David

You don't nescessarily need any technical skills on your particular instrument What you do need though, is an ear for music, knowing how to use your instrument effectively, how to integrate all the other instruments musically, timekeeping and all the other things you need to be good at to get a band playing nicely together Some examples - U2, I wouldn't say The Edge really is a technical master of the guitar, most of his work being fairly simple lines, but through some incredible uses of effects and creating and using space in a song it sounds excellent, so a case of not really brilliant technically, but amasing musical skills. or bands like Greenday or Blink 182, neither normally being too technically proficient, sticking to fairly simple riffing and powerchords, but being able to string those perfectly into fantastic songs. there are coutless other bands out there, playing very simple stuff, or noisey sloppy playing or whatever, yet it fits perfectly into what they do and their songs You also get the inverse, guys who have incredible skills on their instrument, but who you kinda get bored of as they don't really incorporate everything musically into an interesting piece Obviously musical style comes into this a lot - You can get a lot further with an indie or punk band with little skills, whereas you could never pull off something more operatic or heavy like Dream Theater or Metallica without knowing your way around your instrument, but in general, I think a lot more comes into it than pure musical ability on an instrument And again, a persons preference in music also biases them slightly, I would rather listen to something more noise and melody based like Pavement, than something like Vai, who dosen't really keep my interest in a song. To a lot of other people Vai is the god and Pavement make tuneless gibberish David

Mogwai - Mr.Beast The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi battles Pink robot Dave Matthews Band - Within these Crowded Streets David

you answering PM's? David

Maplins should be able to help you out for resisters/capacitors, The shops up next to the Hudagain roundabout I would learn your colour codes first though, or at least write down what the ones you want are, hald the people there don't seem to have a clue What like are Grampian Electonic components and RS? I didn't even knew we had any other electronics shops apart from maplins... they pretty decent for guitar pedal type parts (pots, switches, transisters, enclosures etc...? David

getting a lift back froma friends house half an hour ago was fun... after we had to dig it out of course - only been parked a few hours, but still enough snow to stop it from driving out easily on its own David

Randy Rhoads fan by any chance? David

"We're well aware of the esteem in which it is held and consider it a great privilege to take over a pub with its heritage and sense of tradition," Mr Marr said. "We respect that history and tradition and we hope it will continue to trade for another 155 years and more." Sounds promising David

Open mic nights are a great idea, Drummonds, the moorings and the globe all do them, as probably do many more pubs about Aberdeen. A great idea to get yourself onfront of peolpe and used to playing properly Also try talking to the owners of some of the local venues, I know when my band were looking for gigs we got in touch with people like Lava paul and the guys in Drakes, told them a bit about us and what we sound like, and if there were any support slots available we could fill, things like a well done demo or the like can really help there too, luckily we got a few gigs first (a new bands night at drummonds for example) which helped us a bit for getting another couple of shows. David

Nice work I like the binding, almost how PRS sometimes do it - they mask off the edge so it dosen't get painted leaving a strip of bare wood round the edge David

I know before christmas they had problems with staff illness, as they are a pretty small shop if one or two of them are ill, they won't have enough staff to cover the shop when it should be open... hopefully they can get everything sorted out David

fan of b3ta by any chance? David

Anybody? David

Today I got myself... Dave Matthews Band - Before these crowded streets The Pixies - Bossanova there is a crack in the centre of the Dave matthews cds though, so it will hopefully be being returned to fopp on monday. at the moment it is intact, but I would rather not have it self destruct in my cd player... I also got Dinosaur Jr - Bug and the ep's from Frank Turner and Mistakes.in.animation after seeing them on wednesday David

I would definately disagree with that At the lower levels of the gain control is more a distortion than fuzz sound, but definately with a fuzzy edge to it, not a 'normal' distortion, with the gain up above halfway or so it is definately into fuzz territory It is a different fuzz sound to a fuzz face or big muff, in the same way a Boss DS-1 sounds different to a Marshall Govnor, but still a fuzz imho really, the best advice would be to pop down to RnB or Prosound and try one for yourself David

1. a compressor should help level out the sound a bit and make it all a bit more even, check the Boss CS-3, MXR Dynacomp and Marshall ED-1 for some decently priced compressors 2. You would be wanting a loop pedal, or Delay with a looping function, Something like the loop function on a Line6 DL4, Boss do a looper pedal as one of the twin pedals and have just brought out a huge floorboard for looping and playing on the fly, or you get things like the ZVex lofi loop junky or Maneco microloopers, a decent loop pedal will cost you... 3. Have a look at the ProCo Rat, it sounds awesome, completely solid and not too expensive, or the Electro Harmonix Big Muff. those are two of the big pedals. The Zoom ultra fuzz is an awesome pedal too, not in production any more, but should be fairly cheap secondhand David

for adding gain to a drive sound, have a look at an overdrive of some sort ,something like a tubescreamer (or one of the many boutique clones) or a Boss SD-1 crank up the volume on the pedal and it should boost the front end of your amp, and therefor the gain, if you want a darker sound, look for one with an eq in it too so you can set it as you like (a tubescreamer traditionally has a mid hump to the eq curve, but you get many clones now with more control) running a normal fuzz generally won't work with a high gain sound, as the gain of the fuzz just overloads the gain the amp already has and causes it all to turn to mush, a lower gain sound with high volume can push the amp to distort more though there is the zvex machine, which looks like an awesome pedal, its not for the faint of heart though, and not a nice sound I am very tempted by one for a huge nasty sound for the over the top moments David

Sunday evening on BBC3 I think I can keep the tape for you if you like, it is utterly horrible quality though, lots of noise and the colour fades in and out (though that may be the tv, as the dvd player turned black and white the other day) but give me a shout whether you want it or not David

Watched the episode from wednesday excellent stuff David

i missed the first one, taped last nights though there was the little blurb in the paper for last weeks about a new comedy which should appeal to fans of red dwarf (or something to do with red dwarf at least) which is always good in my book David

really, what they are doing now is starting up a neighbours reality show, where all the characters in the crash find themselves on a deserted island, and have to do tasks to win the viewers hearts befrore they all get voted off, to return to the main show in 10 years time i also liked the fact that the planes crashed in the middle of the sea, yet sat there COMPLETELY still, not sinking or even moving as the wave machine battered it and the characters hung off it oh, and someone floating on a piece of metal plane - it would make sense to hang on to something, but generally things like sheets of metal don't float... David

My car (well technically my mums ) dosen't actually have a cd player... Virgin radio for me David

wish they were coming up as far as Aberdeen, none of the tourdates i saw included here... David