bassbiscuits

Flog it man. Life's too short to have things you're not using clogging up your life, and locking up money that you could use for something you really want. You've already got '64 P, so I think you're covered for cool vintage Fenders eh?

Hey. Nice one.

The wide neck threw me a little on these having been used to a B profile (i.e. Quite narrow) 70s P for many years. But they do sound, look and feel fanastic and way nearer to an 'original' P bass than the modern stuff (which are also lovely, but different).

Ah I enjoyed watching that! Nice one. Yeah Phil sounds like a precision with flats too, tho I'm happy to be corrected.

If you want real neck dive, try an Epi Jack Casady... it's an instrument and a left-arm workout all in one! Cool basses, but don't expect ergonomic balance.

Ah man - I bought a Tokai Thunderbird a few years back. It looked divine, sounded reasonable but weighed a tonne. It felt like it was the size of my settee onstage. I never considered my main precision at the time to be lightweight ( a MIA 1996 at about 4.2kg ) but the difference was like comparing divers boots to flip flops. However the Thunderbird did make punters play air guitar in front of me onstage, which was nice!

That's cool isn't it. I love to hear music like this sung in a local accent too rather than some Americanised drawl. Good stuff. Impressed he managed to rhyme "shenanigans" with "anger management" too - well done that man!

I haven't bought anything since early June - my MIJ Mustang bass. Maybe some plectrums since then but that's all. Bit of kit that's not going anywhere? That'll be my Schroeder 1210 cab. Faffed about with big cabs, small cabs and absolutely huge cabs, but that's the best all rounder for what I need at the moment. I've used it for every gig since I bought it five years ago. The single thing that's made most difference to my sound? Getting a new guitar player ha ha!

Slight neck dive on mine - but nothing of note at all. Certainly not noticeable when playing. Its got a pretty light body tho and big old 70s machineheads.

I haven't bought any bass magazines for years - not enough interesting stuff. Basschat is a more relevant and comprehensive source of bass info for me.

Another for scratchplates and plectrums here

I got in a similar situation with a local pub here. It was a solo acoustic/singing gig, which i got after doing an hour of rousing 'greatest hits' for their little summer festival in beer garden. The landlord liked it and booked me for some paid gigs. How different they were. Each gig was when people were still eating their Sunday lunch, so I toned it right down, played quietly etc - but a old bloke in cycling lycra insisted on sitting right in front of me moaning constantly about the volume. It got to the point I was playing at more or less unamplified, and he still complained about the volume (while sitting right in front of the stage). Luckily some punters with their kids came up to dance and said thanks, but they were hugely outnumbered by the garrulous old men talking loudly among themselves, completely ignoring me, except to complain every few songs. I didn't get asked back, and didn't ask for any more gigs. An afternoon I'll never get back.

Didn't Harry Secombe used to play one?

There was the Halloween gig near Doncaster a few years ago when I felt so ill I had to keep pulling over on the way to vomit out of the car door. Spent most of the night in the car park in a cold sweat trying to get some fresh air and not barf. Managed the gig without passing out and succeeded in not spewing while singing which was a miracle. Seem to remember a big gang of lads singing some massively racist chanting as I was leaving too, which was nice.

Got to the final of a battle of the bands thing once and we all drove to Birmingham for the gig. Turns out the band (who go on to win, no surprise at all) are the mates of the pub hosting the gig. So they get to go on at peak time to a good crowd, and the soundman giving a sh*t. We don't go on until long after - some 'technical problems' from the venue apparently which delay our set even further. By the time we play, it's going on for 11pm, and there's a handful of people left standing among the detritus of the previous bands beer bottles etc. We don't win.

In the 1990s my band in South Wales did a good few gigs in the valleys. Our first ever gig, in a pub in the Swansea Valley, the landlord kicked us out after our soundcheck because the half a dozen or so punters were apparently expecting a female cabaret singer. We didn't get paid and our van got caught up in a big clash between football fans on the way home. My next band did a gig in a really rough club in the Rhondda Valley. We were a mix of britpop originals and some classic rock/pop covers, but a big mound of a guy sidles up to tell us it's death metal night there and furthermore most of them have taken an E (not a combination I'd have though but never mind). The gig was awful, they weren't interested, and we were glad to get our alive. Same band played a gig in Soho where we'd driven in a hired van from South Wales. Turns out it's a transvestite bar and we've been billed as a jazz combo. We go on after a Shirley Bassey impersonator. No one likes us. Our van gets a parking ticket. We only get paid £50 of the promised £100, which didn't event cover the cost of the parking fine, let alone the van hire or the petrol.

I need to check out Lau. Isn't Kris Drever their guitarist? I've got some of his solo stuff and it's great. Come to think of it I saw him live at the Big Session too. I remember he had a lovely fingerpicking guitar sound.

Yep Tunng are cool. I saw them live a couple of times over the years in a long-gone event called the Big Session which was on Leicester. Folktronica is about right! They'd gone off my radar a bit but I must check them out again.

I've tried. I really have. The only jazz i'm at all familiar with is a couple of Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and Dave Brubeck albums I have, so late 50s and early 60s I guess. That hardly counts as a wide cross section of jazz I know! Maybe it's cos it's not stuff I grew up loving or influenced by particularly, so while I can see it's worth, musically and technically, it just doesn't fire me up in the way I'd expect if I loved it. Sorry.

Hi Matthew - no worries. If you click on my name in the little icon, it''ll take you to my profile, from where you can click on 'send mail' to send me a personal message. I've just PM'd you. I just thought it looked like a pretty cool bridge. I need to check the string spacing etc on the bass in question. looks nice tho.

I've had a couple of Nanyos - a red SB310 like this one, and a black fretless SB301. Both lovely basses and ridiculously good quality for the price. I was never crazy on the looks tho, and ultimately moved them on.

That's cool - what is it? I need something like this potentially.