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Sold an amp head to Paddy last week - easy, pleasant sale and a lovely chap to deal with.

good to see you all!

I've been able to be in bands for almost 50 years now without owning a car and for much of that time without being able to drive. Technically I can drive, but I didn't start leaning until I was in my 30s, there was no point before as I couldn't afford lessons let alone the cost of owning and running a car, and it took me 2 years of intensive lessons before I passed my test on the 3rd attempt. TBH I'm a terrible driver and the roads are safer for everyone without me behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, so I don't drive. As others have said, it very much depends on where you live and the sorts of bands you want to be in and the sorts of gigs you want to do. It may also depend on what other skills and resources you can bring to your musical ventures. I have chosen to live in a fairly large city with good public transport and taxi services which is more than adequate for getting to rehearsals and local gigs. In fact for local gigs getting a taxi to and from the venue is far more convenient and often cheaper than driving myself would be. Taxi drivers have zero problem stopping in the middle of the road directly outside the venue for me to load in and out. I don't have the hassle of trying to find somewhere to park that isn't going to cost the earth and if the gig goes on past midnight there is a very good chance that two taxi fares will be less than the cost of parking anywhere close to where we are playing. Any band I have been in that regularly does gigs in other parts of the country has had dedicated band transport, often with a driver/roadie, and IME it makes more sense if travelling any distance for the whole band to travel together. Remember that you can't finish setting up and doing your sound check until all the band are there and invariably if you are travelling in multiple vehicles, at least one will get caught in traffic or some other incident. Otherwise what else can you bring to the band or musical venture other than yourself and your bass? For about 20 years I lived somewhere where it was possible for any band I was in to rehearse for free. I also had what started as a simple 4-track recording setup that eventually grew to become a fully-fledged home recording studio where we could record everything except an acoustic drum kit. All available to whatever band I was in at no charge. Also in my day job I am involved with graphic design and can produce imagery for all the band's visual identity - posters, flyers, CD and record covers, T-shirts and on-line graphics - for free and able to get the print at discount prices or for free too. Do you have any other musical skills? Can you sing backing vocals? I currently play in a Goth/post-punk influenced band as well as playing bass I do all the drum programming and much of the sound design for our songs. I also provide all the hardware for the playback of the drums and second synth parts when we gig. All these things mean that the bands I played with since I first started gigging have been more than happy to help me with transport where I can't sort it out for myself.

Most of them are not professionally designed or built. TBH most "professionally built" boards have normally available pedals and power supply and a common board type and the only bespoke thing about them is the patch cables that have been cut to size accurately. Of all the things in music that might need professional assistance, assembling a pedal board is very low on the list.

As a biker, the same goes for motorbikes. They are machines, they may have some character but they do not need a name. I used to be in a Jaguar car owners group. One lady referred to her Jag as her growler. I suggested she might want to look up what growler can also mean. She never called it that again.

Squier Classic Vibe, Labella MUS flats, Gotoh Resolite GB528 tuners, and I'm installing a set of Sentell handwound pickups and a new wiring harness on Weds. Can't wait for that! It sounds fine as is to be fair, but, y'know how it is...

I was also slightly concerned about this. It was louis and gienevive plus Sam on bass, a keys player and a guitarist. When I saw Tower of Power in Brum a few years ago I was doubly disappointed to find (in my complete ignorance) that not only was Rocco deceased but his replacement was also absent due to a medical indent so in the end there was no bass player on stage at all.

Sam Wilkes was with them?! I saw them at BotW a couple of years ago, and it was just Louis and Genevive. It was a fun show, but felt a bit lacking compared to the stuff they have been publishing online recently. (Obviously I understand it's expensive to move more and more musicians and gear....) I was kinda expecting this gig to be the same as all the promotion I saw didn't mention that it would be anything else. How big was the band this time?

My latest ad on joinmyband: Reggae players assemble! I'm a Bass player aiming to put together a Reggae backing band - something like Soul Syndicate, Upsetters, Roots Radics, Soul Vendors, Friendly Fire Band, Taxi Gang, Uppercut Band. The ambition is to support guest vocalists (live and studio). So if you play Reggae and have a decent knowledge of it (know what someone's on about if they ask for 'Baltimore', 'Heavenless', 'Full up', 'Stalag' etc.) give me a shout. I'm in Chichester, but play/rehearse with bands in Worthing and Brighton so don't mind a bit of travel.

If you buy something online, I think you have a legal right to change your mind within 14 days, regardless? Equally importantly, Paypal and I suspect also eBay tend to be very supportive of the consumer, so you should be fine. "Goods not as described", is a very legitimate reason for returns / full refund. Good luck!

OK, looks like I've been conned or am a victim of an error by the vendor. You are all correct about the dropdown except that it appears to have been changed since I placed my order To my memory the dropdown when I ordered said quantity and the only options were 1 or 2 lights. 2 lights were inexplicably at the time several times the price of 1. The ad clearly stated that the stock was held in the UK (Staffordshire) and delivery was 2-3 days. I now have two emails from eBay and one enqiry via email from the vendor. One message from ebay is for the controller at £24 and the second for the light itself at £28.99 . The enquiry says it is for the light but leads to delivery tracking which has a picture of the controller. I should according to tracking recieve my light or controller today. I think it will be the controller which I don't want or need as I have one already. The delivery in 3 days would mean it has come from Staffordshire I've taken screenshots of the original ad which makes no mention of a controller other than the pop down which I believe to have been changed since I placed my order. I haven't yet found a way to contact eBay before the delivery takes place. Does anyone know if I can legally refuse delivery? If not I guess I'm about to go into battle with eBay's returns/complaints policies.

I'll second Newtone Strings. They made me up a batch of ten sets of the gauges I wanted in DBE. Very quick and easy transaction. Takes them about two weeks to make up a custom order.

If I recall correctly, ashdown just made a whopper of a delivery of these to sound control as they went under. This is a distributors worst nightmare as chances are you’ve lost your stock and won’t see much of anything back for them. I think a lot of them were sold off cheaply as a result which canned the reputation of the brand.

Recently I noticed a peculiar bridge design on two 3 string basses which were in their historical state, one of these basses being an Antonio Gagliano (unsure if the first Antonio or the second of the family) and Dragonetti's Da Salo. I think the Gagliano with that bridge and setup sounded very different then any other Gagliano basses I've heard or played on. I also noticed how this design wasn't present on Bottesini's Testore but as the instrument wasn't a 3 string to start he would've gotten a new bridge on it and this design may of disappeared by then. The basses I've seen it on have also been the only 3 strings still in their historical state that I know of .Does anyone know anything about this? The Antonio Gagliano (used by Rinat Ibragimov for his Bottesini 2nd concerto recording) Dragonetti's Da Salo

Woman Woman - Gary Puckett & The Union Gap

Those cheapo plywood guitars can sound really good.

I think that assigning gender to an instrument is the irrational thing. So I'd classify your item as a rational prejudice against an irrational trend!