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Let's not dirty up January any further, I'll have to check back previous years but I think it might be a record breaking one. Plus international bass purchasing can be stressful so let's not jinx it with a declaration just yet, eh? We eagerly await your imminent arrival and I'm taking an executive decision to mark your failure down as date of safe arrival. Not the same thing as getting a next day delivery from Andertons etc. is it?

This Is How We Do It - Montell Jordan

I quite like Neds. They had some great songs. Grey Cells Green was a classic. My daughter played a gig recently and the bassist of the support band was the daughter of Neds drummer. She played really well and her band were great. Her dad was in the audience and was recognised by a few people and seemed like a friendly bloke. Neds are still very active touring regularly

That's why I posted this a page or two later 😁.

So this all started in the heat of last Summer when I picked up a prototype Nitro Jazz bass in Daphne Blue by @Silky999 while I was on my way to a gig in Torquay. Quite soon after, I added some Fender Pure Vintage 66 pickups and an uprated tone pot capacitor. This bass basically showed that Silky999 was definitely onto something... Again, soon afterwards, I signed up for one of @Kiwi's first batch of Jazz bass graphite necks which he was soon to be putting into production in China. The initial intention was to put the graphite neck onto Silky's Nitro Jazz prototype, but it had already become a very good bass as it was. A few weeks later, I noticed that Silky had started work on his own common shape bodies, and he was in the middle of a Walnut Jazz Bass build. Swiftly adding 1 + 1 together, I came up with the concept for this bass - a sort of homage to my no.1 bass, a 2007 Walnut Status S2-Classic that I've owned for 19 years - so we'd build a sort of Vintage-Modern Jazz with Fender Pure Vintage pickups from the American Vintage II series basses, as well as '66 Lollipop Tuners and other nice Gotoh hardware, but one of the first Kiwi-produced "Aurok" graphite necks. The neck arrived on these shores about two weeks ago, delivered directly to Silky and the build has been completed in two weeks. He's definitely put a HUGE amount of work into this bass during that time, overcoming several teething issues, not to mention learning to drill the inserts into graphite for the first time, but we've got there. It's not perfect, but gawd, does it sound fantastic?! I was originally going to get a John East J-Tone preamp plate for it, but it honestly doesn't need it. The 500k pots and more than ample copper shielding have made this a very quiet, yet shouty and clear instrument! My errors? Well, the first was in the ordering of the lovely Gotoh Lollipop Tuners from Thomann - they're sold as either "4R" or "4L" sets - which I logically deduced would be RH and LH orientation. Er, nope. They're actually labelled for the way they physically turn. Duh. Anyway, I've now accidentally got another bass with vintage reverse tuners. We put them on backwards. I blame the Japanese, personally. Secondly, I ordered a really nice black Gotoh bridge which is seemingly set up for 19mm spacing, as opposed to the usual Fender-style 20mm, so the strings slightly miss the pole pieces, but it still plays and sounds amazingly. So it just remains for me to thank both @Silky999 & @Kiwi again for all their hard work. The bass sounds literally amazing. Sound Clips to follow...

Young musicians seem to quite commonly have an interest in music from long before they were born. 80's funk an disco is making a comeback and 90's grunge, shoegaze and electronica are huge. Nu metal is making a comeback as well but hopefully that won't last.

I mean IN fairness, this is more than likely incompetence more than anything else. I'm sure this parcel has ended up in the auction house pile in error as I'm sure they must hang on to it longer. Or they shipped the 2025 Q4 pile earlier than they should have. I think it's a bold conspiracy to suggest it was a deliberate act of the company, unless they wanted rid of it as it's effectively counterfeit and tried to get some money for it.

Need to get Dispatches on the case if that program still operates!

Finally got most of the second cab finished, its nicknamed Goth as its very, very black. It still needs a grill but that next weeks work and I was keen to see how it sounded in a stack, it maybe a small one (where have I heard that before) but it's still one speaker cabinet on top of the other. Checked it sounds OK on its own, stacked it on and the tried to fit the cheapo NL4 SpeakOn -> SpeakOn cable a friend gave me. The dammed cable won't fit in the Speakon sockets I have. I have just checked with Blue Arran and the order says NL4 sockets https://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=TUFF87182NU, the cable given to me has four metal plates inside the plastic tube but I can't twist the cable to fit at all. The centre prong in the NL2 is almost a half moon, whilst the cheap NL4 cable is most of a circle. @Chienmortbb made me two 1/4" Jack -> NL2 cables, a short one and a slightly shorter one and they fit into the NL4 sockets easily and smoothly. The cheap cable feels bloody awful and cheap. Not sure if my problem is that I have NL4 sockets in a single speaker cab AND/OR I have a crap NL4 cable ( @Chienmortbb's cable works fine) or I have missed the point completely and it's something else. Each speaker works fine on it's own with Johns cable's. I just can't join the cables together. All and any suggestions welcomed. Once I get it working and I have the grill, I'll post pictures. Thanks Rob

Very wide influences for young folk there I was in Lidl and sometimes talk to the young lad on the till. Pleasant young man (for a guitard) so obviously I have to speak more slowly and not use big words. he’s a bright guitard because he can actually use a till. He says he’s joined a band doing 80s funk. Seriously his mum must have been a toddler when that stuff first came out I did resist the urge to ask if his guitar was any good for metal.

Bridge PU, push (OK, turn) bass to the max, cut treble a lot. Middle according to your personal taste. How does that sound?

Pretty sure Bass Direct only sell secondhand Fender.

Well, your post seemed coy, I was unsure how final it was. Plus we don't know what it is yet, so I can't accurately record what caused your exit. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

It is listed in an auction of "Unclaimed Goods from a Major UK Courier Network." Seems like a nice little racket Parcelforce have going on - take in goods they won't have to cover for loss due to the small print no one sees, and instead of delivering the item, auction it off and trouser the proceeds along with the original delivery fee and useless insurance fee. Easy money!

Also my bowing out on the 14th Jan. No bass yet but money changed hands.

Thanks for pointing that out. First page edited, Jan summary will be amended shortly.

Thanks. I think this song is mostly influenced by My Chemical Romance, Ash and Jimmy Eat World. It doesn't really show up in this song but their biggest influence by far is Muse. Im sure they've listened to Pretenders as well. They have quite a broad range of musical tastes between them from classical and jazz to Queen and Muse to progressive death metal.

Oil companies... What they've done over the years is complete and utter unfathomable bastardry.

Business relies on the ignorance of the average punter. A classic case is Debt Collection Agencies. They don't buy debt from companies/councils etc at discount prices, that's BS, they buy data. They then pretend that the "debtor" owes them money, send threatening letters, knock on the door, "can't pay, take it away" etc and that's how they they make their money. What they don't have is a legally valid deed of assignment and without that they have no claim, they are nothing more than a 3rd party interloper that has processed personal data in breach of DPA 2018. They are all part of the system. It's all covered in case law, it's all out there in the open but there's an entire industry based on criminal offence that breaches tons of legislation and Martin Effin' Lewis doesn't tell us about it. This isn't conspiracy, it's how the system works. What parcel couriers and auction houses get up to is childsplay in comparison to councils, utility companies, banks etc

Don't forget the BassChat massive!! 😆

I understand it was their instrument so can do what they like. But if I was modifying a £3k bass, I'd make sure I didn't lose any bits! 😅