SteveXFR

I've just finished Funeralopolis by Electric Wizard. I'm thinking of starting State of Non Return by Om next. I'm also trying to get Journey To The End Of East Bay by Rancid perfect at full speed.

I don't think I could honestly say the Epi is better. The USA Thunderbird is finished a bit nicer. I just don't think there's £1000 of difference. If it was £300 difference I'd probably go for the USA version. Having said that, I would do unspeakable things to own a bicentennial Thunderbird.

We've been lucky with our chickens. At night they're in their sheds and during the day our dogs keep foxes away. We probably lose 2 or 3 a year. What surprised me was when a fox took our geese.

There is a very big difference between animals reared on a traditional farm with a caring farmer and meat produced on a high volume farm which is more like a factory. I've spent time around both and I only buy meat which I know has come from good, local farms. I've seen what a domestic dog can do, I saw an Irish wolf hound attack a two day old miniature pony foal. It went straight for the throat. Fortunately the stallion kicked the dog and it ran off before it killed the foal but it went on to kill two goats before a farmer shot it. The dogs owner paid for the horses vet fees and the dead goats under threat of prosecution.

I've got a vegan strap from Heavy Leather, the Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein signature strap. It's not as nice as leather and it doesn't seem very durable. Very comfortable though

That was the first and probably last time I've used the word dang

A ridiculous idea but dang it sounds amazing. There is definitely a place for harp in doom metal.

Isn't Epiphone owned by Gibson? Or at least part of the same group of companies? The Gibson will always sell just because it's a Gibson. Maybe they can make more profit on a mass produced Epiphone than a had built Gibson so it makes better business to have a really good Epiphone and not spend on any R&D for the Gibson because improving it may not mean more sales.

Listening to some Om this morning on the way to the amp repair dude. Anything with Al Cisneros on bass is pretty awesome.

They may not have had the technical skill of the current top riders but they had balls the size of water melons, endless determination and heaps of personality. We snuck in to the paddock at Brands once, I shouted something (nothing intentionally rude) at Pierre Chilli and he threw a knee slider at me. Top result!

I've been enjoying a bit of Mutoid Man this afternoon. The bass tone on the intro to this song is absolutely disgusting 🤘👌🤘

I've bought a couple beringer pedals for my daughter. The Super Fuzz is superb, really decent on guitar or bass. The chromatic tuner is OK but struggles with low tunings, anything below a low D is hit and miss. My Boss TU3 is quite a lot better. My Behringer monitor headphones work well but the design of the body looks like they've tried to make them appear complicated and high tech, just like how you never see on high end monitor headphones. I might try a pair of Behringer monitor speakers.

My daughter started guitar lessons at school last year and the teacher only did classical guitar while she wanted to play Misfits and Hives. She got bored and didn't practice enough. She's moving up to the next school after the holidays and they have a really good guitar teacher who will teach the fundamental skills to be a great guitarist but apply them to music the kids enjoy. He taught my older daughter bass a few years ago and I remember he taught arpeggios through ska and used Megadeath to teach timing exercises.

I've started playing more punk recently and finding a tube preamp pedal really adds that bit of a nasty edge and clank that suits punk well without getting to a fizzy overdrive sound. I can get my Stingray sounding very close to the bass on Peaches by Stranglers.

I've started looking for some covers to learn something I haven't done since I joined an originals band but since we split covers makes sense but what I'm finding is I'm most enjoying playing songs I don't really listen to but I thought I'd have a go at for something different. I really don't like Red Hot Chilli Peppers but Righteous and the Wicked is really good to play. Same goes for Nice to know you by Incubus. Anyone else find songs you enjoy playing aren't the same as what you enjoy listening to?

I tried straight to amp and then tried a large pedal board and have settled on a simple pedal board with a tuner, fuzz, compressor and dual channel tube preamp. A really good quality compressor is really useful, I use an Origin Effects Cali76 to sharpen the attack and level out the volume. The preamp is great for shaping tone and adding a bit of drive.

There was a government enquiry in to it a few years ago but it all just went away for reasons entirely unrelated to the Ticketmaster director donating a large amount to the tory party.

This passes me off and it's the main reason I don't bother going to see big bands anymore. Usually the original ticket seller is sold out as soon as it goes on sale but then look on ticket ticketmaster and they've got hundreds of tickets as long as you don't mind paying at least double the face value of the ticket. Before the world ended I tied getting tickets for Faith No More at Brixton. Sold out before they went on sale and four times face value on ticketmaster.

The HB ISO 2 looks like it'll do the job. Is there a voltage selector switch for the 9/12/18v sockets?

It's fate! My band split today, two members moving away. I'm not what you'd traditionally call sexy but I'm not without my charms and my waistline is sufficient evidence that I have chops (or at least I did have)

It's a big step up from the old bolt on neck Epiphone t bird. Oddly there's not a big difference in used prices between vintage pro and the old Epiphone with bolt on neck

A friend of mine has just sold his vintage Gibson Les Paul and replaced it with an Epiphone 355. He absolutely loves the 355 and says that other than slightly cheaper feeling tuners and bridge (both of which function perfectly well) it's just as good as a US built product. I think to be honest, in making the Epiphone products so good, Gibson have really shot themselves in the knob.

When I bought my Thunderbird I went to the shop with the intention of buying a Gibson which was discounted to £1500. I tried it and liked it then just out of curiosity I tried the Epiphone Vintage Pro Thunderbird which was £499 and thought there really wasn't a grand worth of difference. I preferred the sound of the Epiphone as well so I went home with that and the shop dude was regretting mentioning how good the Epiphone was. I've also seen recent photos of Alice Cooper's bassist playing the Epiphone for live shows.

@jrixn1 thanks for the tip, I'll try that.