Shaggy

We do love a “negative” thread! 🤔. Some of these mentioned are to my mind the greatest songs of all time (Bohemian Rhapsody / Stairway to heaven / any ABBA), and it’s pretty clear from the foregoing that many are hated simply through over-exposure in playing in cover bands, which I can certainly relate to - but if you heard “Mustang Sally” or “Brown eyed girl” for the very first time, you’d almost certainly think “what a great song”! There are songs I dislike simply through being bad; (eg “Agadoo”, “Grandad”, any rap / thrash metal), but what really makes me reach for the OFF button on the radio is a song that I really should like (by genre / artist) but is ruined in some way by mannerism or pretension; Joy Division were one of my favourite bands (I was lucky enough to see live), but whilst New Order have written some good stuff I find the sub-Kraftwerk vocals very hard indeed to listen to; likewise the fake reggae singing on any later UB40 is simply painful - and this was the band who early on did the fabulous “King” and “Food for thought”.

Seeing them tonight, Swansea Liberty stadium. Saw them last at the end of 1979 - at the time they were pretty much the “house band” at Liverpool Uni students union! Post gig edit: Really enjoyable gig. I had the venue wrong - it was at Swansea arena but daughter put me right en route. Doh. Not a venue I’ve been to before, but great that Swansea finally has a decent one to attract bands. Band on top form; 4 of them rather than the duo plus big reel-to-reel tape machine I saw in ‘79, all the hits plus some impressive new material. Really imaginative back drop projections, good clear stage sound. Andy McCluskey bounded around the stage like a young ‘un and his voice as strong as ever, the only negative was that his bass guitar (black Fender Jazz) - such an important part of the early material - was mixed so low as to be inaudible.

Slightly ashamed to admit that I generally choose the strap to match my stage outfit rather than the bass..... 🤭 Mrs Shaggy teases me for having more straps than she has pairs of shoes, one reason being there’s a couple of excellent local custom makers.

I’m sure it’s not, in fact I’m sure I have older FS threads of unsold gear that I could resurrect! 😉 3 old (but very short) existing threads on Renaissance, so just didn’t want to start a new one; though evidently of no interest anyway. Right, off to listen to some Curved Air now......🤔

Brief resurrection of a zombie thread...... 🧟‍♂️ Since a turning 60 a couple of years ago I’ve been listening to music (rock, folk and classical) that I’ve always meant to get around to listening to over the last few decades, but hadn’t up until now as life just got in the way. One of these was Renaissance (the band) - as my teenage years were in the 1970’s I was quite heavily into Prog rock at the time, but Renaissance for whatever reason totally passed me by - I was aware of ‘Northern Lights” when it was released as a single and thought it a pleasant ditty with some nice Chris Squire-ish bass on it, but really no more than that. So, recently bought the “best of” CD’s (Tales of 1001 nights vols 1 & 2), plus the 3rd album “Prologue” as many online reviews rated “Sounds of the sea” as their fave song which is missing off the complications. Wow. Full fat Prog, which the single would give you no idea of; maybe not with the sheer musicianship of Yes or Genesis, but superb compositions and arrangements. Jon Camp often compared to Chris Squire and there are indeed similarities, but he has his own style and feel. The wonderful vocals of Annie Haslam certainly lift them into a niche of their own - again there are better singers, but her style fits effortlessly into the mood of music and has the technical skill to fit into the complex arrangements. Anyone recommend any individual albums, or has likewise discovered bands they should have discovered ages ago?

If that was Koa facings I think I’d be driving up to Perth right now ; the Distillate basses are an excellent second best to the series basses. If it was Orkneys I might see it as a red flag, but not Perth - after way too long on this forum I’ve noticed that much of the best gear is North of the border......😉 And I bought my series 1 on here for £1500, not so very long ago.

In the words of the lovely Ms Hynde.....

More curmudgeoness- Nestle - for taking over and degrading the formerly wonderful Rowntrees and Terrys chocolate. Have you seen a coffee flavoured Walnut Whip lately, WITH a walnut on top? No, neither have I. 🙁 Amazon - I accept them (and eBay) as the unpleasant but unfortunately useful face of capitalism. But can’t they be told just ONCE that I don’t want their feckin’ Prime, rather than EVERY single time? Hotpoint - my son as a toddler used to love sitting and watching the washing going around. Until the machine literally caught fire. As with cars, have stuck with German products ever since. So-called “Craft” beer in unsatisfyingly tiny cans; massively, massively overpriced. Just why? Rossi’s Fish and chip restaurant, Swansea. Frequented for best part of 30 years, although I felt I while back that they’d lost their crown as best in the area. However, called in last summer with the missus after a fatiguing morning of shopping and wilting with hunger, ordered 2 cod & chips. There were 4 nice big cod in the display warmer over the counter, so figured it wouldn’t be long. Watched with an increasing feeling of dismay over the next 20 mins as they were given to people behind us in the queue. At 25 mins asked when our order might be ready. Given a blank look, then told “oh, we’ll put a couple on to fry now”. Asked for refund, never ever again. 🤬

That takes me back! The guitarist in my first school band had the guitar version in red and white - I’d forgotten how cool they looked 🤔

PM sent 🙂

Been here before: In the “preloved” world, vintage means 50 years and over but less than 100 years old (so 1974 and older, as far as we’re concerned) “Antique” applies to 100 years old and over Used to be a fairly strict definition, but on the usual sale sites any old tat older than a year or so seems to be described as vintage / classic / rare.......🤔

Sold Glenn my big Mesa Boogie AND Trace Elliot rigs - when ready for loading it rather looked as if The Who were on tour in my house.......🤔. He made the long trip from London to sunny Swansea today, starting some time in the night just so that I could get away to another meeting at lunchtime; really great to meet up with him and his delightful partner. Smooth easy deal, great communications, prompt payment. I think he’s fairly new to Basschat but I’m very sure this thread will get much longer and he will one of the regular good guys of this forum. Top man 👍

Stew bought my custom Thunderbird bass; absolute pleasure to deal with, great communications, and a meet up smoothly planned and carried out. Hopefully this will inspire him back into spandex leggings and big hair. 😉 One of BC’s good guys for sure, I’d be happy to deal with again anytime. 👍

Russ bought my Warwick FNA bass - a smooth and easy deal, great communications and prompt payment up front. We met up this afternoon in a scrotum-shrivellingly cold 🥶car park of a Swansea hotel for me to hand the beastie over (Mrs Shaggy gave me a long and dubious look when I told her I was meeting a strange man in a hotel after work......🤔) As the above posts apply prove, he is definitely one of the good guys on BC - thanks fella! 🙂

This may be no help at all, but a few years ago I had a similar issue with my MB Walkabout (also M-pulse). After much fiddling as tried above which didn’t seem to help, it seemed to work fine if I switched power on with the preamp gain and master volume set at zero, and active tone controls turned all the way down. Leave it to warm up for around a minute, before turning up controls to working levels. No idea why it worked, but it’s what I’ve done ever since. Good luck, and if unable to sort I’d certainly take it to a decent amp tech before trying Mesa.

Great score cetera 👍 looks lovely. Out of interest, were import duties / VAT comparable to shipping from the US? (ie around 20% on top). Every vintage instrument on t’bay I fancy seems to be in Japan.

They’re excellent pickups - the same units were fitted in their early-mid ‘80’s Explorer bass, and I absolutely loved mine. I don’t know who would make an exact replica, but they’re single coil so something like the Nordstrand Big Single ought to sound similar.