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I have taken the brave decision to launch a new print and digital bass magazine for the UK market. I've been publishing magazines in my day job for 27 years and think it's terrible that we don't have a dedicated magazine anymore. We launch the mag officially at the Birmingham Bass & Guitar Show next month where we will have a small stand and giving away a sample issue (while stocks last) - we will then publish quarterly moving forward. Editor is Joel McIver who ran Bass Guitar magazine and then Bass Player so no cheap AI generated content here! Website is here You can subscribe via the website - our socials launch on Monday. If you are at the show next month come and say hello - be nice to put faces to names. The cover of our sample issue is here for your thoughts and comments.

Hi everyone, this is Mark Morgan-Richards of Classic and Cool Guitars, and Limelight. First of all, thank you to everyone, this is a great community effort. I contacted the auction house first thing this morning and they withdrew the bass from sale. I now have to try to get it back...🤞 I have learnt a few things from this whole episode: 1) I will NEVER use ParcelForce or Interparcel again. 2) I will not be adding any logos to the headstock other than Limelight (or blank) from now on 3) I really appreciate all the help I got from this post (Thanks Paddy)

So. After three-odd years containing knee surgery, a pulmonary embolism, torn rotator cuff, additional knee work and hand surgery, Sunday sees me back in the studio. I'm genuinely feeling energised to dip my toe into things. It's a blank canvas, we just go in, write in the fly and hit record. Old school.

Hi everyone, I think I’ve come across your bass in a live auction with Wellers Auctions in Guildford. I check their listings from time to time for instruments, and this one caught my eye due to the very limited information provided. A quick Google reverse image search led me to this forum. The auction ends tomorrow, so it may be worth contacting them ASAP. I really hope you’re able to recover the bass. Chris

I've never known pubs to be so busy in January - another one rammed tonight. They were not very dancy, well there wasn't really the space, so it was a bit of a proggy night instead. We even had a little blast of Genesis - I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe), and I found my lawnmower patch in time 😂 The tools of the trade - Sub5 Stingish bass, GT-6B, Rumble v3 500. Black DMs. Some lovely compliments too. It's always nice when people acknowledge the bass. We have a couple of weekends off now.

We did 3 in a row with Abdoujaparov at the weekend. They're lovely guys and such a good band. We arranged to share the drum kit and bass rig. The first night was the Golden Lion in Bristol. It's a pretty cool venue room at the back of a pub, but weirdly, the pub punters have to go through the venue to use the loo, which made the doorman's job very difficult. Even more difficult that the job was forced onto our merch guy last minute. A bunch of young guys tried to get into the gig, talking too loudly, over confident, and perhaps a gurn or two... anyway, Tommo our merch man made short shrift of them. Since starting my own venue I keep noticing all the little things I don't like in other venues. Here we had: multi coloured XLR, PA hanging from the ceiling by metal angle and wood screws, spot lights at pretty much 6ft from the stage floor (mild concussion), lighting rig attached to a thin piece of wood attached to some plasterboard... Anyway, it was rammed and we had a great time Bideford Palladium Club on the Saturday, which is a very cool venue, but kind of out of the way. The guy says he's struggling so if you're out that way please go to some gigs! The sound was awesome and the room is fantastic. Green room upstairs with a random selection of objects was good fun. Someone glued a fake Oscar to the ceiling but it was down again by the time I left. More japes - I'd noticed a parking fine on our van before the show. I waited until after to tell the others. It turned out to be a yellow PCN plastic document wallet with a random bit of notepaper inside! We have no idea who it was. I suspect the venue owner did it to prevent us getting a real ticket. The King Arthur in Glastonbury on Sunday. We knew ticket sales were low, but we know a couple of people who live in Glastonbury, and it turns out they had no idea the gig was on. They've not seen it on posters or in local press or anything. There were loads of gig posters on the outside, some from last year, some gigs coming up, and a big brand spanking new gig list with Jan, Feb, Mar on it, and no mention of our gig. We got inside, the sound engineer is the guy "promoting" the show. Our frontman asks why there are no posters around and SE says "We did have some up". Our frontman laughed and asked "Were they nicked?"... SE obviously feels a bit awkward and goes on a rant about how he's not allowed to put posters up around town any more but FFS he might as well have forgotten he booked the gig at all. Apparently his door staff called in sick last minute too, giving Tommo the job again. SE chews my ear off about drums and gear while I'm setting up, and I know I should have seen this coming, but he said he needed 10 minutes to plug everything in, so we went to the shop, and on my return this f&^%$er was sat playing my kit. This might be snobby but I spent more than £3K on my cymbals and I don't let anyone play them. I let him know I wasn't happy, he got awkward and defensive, and we got on with sound check. To be fair it sounded excellent, he really knows his stuff, but by this point I'm losing the will to live. Abdoujaparov played first, and they were great, but obviously playing to 10 people in a cold venue gives a different vibe to the previous two days. I tucked into the beers and did my best. It was a long drive home to Stoke!

Update. I'm in. The band were supposed to audition another bassist tomorrow, but he forgot about it......😁 His loss. I'm chuffed. First rehearsal tomorrow night.

We played The Shed in Charlbury tonight; it's a small venue but popular with the jazz crowd. This was a fundraising gig to cover some of the costs of the recent refurbishment there (nice to have working electricity which is up to safety standards...). It was a good turnout considering we'd never played there before and the locals wouldn't have known what they were going to get. Luckily, they seemed to have liked it. Edit: Video available.

Played at Thekla in Bristol last night, such a cool venue. Highly recommended!

Last night we played at the Musketeer in Leigh, Lancashire. It's always been one of those gigs where the crowd turns up 5 minutes before the band starts. We had been talking to them about taking our long-established jam night there, but we couldn't get timings that suited us all. We did a well-received first spot and a lengthy second spot. We certainly blew off the cobwebs in the place. It was great that the 'new' line-up of the band was so readily accepted at one of our favourite venues. It was a bit of a special gig for us, as our guitarist's wife gives birth next Fri (planned birth) and so we are taking the band off the road during February.

I saw Big Country a few times. Just before The Crossing was released, me and a mate flew to Jersey to see them. He worked for an airfreight business, they had an office in St Helier and he got someone to procure tickets; both of us had family working at BA, so we got cheap flights out. We had nowhere to stay and travelled in shorts and t-shirts. Found a room in Pontac. Gig day we thumbed a lift to St Helier (in a Lords Taverners minibus!), found the venue (Fort Regent Centre) and just holed up in a bar there. We saw the load-in and then Stuart and Bruce came in. This was mid-afternoon. Drink was drunk. They're stunned that anyone would want to fly somewhere to see them. We were invited in for the soundcheck...it was just me and my mate and a couple of crew (private gig!), more drink (Stuart gave us fresh t-shirts), then the gig. It was a great gig. Next morning we were on standby flights, so we're at the airport at 7.00am, same clothes. Band come in, see us, Stuart cheers (I remember him putting his arms up like he'd scored a goal), he tells me proudly that he's bought a wristwatch for £2.99 (this memory has stuck with me, him just going, '£2.99!'.). It's noticeable that despite the hour, he's not holding back in the spirits. Cleared to fly, we're on the same flight...Stuart is cheering when he sees us boarding. He's in the row behind us. Amazingly, Kenny Dalgliesh us sitting in the row in front of us. Over the years, we run into Stuart a few times and he always made some remark about the Jersey blokes. I genuinely miss him, it was a tragic, terrible, lonely and pointless death. I often wonder what could have been, but at least his legacy us pretty much intact.

After all the worry, it was great! Really cool venue, The Acoustic Lounge in Poynton. All the good things you want from a venue - easy to find, car park right next to load in doors, loads of plug sockets, great staff, first drink free and they have bands on every weekend so people know to come for live music. By no means full but with a decent crowd for a Sunday night and even some dancers. A very civilised 7pm start and 9.30pm finish meant I was in bed for just after 11 - bonus on a school night. Easily the best we've played - this was only our 4th full gig as a band and 2nd as a 5 piece with sax. Rig was Fender Jazz 5 Kazuki Arai --> (new) Xvive P58 wireless --> HX Stomp --> PA. Footwear was Vans classics. Lots of positive feedback from punters and venue, including a guy from another band who recorded pretty much the whole gig and sent us the 4k files. Brilliant stuff! Don't know if Jon from Loop & Swing is on here, but thanks a million if you are! Here are some of his clips: And I'm even going to risk submitting a bit of me attempting some slap:

After our usual few weeks off in January, we were back at it at a fairly local WMC, Maltby Catholic Club. Despite being local we’d not played this venue before. The gig was well publicised resulting in a packed house. Both spots were well attended by dancers and a promise of a further gig, love it when a plan comes together. Talking with the proprietor, turns out the place wasn’t doing too well when the took it over last year but since investing in better live music acts the place is now thriving which was great to hear. EBMM shorty stingray, Boss pedals, Markbass little Marcus 500, 2 x Markbass NY121. Silver Converse Chuckie Ts.

Not my gig, but I was in the studio yesterday recording the first couple of tracks for my second album. The studio engineer, who is also guitarist and sometime backing vocalist on my recordings, casually dropped into the conversation that he opened for Planet Rock's "Winters End" festival on Thursday... and I get this guy whenever I need on my amateur recordings!

First gig at the Merriott Social Venue near Yeovil last night. We were pretty rusty not having gigged since before Xmas and having been forced to cancel our last 3 weekly rehearsals due to illness and floods. Singer Kat still hadn't fully recovered from whatever bug had colonised her throat but we all agreed to just turn up and give it our best shot - including several ungigged new numbers. Thankfully Kat smashed it, the crowd loved us, the venue booked us for another gig in May plus their New Year's Eve bash - and a couple booked us for their wedding! One of the new numbers was No One Knows by Queens Of The Stone Age and our percussion was enhanced by the sound of my knees knocking together as the fear of what I was about to attempt took a hold of me. Fcuk the gig money! Nailing that song was what made my night 🙂

More pics... Shape oversize cut prior to routing...

Good gig, weird crowd. First time out for the Godin Dorchester, an absolute beast of a bass, massive pickups, massive output, I really had to turn it down. A fun night and a long two hour set, so we were cooked by the end of it.

Some video emerged from last weekend's gig. Just in case you thought I just set up my rig in random places and photograph it every other weekend 20260124 Harbour Lights - Zombie.mp4

The Joe Dart III Sterling Short Scale got a first run out last weekend. Lovely to play it has to be said.

Possibly the most unnecessary experiment in guitar history, but here we are

small but mighty!

Yesterday morning I picked up a few items that had fallen out of the recycling bag. A bean can lid made a big slice along my ring fingernail. Spent all day with it plastered up and it appeared to have sealed, but I touched it up with superglue just in case... Last night's Fortunate Sons gig was for the Rusty Sprocket MCC and locals at a pub in Rumney. Usually the band play their festival every year but this year the dates didn't work, a shame as it's an event I'd love to play. Setting up this happened... yes leaking either side of the glue patch. It stopped bleeding but a rummage in my hits box later and it opened right up, about 4mm deep and 15mm long. Luckily th drummer has special 'wrap' elastoplasts with long tails. I've still got it on and will leave it for a couple of days. Gig itself was good although I made a few fluffs, only partly due to my padded ginger ... like remembering to tune back up from D but not switching myself off standby. Got an immense sound from my Epiphone Embassy with a nice overdrive when digging in. Great reception and possibility of a slot at a big bike festival in the summer.

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, having grown beyond the sum of it's parts, 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 black Gotoh '66 Lollipop Tuners and other nice Gotoh hardware, but with one of the first Kiwi-produced "Aurok" graphite necks for a modern twist to both the look and the sound. 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! Sound-wise, it's actually turned out better than I'd hoped, with a deep, growly tone & a lovely clear top end, with that unmistakable graphite 'shimmer' underpinning the sound. 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 direction in which they physically turn. Duh. Anyway, I've now accidentally got another bass with "vintage reverse tuners". Yep, we ended up putting 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 amazing. It can be easily fixed later with a different bridge with adjustable string spacing. I also really liked the wheeled string tree on my GB Spitfire, so added one of those to the tally of parts, as well as a cheeky black "F" logo neck plate - after all, Fender did design the Jazz Bass, so they should deserve a little credit. So it just remains for me to thank both @Silky999 & @Kiwi again for all their hard work. The bass sounds literally amazing - even better than the Status T-Bass I recently played at Andy Baxter's showroom. No, I'm not kidding. Sound Clips to follow...

Redux. There's a load of photos from Jersey. Stuart We were crawling over the soundcheck: St Helier airport 7.00am (note t-shirt that Stuart gave me). I'd just come back from Spain, hence my complexion reflecting mu Portuguese heritage. And glasses!: I had nothing to sign, so I bought a book and they signed that!

I'm not sure if it has been posted before, if so, always worth another thread. 'Martha Reeves live in concert'. It's not very long (22 minutes) and there are a few top players by the looks of it. Some posters have named the band. Jamerson, Joe Sample (Keys), Wah Wah Watson & Dennis Coffey (Gtrs), Jim Keltner (Drums), Ollie E. Brown (percussion), Steve Doc Kupka (sax) Emilio Castillo (trumpet) Both from Tower of Power. George Bohannon (trombone) Maxine Willard, Maxine Waters, and Clydie King on back up vox. And, of course, Martha on top form!!

There's not one post here that was against a happy ending of the bass being reunited with the owner. I went back and reread them all. In fact, there's no negativity toward Mark or the buyer. What there was, was some healthy non-conflict comment and information about some of the legal aspects and what could happen in similar circumstances, and a few well-meant warnings about certain couriers and practices. I think it's been a useful learning experience and it reflects well on the community that we can have these discussions.

Various shorties I’ve had over the years just the Shuker left 😊

So yesterday I sold the last of my SWR gear. This ends what has been a thirty plus year obsession with the brand, started by my love of the bass playing of John Paul Jones. Over the years I have owned and gigged: 1) Black Beauty combo 2) Black Beauty combo with Workingmans 210 3) 750x head with Goliath III (4x10) and Son of Bertha (1x15) 4) 750x head with two Goliaths 5) Grand Prix preamp (twice) 6) SM1500 head with two Goliaths 7) SM1500 head with one Goliath Senior (6x10) 8).SM1500 with one Goliath 9) SM900 with one Goliath 10) Marcus Miller preamp (twice) 11) Marcus Miller preamp with Amplite poweramp (the setup I should have kept). I know that Fender swallowed up the SWR brand and then promptly did nothing with it, but boy would I love an SWR pedal sized preamp with the semi-parametric EQ and the famous aural enhancer (marmite to many),

Well, 2 weeks to the day since I returned the One10, a replacement was delivered this morning, and all is well with the world once more. Alex promised to turn it around quickly and he has, just in time for me to use the pair on gigs tonight and tomorrow. The initial mix up was unfortunate, but it's all been sorted out at no cost to me. Rob

Hi guys, Just recorded a video in 4k so you can really see the detail of the body with the glassy finish... yep still in good condition after all these years!

Off to Horbury WMC for a 40th party attended by around 150 people apparently, although you wouldn't know it from the lack of audience involvement. Hey ho. The evening started auspiciously as I managed to find a parking spot literally three feet from the door! After I'd recovered from the shock we set up pretty quickly, said hello to the birthday girl and her husband, soundchecked, then sat around doing nothing for an hour and a half. Went with the by now tried and tested Siredowsky - ABM - Two10S combination, which sounded pretty good on a larger stage. At halftime I was approached by a local guitar tech who preferred his business card, so I'll have to look into that as I don't have a go to one in these parts yet. Managed to grab a bowl of curry, made by our guitarist's ex apparently, before heading back on stage. We all played really well, and our newer songs are sounding really good, apart from our drummist truncating Two Tribes again! We had a couple of half-hearted dancers for a couple of songs but that was about it, but star of the night was the 9(ish)-year-old girl who was dancing and cartwheeling on the dancefloor for the entire second set, which have me a bit of a boost. Before we started our singist approached us all and asked if we'd fancy giving London Calling a bash. Hell yes, I would!

I can understand not liking a guitar tone. (Taste is subjective, and all that.) I realise some people feel like they need to share this dislike in a short comment. Then there is Gazz. I do not know Gazz personally, but he felt the need to respond to a little 45-second video at some length: He goes on...dare I say my atrocious tone seems to have offended him quite personally... Apparently, I'm doing absolutely everything wrong..."but what [does he] know??", he humbly ventures... Ah, wait, there it is: Did Gazz actually want to offer his useful (read: unsolicited) advice, or did he just want an opening to brag about his collection of amps? (And isn't it funny how some people think that they can foghorn the most patronising screed at you, but as long as they say "don't take it as an insult," everything's A-OK?)

A bit more progress on this one today, with equal parts satisfaction and quiet concern. The roasted maple neck has had a test fit into the wenge & elm body (dry fit only). Alignment and scale are behaving themselves, centreline is where it should be, and for once nothing has tried to fight back. Always suspicious when that happens. I’ve also been polishing the gloss poly finish, which has reached the stage where it looks finished enough to give you false confidence, but still has plenty of opportunities left to catch you out. This build was started before I’d properly refined my build process, so there are still a couple of jobs left that now feel… character-building. Chief among them is drilling the bridge earth hole, which is one of those operations where you stare at the body for ten minutes, measure it again, stare some more, and then wonder why you ever thought this was a good idea. Still, progress is progress. Next update will either involve a neat earth wire… or a lesson learned. It would be rude not to mention that a worrying amount of today’s progress was made possible by my Narex chisels, which continue to justify their place on the bench every single time I pick them up. Sharp, predictable, and refreshingly uninterested in drama, they’re basically the opposite of most of my builds. Clean cuts, no tearing, no surprises — just quietly getting on with the job while I mutter “that’s lovely” to myself like a man who’s spent far too long in a workshop.

New video by my young'uns band. Another single coming in a couple weeks and loads of gigs booked.

I’ve had a Japanese Geddy Lee body hanging around for a while, did contemplate selling it at one point but never got round to it, then I started looking at a few options for it I did consider until very recently a fretless neck, I did see a mex’ neck for sale but didn’t take it any further The local Cello player tried to persuade me to sell it and he had a Japanese 70’s neck lined up for it in the meantime a very neglected Mexican jazz bass came into my possession for some much needed TLC, so I borrowed the neck off it and it worked well, but only a short term solution as the neck needs to go back from where it came at some Point so I continued to casually look for an alternative This came up last week, a Klos carbon neck, slightly unusual looking compared to a traditional neck with the 3+1 head stock and off set position markers but it appealed to me, after some research a deal was done It’s a very wet and windy day in Manchester so a good day to play with necks After I told the local cello player what neck I’d bought, he did suggest adding a black pick guard, sounds like a good idea, so if you have one knocking about, let me know

Tone air, it's the newest thing.

Finally have finished all the routing for Speakon connectors and handles. Sides, top and bottom already glued, Now doing front and rear glueing and clamping. Next steps tomorrow, let the glue cure overnight, a bit of filler (ahem), sanding down, put a 6mm curve on the edges with the router, two layers of smooth Armacab on all external surfaces, one top layer of textured Armacab but masking off any rebated areas, measure for black 3d printed corners, print them overnight as eight hours , assemble all and test for Sunday (hopefully).

Following on from this thread I have taken the brave decision to launch a new print and digital bass magazine for the UK market. I've been publishing magazines in my day job for 27 years and think it's terrible that we don't have a dedicated magazine anymore. We launch the mag officially at the Birmingham Bass & Guitar Show next month where we will have a small stand and giving away a sample issue (while stocks last) - we will then publish quarterly moving forward. Editor is Joel McIver who ran Bass Guitar magazine and then Bass Player so no cheap AI generated content here! Website is here You can subscribe via the website - our socials launch on Monday. If you are at the show next month come and say hello - be nice to put faces to names. The cover of our sample issue is here for your thoughts and comments.

Ordered someLaBella double ball black tape wounds on Sunday , arrived early Tuesday morning . They look and sound fantastic, rekindled my love for the Steiny .

It might just be knocking around a depot somewhere. Years ago I had a bass that went missing for a couple of days (my Zoot in a massive Warwick flight case) which was shipped via PF24 or whatever it was called then. The only reason it made its way to me within the same week was our Parcel Force guy (I worked for a mail order company that used PF almost exclusively at the time) spotted it leaning up against a wall, recognised he'd delivered waaaaaay too many similarly shaped boxes to me and checked the label. So really the moral of the story is the more basses you buy the safer you are.