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Hehe, now edited with more detail and a different variety of fruit! 🤣

1996, first gig, which was a RHCP tribute, I was 18. Last pic is actually the last time I played through an amp 😢, jamming with a drummer mate in 2020.

What have stairs got to do with it?

I just like spending lots of money on more instruments than I need.

TBF, the only Fender where I've ever kept the stock pickups is the 2015 American Standard Jazz that I use currently for the Zep tribute that I play in. Every other Fender I've had (four Precisions and three Jazzes - I'm not counting the Musicmaster that I had as a kid), I've swapped the pickups out! I'm more interested in the build and playability.

It set the volume on mine to about 1:00. That seems about unity when I bypass it.

Jm came to tryout my Vigier end ended up buying it, whah a lovely experience, such a nice person :)) Thank you Jm

Quite happy with my recorded tone on this one 😁

My mates and I wanted to start a band when we were at college. I was left with the choice of bass or drums. I had nowhere to put a drum kit, so bass it was. Bass was the first instrument I'd ever picked up and to this day I cannot play guitar. That's not, I can play a bit but not good enough to play in a band, I literally cannot play and have never played guitar. So bass it was and still is. I did have a long break from my early 20s to my mid 30s where I didn't play at all. I'm glad I got back into it.

No, these are a completely different bass (Poplar Body, Indian Laurel Fingerboard, Ceramic Pickups) to the MIM Player II (more traditional Alder, Rosewood, Alnico 5, etc). And as for the pre 2016 American standard, you’re comparing a £550 bass to a £1700 bass. Apples and Oranges, my friend 😊

My mum was a piano teacher, so from about the age of 6 I played piano... Then I heard "Hit me With Your Rhythm Stick"... And a bit later I went to my first proper "big" gig, Ian Dury and the Blockheads closely followed by The Clash on the London Calling tour and realised that bass was cool. Then in 6th form we got a band together (me on keys) with our RE teacher to play some Barclay James Harvest and Dylan stuff as a pre-amble to a school showing of "The War Game" and Mike played on his brother's violin bass (it's your fault, @lurksalot!), which was the 1st bass I got to play. I gave up the piano, went to uni and got into The Funk; my flatmate had an old acoustic guitar with the two top strings broken so I used it to jam along to Bootsy and Parliament. As soon as I could play something vaguely funky I got together with the boys from Chestnut Avenue and we formed A Band - Dredd and the Badass Weeds and within a week we were gigging, me having borrowed a short-scale Gibson off Jez (later of MDMA then The Utah Saints). And the rest is history! They went off and had lots of musical success, while I moved to London and formed a bizarre punkfunk band who liked to dress funny.

Congrats BM74 Those first gen Vinteras with the Pao Ferro fingerboard play and sound really nice. I came very close to buying the 60s one in Firemist Gold. Excellent basses for the money. Sounds like you scored a brilliant deal there.

Having had several US Standard Precisions I wouldn’t avoid any, but my findings would be: Late 90s - all over good bass, decent neck depth and good chunky sounding pickup Mid 2000s - good basses, S1 Switching which to me didn’t add anything at all, good depth neck, fairly neutral pickup with no real frequency bias so ideal to fit in most genres very easily Late 2000s (08 - 12) - decent basses, flatter neck which makes it feel wider, pickup sounded quite scooped 2012 - 15 - my fave, nice chunky deep neck, Custom Shop 62 pickups give a good depth to the sound, lightweight tuners I’d happily have any of them, if pushed I’d say stock the 08 - 12s are my least fave as I prefer to have mids and scoop them myself, but a pickup change is easy enough and solves that.

I would keep that barbie pink "line" as it's mixing in quite nicely.

Haven't got any photos of early Weeds with borrowed Gibson short scale... But I do have Barf Roco stuff from around 1987-8. I no longer own the babydoll nightie as that was forcibly removed during the gig by singer and guitarist. luckily I had a codpiece on. Then a couple of weeks ago at Rebellion:

What I am trying to find out is how the 'standard' American P basses of the day varied from era to era, and what are the ones to look for / avoid. I can quite happily pay up to £3k for a Custom Shop or whatever, if something special comes up that takes my fancy. Alternatively, I have the option of getting a Japanese bass and save more than a couple of grand. Of course, I could get something in between those two price points, which is what I'm enquiring about. I did have a Japanese Jazz bass for a bit. I dropped some barts in it and used it on a gig and thought that it sounded great. Then I went down to Bass Direct to pick up some cabs and played an old American Standard that blew it out of the water. I still have that bass. TBF, directly before I got the Japanese JB, I had a 2005 USA standard that wasn't as good. I did have an AVRI 58 Precision for a while, which was a nice bass. I would have kept it, but unfortunately it had to go to pay for my old 78 P bass, when I had the opportunity to buy it back many years after I unfortunately sold it (something I always regretted).

So first we have me in The Shout, prob 88/89 Secondly we have me in The Spacewasters 2022 (I do have later pics but they’re pony, so this one gets the outing)

Over in the thread about acrimonious band splits, I was talking about the band I was in where the guitarist just upped and left after a gig. Here's a pic of that band, and it's the oldest pic I have of me onstage (there's probably a few more that I have as actual photos, but this is the oldest one I have on the computer ) - this is from around 1997, and that's me on the left. ...and this is a more recent one from a year or so back, playing my trusty Sei.