Munurmunuh

Lightning makes me feel nicely overwrought, I really enjoyed my week of having that on repeat. In a few days time, I'll move onto Peace Sells... and So Far So Good...., but first I'll give Puppets a fair crack of the whip. I'm not *annoyed* to be reminded of The Cure's Seventeen Seconds, just really surprised. Now I know all the first four albums, I can see that the influence of early Queen, especially Queen II, grows steadily over the course of them.

When I was a kid ...And Justice For All was the only Metallica album I knew, and shortly afterwards my attention went towards standard Indie stuff, as befitted a polite mumbling young Englishman growing his hair over his eyes. Much later I got Kill Em All, and recently Ride The Lightning - deliberately saving up Master Of Puppets as a treat once I had thoroughly immersed myself in the other three albums (and Killing Is My Business) I've been listening to Master Of Puppets on repeat for the last 24 hours, and am ....underwhelmed. I can see the quality, I can certainly understand the massive popularity, but it's pretty breezy listening. The Black Album now seems not so much a surprising development as an inevitable one. I'm glad that circumstances drove Hetfield and Ulrich to come up with ....Justice to interrupt that progression, and extremely glad that that album happened to be the one that wandered into my attention when I was a kid. Since the album is so beloved, I shan't bother being rude about it any further than that, but it you would be entertained by reading someone being extremely rude about it, I recommend this recent review

Tick tick tick tick

I was about to mention the L-2000, since the bass and treble controls are always passive, no matter whether the active switch is on or off - but then I remembered that the Tribute M2000 has a 1½" nut and the Tribute L2000 a 1¾" nut. PS the Tribute Kiloton has the same 1½" neck as the Tribute M2000, is entirely passive, with a series/parallel/single coil switch for the single humbucker

My dealer in Virginia tells me of encouraging noises coming out of the G&L, and hopes that my re-necked SB-1 will be on its way very soon. It would be lovely if I had it in time for the lockdown anniversary, but just knowing it hasn't disappeared into the pile of problems to be eternally ignored is very nice. When it reaches me, the factory Daddarios will have been replaced by a set of Rotosound RS66LD, which are what I believe I'm currently enjoying on my BB424

I went browsing through the rest of that shops basses. This instrument from Bulgaria is called the Jassen Stingray 4.

And sometimes not never the recording is from the concert. This from wikipedia: Contrary to the track listing, I Am the Walrus was actually not recorded at the Glasgow Cathouse, but at the Gleneagles Hotel during a conference for Sony music executives gathered to hear Creation Records' newly signed artists. The song was recorded during soundcheck, in an empty hall, at 10am. Noel Gallagher said the band liked recording, but not the event, "one of them ____ things where all the ____s in suits get together and they roll on the new signings". The band actually did perform the song at the Cathouse in June 1994 during their Definitely Maybe Tour and had a recording of it, "which sounded quite similar but it was ____ing rubbish". They decided to use the recording from the Gleneagles soundcheck, but credited it as coming from the Cathouse, adding crowd noise taken from a Faces bootleg album to make it sound like an authentic tour recording, "because it would look ____ if you put Live at Sony Seminar in Gleneagles. We thought, ____ it, no-one'll ____ing know. But I always meant to set the record straight one day. Sorry to anyone who bought it on the premise of being at that gig."

There are plenty of things lots of other people enjoy doing which have zero appeal for me, playing a 5 string bass is just another item on that list, along with going on holiday in Dubai, getting satellite telly, voting conservative, sleeping with siblings, owning a caravan, going bald etc etc. If sticking to 4-string basses is seen as some kind of deviant minority interest, then so be it, I can live with that.

Bit worried that I haven't lodged my reasons for not playing a 5 string with the correct authority for validating? It wasn't tucked away on one of those pages on the tax return website where your eyes start glazing over, was it? :s

They do loads, eg the Indonesian-made Ibanez are theirs. I think I've read that some Squiers are made there. I presume they have made the G&L Tribute series since production of those moved from Korea to Indonesia. Yamaha I know have their own Indonesian factory, but what other Indonesian factories are there?

Corts video of the basics of making a guitar in their Indonesian factory. You can see where expensive bits of skilled labour could be replaced with further automation. Also, things like in house pickups rather than Chinese ones will adding to the price

Most listened to, definitely Live After Death when I was a little kid. Then an audio copy that a friends friend made from the Cure In Orange video (when touring Head On The Door iirc) or perhaps their Concert album (though wasn't that just a collection of individual live performances?) Then 101, on a pair of Polish pirate tapes. Then Its Alive. And most recently, with YouTube browsing offering endless choices, ACDC's 2009 Live at River Plate is the concert I return to most.

I don't mind people being offered whatever decoration they like for their instruments - I'm looking forward to getting a bass in just the colour I want - and don't mind manufacturers and retailers earning honest money for it. But it does feel a shame that it's usually the work of Fender's best builders that gets selected for this treatment. That price is made of three big slices: being made from Fender's highest quality parts, being patiently decorated in the fashion of our times, and being the work of a single craftsman. Personally, I prefer the idea of the very best guitar builders simply making the very best guitars, not spending half their time making the instrument look like something it is not.

When my SB-1 finally reaches me, I'll have a good think about whether I've paid for a useful musical instrument, or just some misguided nonsense built to compensate for an old man's knackered ears. Fingers crossed!

The E-A half of the Hoppus pickup def a little further towards the neck than the standard P's E-A half. (Incidentally, when Leo Fender made an MFD split pickup for the revamped G&L SB-1, he found it necessary to nudge the pickup a similar distance in the opposite direction)

Stolen from TB

A sliver of me wants to say Mike Glozier.... ....but the rest of me knows what a chastening experience it would be

I would like to hear a BB1200, say, strung with flats and played through a mid-to-late 50s Fender Bassman. (PS As for the Strats and Teles....if only Leo Fender had thought of the humbucker before Gibson patented it )

The Electro Hippies

Operators

I wonder if the Saltire on the 12th fret is a clue?

Nickels to Chromes made me much happier with my TRBX, too

RAB - Racing Blue, says THIS

I remember that video....and remember finding it odd that he didn't specify whether the P and Reverse P were series or parallel, since he gave that info for all the others. In the picked rounds section (6'39") the Reverse gives a slightly tighter more focused sound, which I guess is exactly as you would expect?