Lunch: It was a rough day at work, and I had no appetite for lunch. Things got better at the end of the day, and then we had some friends over for snacks before the kids went trick-or-treating. I made up for the lack of a lunch, and then some.
G&Ls and strings: I have been on a quest to find my ideal bass string. My L-1500 seemed to be one of those basses that just needed to have the ring and zing of a set of round wounds.


I'm usually not a fan of rounds on basses, and especially not new sets. I had been playing that L-1500 with the set that came on it for several months. A month ago I picked up a set of flats (D'Addario Chromes), with the intention of putting them on the SB-2. When I went to make the change, I realized that I had just put fresh tape wounds on the SB-2 a month or two earlier and put the new pack on the shelf. Last week I got tired of looking at that set of Chromes, and decided on a whim to try them on the L-1500. I really just wanted to see how the #8 neck would feel with flats, and figured they would end up back in the pack and eventually on another bass. All I can say is WOW. That bass was made for flats. It went from a really nice bass with a lot of growl, to an absolute monster. I will never put rounds on it again. For the low-enders out there, the L-1500 is a very sweet bass that can cover a surprising amount of ground. They are really undervalued in many cases too. When I do take the plunge and order a new G&L, it will probably be a fretless L-1500. Have you ever had an unexpectedly good experience with a string change on a G&L? Which model was it, and which brand of strings?
Halloween: I took my sons trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. It wasn't as busy as the last two years, but we were right on the verge of getting rain. My oldest son dressed as Frankenstein's Monster, and my seven y/o did his take on the band Devo (complete with a red "energy dome" hat, protective coveralls and a pair of my vintage safety glasses). For anyone who wasn't around for 1980 or missed out on the spud boys, here's an idea of the look:

And no, I didn't loan him an SC-2. He had a blast, and sang bits of old Devo songs as we walked from house to house. We started out around 6:00, and were home and thoroughly worn out by 7:30. I think we covered about two miles on foot. Aside from Christmas, this is my kids' favorite holiday. I think they enjoy coming up with the costumes and being with friends more than the actual candy binge.
It's a neighborhood event where I live now. When I lived in rural Maine, we would get two trick-or-treaters every year. A friend of mine had two daughters, and would call me the night before to arrange a time she could drive them over. It was far enough out in the woods that you couldn't see one house from another, so the kids would have to be driven to the couple of houses that would have candy ready. Years earlier in Southern California, all of the festivites were in shopping malls, where kids would go from store to store to get candy. I guess it wasn't safe enough in many neighborhoods to knock on doors. What's Halloween like where you live? Is it celebrated?
Time for bed. I'll check in tomorrow morning.
Ken