Marvin

High, I suppose. A similar height to where Billy Sheehan has his bass. Any lower and my fretting hand really struggles. The downside is that my other arm can ache playing so high. It's a bit of a compromise.

Ibanez, in my experience, are a right royal pain in the A when it comes to getting spares. A few years back all I wanted was a battery compartment, as mine had snapped on my SR300. It took 5 months. My old SR300 started having issues with the tone/eq and pots. I tried Ibanez for parts, no joy. Look at alternatives. The alternatives were incredibly expensive. My SR300 pups worked in passive so I asked @KiOgon to make a passive wiring loom. I had 2 vol, 2 tone and one of the tone knobs was push/pull to go from series to parallel. It was brilliant. Just keep badgering Ibanez.

I'm a similar age. Britpop was everywhere in my 20s and I hated all of it. I really can't stand Blur. I turned to electronic music, trip hop, acid jazz...anything as long as it wasn't Britpop. Perhaps it's a regional thing as Britpop didn't seem to take off as such in the part of the south west I live in. Everyone turned to raves and dance music. There's always been a strong punk/indie scene where I live, and moving on to electronic music seemed to be the thing. I know lots of old punks who turned to electronic music rather than Britpop back in the 90s

I too hated the whole Britpop 'scene'. The music was just stuff recycled from the 60s/70s and the attitude that somehow they 'spoke' to British yuuf better than American bands I found utter crap. Gallagher was on Absolute Radio* this morning. He's going down the road of British, white, male, over 50s pop music icon, who spouts utter drivel and only proving how cringingly thick he is. No Noel, wearing a mask and having a covid vaccine is not virtue signalling. Perhaps read a book, something we all know you pride yourself on not doing, but maybe just once. *I don't normally listen to the radio, but I do have Absolute on in my work van. I can be bothered changing the station.

I was in a band several years ago and the guitarist suggested I give Rival Sons a listen, I too dismissed them as Led Zep wannabes. Last year, during lockdown, I just happened to listen to them on shuffle on Spotify and was hooked. They're excellent, I particularly like their last album. Unfortunately I've not got to see them live, maybe in the future.

Was that intended to come out as sneering snobbery, because that's how it reads?

Second hand, Squier Classic Vibe, and if it's a Jazz then the Vintage Modified from about 2010 seem to sell for your budget (considering they were about £230 new they've maintained their value) SX come sometimes A second hand Sire V7, but they don't come up very often it seems. New, Sire V3 is £260ish from Andertons. Squier Affinity or VM maybe ? There's hardly a badly made instrument out there anymore...not like my Westone Spectrum II I bought in 1990 which was utter rubbish

Hendrix. He was an innovator, broke new ground, he did things others didn't even think of at the time. To claim, as the article does, that because he died at 27 that we'll never know whether he would have got better or something is beyond bizarre. I'm not that big a fan of Hendrix, but for guitar he was truly a cut above. I actually haven't met a guitarist who cites Prince as an influence when it comes to their guitar playing. It's only been since Clapton mentioned him, it seems, that every journalist has jumped on that bandwagon.

I'm not a huge Depeche Mode fan but I think they're a good band, write some good and interesting material and always seemed great live from what I've seen on the tv and internet. So, I always wanted to go and see them and a couple of years ago my brother (who's a DM fanatic) got us tickets for their date in Birmingham. Perhaps it was because we were sat up in the gods to one side, the stage partially obscured by the speaker array hanging from the roof, and that those around us all sat there for the whole gig like they were at a funeral (I include my brother in that), BUT it was the most disappointing gigs I've ever been to. It was utterly 'cold'. Depeche Mode performed as you see them on those great live videos on YouTube, but actually being there was really meh. From then I've said I wouldn't go to another stadium gig.

My kids ( 13 and 16) watch The Simpsons, and so do their friends.

If they were able to back the album up with with some live dates I think this would be create more interest... unfortunately we are where we are. I note Mr Smith is a keen angler, so he's now been elevated to my 'top favouritist' musicians list of all time.

Poor lad. I can, at times like these, be incredibly smug because I've never liked Stephen 🤗

I noticed that, he's probably been watching and listening to Harris over the years

I'm a big Kotzen following, he's a fantastic musician. He's teamed up with Adrian Smith from Iron Maiden and they've made an album. It's noting ground breaking but I'm liking it a lot. Adrian Smith has got a pretty decent voice and it's been interesting to hear him doing something different (I wasn't aware of his solo material up until now). Nicko McBrain appears on one track...nothing against Kotzen who plays most of the drums, but you can clearly tell when a drummer is in the seat. Anyone else had a listen?

I thought the original video was very badly made and as a result did near nothing to convince either way. The basses all sounded very similar. Any differences are so small that you have to you high quality headphones or monitors to notice them (if you can), which is telling in itself. With such small possible differences I'm not sure what the obsession is, as when you play in a band context such subtle differences (if they exist) are all but lost.

I've bought second hand gear from Rich Tone before and they were good to deal with. If the OP can get to Sheffield...

If you were to want to put all your eggs in one basket I think you'd need to try that 'one' bass first (not that always helps). I stopped gigging before the current unpleasantness and had 3 basses when I finished, a P bass, J bass and double pickup modern looking BRIGHT RED bass. I sold the last one as it never got used. It seemed pointless just storing it in a case in the corner of the dinning room. Most of the time I play the J bass, as it's the nicest bass I've bought. BUT, I won't sell the P bass because you always need a P bass Neither of my basses were expensive though so keeping them isn't really an issue...unless I need the room. I did think about selling both and putting some money with the sale and getting something I really wanted...but I'm too lazy to advertise them and all the other faff

I don't play things wrong, I play them differently

Mentioning Talkbass is a bit like saying 'the game' to anyone...you forget it's a thing until someone mentions it. I can't remember the last time I logged in or even looked at the site. I don't like the interface at all. It's so big and busy that threads almost instantly end up on page 2084 because of replies to other threads. It's just too big and a bit clunky. It seems to be taking longer to get up and running than my old laptop is to install the latest Windows updates.

I received a promotional email about these a few days ago. They look considerably better than the last incarnation of the BA combos...which looked dreadful. I know we should concentrate our focus on how something sounds, but still, they looked woeful. These on the other hand look great, they seem to have quite a straight forward set of controls as well. I'm not fan of overly fussy controls and gimmicks on amps and combos, if I want to modify the basic sound that's what effects pedals were created for. I just checked GuitarGuitar and you can preorder the 210 combo for £639. I think that puts in between the cheaper Rumble and the more expensive Ashdown. From experience the Rumble takes some beating to be honest.

Thank you for the info and links. That's a great looking greyhound We're rehoming a 4 year old female greyhound from the local branch of The Greyhound Trust. She's quite small apparently, about 26kg, quiet and a bit shy. She has to be neutered and given 10 days recovery, but hopefully she'll be with us just after Easter Bank Holiday.

Is that a greyhound? We're rehoming a greyhound in a few weeks

I've borrowed Laney bass combos on a couple of occasions, The first time was an abused Laney Linebacker. I think it must have been broken somewhere because it sounded a bit weedy. The last time was the last time I played in room with other 'musicians'. I borrowed a Laney R500 115. I quite liked it. It kept up well with 2 guitars and drummer. Easy to use, decent sound, not that heavy. A good combo for doing the pubs around my way.

The vast majority of the places I play if you move around you'll be knocking into something or someone. If I can move around a bit I will, but that's mainly to stop cramp in my legs. For quite a while, mainly due to vanity, I looked very grumpy when playing. This was almost entirely down to refusing to wear my glasses, hence not being able to see anything properly (including the set list taped to the floor at my feet) and frowning for almost the entire set. Just one minor point for the OP, if you're in a shoegaze band, staring at your shoes is pretty much part of the gig.

This thread needs to be deleted...or something. The title is way too long and it's upsetting my OCD every time it appears, it looks out of balance with the other threads