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I don't do xmas, but if I did... 1. A Peavey Super Festival 1200 reissue head 2. A Masterbuilt Warwick Vampyre 5 3. A Peavey Firebass head - the red and black one which I always loved the look of in Sound Control, but was never daft enough to actually buy due to the weight. 4. A gigbag where the side handle is placed such that, when it's loaded with stuff and you pick it up, it hangs level with the floor rather than being angled upwards. 5. A gigbag like #4 but mirrored so that when you have a pair of them, you can attach them together back-to-back and pick them up comfortably with both their handles.

Just completed this build last weekend. More pics and the build process here:

1. An electric car that doesn't make my wife feel sick 2. A training course so I am not so shit on the chapman stick 3. A group that exactly like my group without the right wing nutters 4. A loft ladder built into the loft 5. win the set for life lottery thing

Just bought an MXR M87 Bass Compressor pedal from Andy. Honestly couldn't have been an easier process and the pedal arrived very quickly, in excellent condition and very well packaged! Thanks Andy. 🙂

I liked three things about the Bergerac BBC series in the 80's My gran loved it (miss you granny) Cool theme song with very evident cool bass line Bergerac's cool Triumph roadster I didn't really like watching the programme but always enjoyed the credits - its possible this was the first bassline I really got into as it had a very prominent fretless sounding bassline, I am guessing there are a few people of an (ahem) certain age who will immediately know what I mean - and a whole bunch of people who have NO CLUE what I am on about Anyway I started thinking about it / humming it a few days ago so today I bought the MP3 and made a TAB of it, just for fun - I have submitted it on bigbasstabs so it will appear there at some point (needs admin to hit the approve button), its a fun play, less than three minutes long and quite easy to mess about with ... I don't actually know if its a fretless bass but it sounds like one, I don't have / can't play a fretless bass - there's something about the sound though ..... I notice the TV version on Youtube is slightly different (and maybe better) than the one on Spotify, linky below and I uploaded a sample of me twanging it in case you want to hear roughly what it sounds like At 67 bpm, its definitely chillsome..... any other BC'ers have fond memory of it or other TV themed guilty bass-pleasures? Jolltax Bassline.mp3

Nickel. I'm 60, it's not my only bass, and I play flats. They'll see me out. I've had stainless fitted on 6 string guitars, and I can really see why that makes sense. Bending strings is a whole new ballgame on stainless, effortlessly smooth. However, with stainless, the feel does change quite a lot, and it's going to take enough getting used to going from very low frets to new ones, plus I do like the feel of nickel on basses. Rob

Maybe that was my problem with the Dingwall - I never found the great sound!

Bought some strings from Merton in a simple and pleasant transaction that was completely devoid of any complications whatsoever. Bravo sir!

Just bought a beautiful Musicman Stingray from Dan which arrived today. Superb piece if kit in an immaculate case with all the bits. Packed really well, great communication all the way through the transaction. Highly recommended Basschatter.

My Rics..

Two separate Jams this last week. A bass player chum has started a monthly Country Jam in Staines which is very convenient for me. It was their second one last Thursday and so I brought my bass along. Got to play quite a few songs - 5 I think - as there was only me and Chloe who were there. Another bass player who had arranged to play couldn’t come along so I got a couple of his. Fortunately they have a broad definition of “country” which embraces Americana and stretches as far as 70s Fleetwood Mac so it’s not all tassels and stetsons… Though I’d be lying if I said that there weren’t a few who come along suitably attired. The songs I played included Tulsa Time (a blend of Pistol Anni and JJ Cale in style), a Teddy Thompson tune, a rootsy version of “You’re Still the One” and a Chris Stapleton song. Nice atmosphere so I think that it’s going to be a regular one. Last night was our regular Monday Night Jam in Woking - this time a blues focused night (in the loosest terms, of course). I ended up playing on three songs (She Does It Right - Dr Feelgood, me singing on that one too; Julie London’s jazzy version of Blue Moon and Rory Gallagher’s Bad Penny). I also got asked to sing Fire by Jimi Hendrix (that’s blues, right?) which was a lot of fun. She Does It Right was a lot of fun. I’ve wanted to do some Feelgoods stuff for ages and this seemed like a good opportunity. Bad Penny suffered from typical jam night issues. The singer seemed to be singing a different version of the tune, different meter/tempo, or maybe a different song (a perennial problem with that singer) - which would have been fine but the guitar player stuck rigidly to the chords sheet he had written down rather than listening to the singer and adapting to what he was singing. I needed to go over and say “He’s still doing the verse again!” and help guide him through. It was still fun to play though. Love that song as it was one of my late brother’s faves. And can I just say how much I LOOOOOVE my Sandberg. Such a nice bass to play. ❤️ Our next “theme night” is our Christmas one so I have about a month to hatch my dastardly plan - a Christmas version of… WAR PIGS!!!! God bless The Barenaked Ladies.

Day Tripper. Beatles.

50 million year trip - Kyuss

Many thanks 🙏

That feature really appeals to me - would massively increase the amount of strings that would fit - particularly flats. The Ibanez Mezzo 4 string (32 scale) had the E string tuner relatively far from the nut so could take a wide variety of strings, but it was a small post so long scale flats would still break. Had to get specific medium scale ones. The 5 string mezzo was actually worse for string availability. I used Dunlop medium scale flats on that exclusively. Really lovely strings - but at about £90 they'd have to be! Reverse headstock is a very easy solution to the problem. If I ever ordered a second Lionel I'd spec a reverse headstock for that reason.

Oooh, the sound of my old age!!! Oh, joists..! I thought it was joints. You really must speak up, my girl... ...

I recently got a plate made for my Jazz bass by tiny tone. They can copy an existing plate if you send it to them or they may have a template of your Warwick bass. The plates are handmade and a great fit. Their details are: phone: 07522 500673 website: tinytone.co.uk

Are you going for the stainless steel or nickel steel frets? SS will last forever.

Oooh, the sound of my youth!!!

Every fender ever built is a bitsa.