a Flea Jazz (Custom shop '62 pickups) and the latter made the former sound awful, to my ears. I bet you'd have preferred them the other way round, and why not?

Massage in a Brothel... Not just covers though, I was in an originals band and we always rehearsed one song as "You Always Squirt the One You Love".

Would probably sound really strange... the A string would effectively have a weak humbucker pickup and the other four strings would have standard single coils My OCD wants the strings to sound like they are all on the same instrument!

The web tells me that the Orange 4x10 cab weighs 45kg/90lbs (can't be exact...) That's heavier than my Trace Elliot combo (43kg) which combines a 4x10 AND an amp carved from a neutron star. Is that weight correct?

Twerp 😁