Linus27

They are such great basses and so lovely to play, even addictive. I was just about to go to bed and couldn't resist having a noodle, put a big smile on my face.

I'll weigh mine tonight but I would say medium. It doesn't feel super light like one of my basses but not as heavy as my main bass which is on the heavy side.

Yep, absolutely and so many fabulous memories and life experiences. Waiting at Dover to cross into France, challenging the girls British Netball team to a game of netball and then football and being totally destroyed by them 😁 Being in France playing at a huge international music festival and getting into a huge food fight in the food hall with a Spanish trad band 😂 Miming in Dundee shopping centre to promote our latest single and coming out to perform to find our roadies had set all our gear up back to front and upside down 😂 Getting a visit from the Welsh Police in the early hours of the morning whilst recording an album due to our drummer get very drunk and walking back to the studio from the pub the night before with a gate which in turn let all the sheep out to roam around the village the following morning 😂 Playing at a festival in Reigate on a beautiful sunny day being buzzed by the Red Arrows mid set and everyone coming up to us afterwards asking if we'd arranged that which we took credit for 😂 So many more amazing memories, loved every minute of it.

Nice, I dont think you'll be disappointed, I'm certainly loving playing mine.

What did you go for in the end?

I loved the circus life, absolutely love it, travelling across the country, venue to venue, playing in a new town or city, meeting new people, playing a gig which might be absolutely amazing or go disastrously wrong but still having a laugh along the way. It was one giant adventure and I love every second of it. Some people used to moan about it and say its really boring, they hated it, hated all the travelling etc. so I would just say to them then stop if you don't like it then go and get a regular job but this is a gift, to be on tour, to play music, not everyone gets this opportunity or life style so you make the most of it, make it work for you but if this is too much hard work and you'd sooner be working in a shop, or a factory or an office then you crack on but doing this is my dream and I am going to love every second of it. Most seemed to get it after that and enjoyed it but not all.

We've had fans record our gigs and make their own t-shirts which we were ok with. We even had a band cover one of our songs in their live set which was pretty cool. A few years ago, I heard a new band and one of their songs was quite a rip off of one of our songs.

Somewhere in a 'sliding doors' parallel universe I would be in The Stereophonics. Virgin were coming to see us and The Stereophonics and we were in discussions with them but in the end they decided to sign The Stereophonics.

We did play there but it was on the 12th August 1999. I don't think we played there previous to that.

This goes back to how you define success. I did 3 years as a club band, playing over 100 gigs a year, earning around £10k a year whilst doing a 9-5 job every day and having a wife and 2 kids. It was just a case of finding a balance.

Here you go and yep, looks great 😁

Been playing around with mine a bit today 😁 Tort scratchplate and a lighter gloss 70's neck. Does change the look of the bass somewhat. Rosewood neck which is quite nice. Original

Here you go, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter_(band)

I never wanted the fame and fortune but I wanted to play music and make a living out of it. When I was 9 in 1979 and at school, I told my teacher I wanted to play the trombone so they gave me a test and then told my parents I will never make a musician as I don't have a musical bone in my body. Then skip to 1985 and I saw U2 at Live Aid and saw Adam Clayton strutting around the stage looking like the coolest dude on the planet and I wanted some of that. Went to college and met some friends and got myself a guitar and my friend got a bass. I wanted to play bass and he wanted to play guitar so we swapped but he gave up and I stuck with it. I then spent two years learning to play and then joined a band and gigged lots but this ended after a few years. I then formed another band that eventually got signed in 1996 and actually did really well. We went on tour, photoshoots, recorded two John Peel sessions, did a Radio 1 roadshow, a live Virgin radio session and recorded an album with Mark Wallis who produced the It Bites album, Travis albums, U2 and many others. We released 4 singles, got lots of airplay including TV and cinema adverts. We made it, were signed, getting paid and living the dream but I was still not interested in any fame or fortune despite some of that coming my way. All I ever wanted was to have a song played on the radio, record an album and go on TOTP's. Now, my perception of making it is different but I still don't want the fame or fortune and if anything, even less so than before, I just want to play music and making it is all about how much you play and how much you can live from the income it brings rather than being famous. A few years ago I was playing in a club band that was earning great money and gigging pretty much every weekend. It was supplementing my day job income enough for me to buy a car from earnings and to be fairly comfortable so I considered myself to be semi-pro during that period as apposed to being pro when I was signed and it was my only income. If I look back over the 37 years of playing, I have been amateur, semi-pro and pro and I look at the wall with the albums I have played on and think that I have spent more of my days gigging, touring, recording and playing music that I have working for someone else so for me, despite being an unknown, but known to my friends and family as a musician, I identify myself as a musician more than anything else and to me that is making it.

Post up pictures when you've done the bits to it as it will be great to see. I'm thinking of changing the pickguard to either a vintage off white or red tort and possibly fitting the fretted neck that came with my Fender FSR 70's Precision. It's tinted as well but not being used as the bass has a fretless neck on it as per the picture above. Like your idea of bridge covers as well so might do the same.

If they do come in at around a grand then I think they will be super popular. Official release date is rumoured to be the 19th so we might find out soon.

Oh, I get you now, Mr Rosewood hahaha love it 😂

Huh?

Just to add, my 40th Anniversary Precision in Satin Dakota Red has just arrived and it is incredible. An absolute dream to play and is actually set up really nicely. It also sounds brilliant and despite not liking satin necks as I prefer gloss necks, it feels really really nice. The only other satin neck I've ever liked was my fretless Stingray which was the nicest neck I've ever played but this also feels really good. The vintage look is also really nice. So I am super happy and the best £250 I've spent on a bass and will tide me over as the only fretted bass in my collection 😜

Starting to appear now. https://reverb.com/item/73213671-fender-vintera-ii-70-s-telecaster-bass-vintage-white I had made my mind up on getting it in green but I'm actually liking the Vintage white more now.

Plus, there is a list of things you can claim back as expenses before submitting your tax return, for example, travel, stage clothes, accommodation, insurance, repairs, consumables etc. The list is huge and we used to claim back on literally everything we possibly could and it went through without any query.

Yes, exactly this, if fact my wife had her car written off by another driver on the way to work. Insurance company asked for some photos of the damage, sent a chap round to look at the car and then offered a thousand pounds more than the car was worth. Bought it for £4600 and they gave us £5600. Wife's replacement car got hit by an unknown car in a petrol station on the way to work. Again, asked for some photos, they then sent a local repair company to look at it and within a week, the car was taken away, repaired and returned. Following year her premiums went down. No quibble's or questions.

As a weekend warrior, legally, no organisation or company would consider or lay claim on you as a worker or employed, and you would have no rights, especially as there would be no contract of employment in place. Even if a contract existed for you to perform as an agreement on a date for a sum, if below a financial threshold, then HMRC would not be interested in asking you to pay tax.

I don't see this makes any difference to be fair. Lets say I went out for a meal on Friday night and my car was full of old furniture that belonged to me that I had sold on Ebay and was going to deliver the next morning and was being paid £50 for. That's not a business or a trade so it is no different to having my car full of my own music equipment that I used as my hobby by playing down the Red Lion and got paid £50 for. As long as I am not acting as a business or a trader and earning enough to cause a concern to the HMRC then there is no difference. In fact The Police wouldn't even be interested at all to be fair unless a crime has been committed. My mate Dave down the road could ask me to give him a bass lesson. I load my car up, give him a lesson and he pays me £20 for the trouble. I give him this lesson in the back room of a pub. My mate gets totally smashed on booze and I drink water all night. Again, that's not any concern to The Police or insurance company as no crime on my part is committed and I am not acting as a business and purely a hobby. They may smell booze, breathalyze me but as I am stone cold sober then no crime has been committed.

I think there needs to be some clarity if we are talking about pro or semi pro musicians or those who are weekend warriors playing down the Red Lion on a Friday night. I'm not aware of any musician who is a weekend warrior who declares on their insurance they are a musician or claims it as a second income. I am not even aware of the insurance company being remotely interested in what you were doing prior or post accident on the day/evening and only interested in your description of how the accident happened. I have never had to provide information to the tune of saying it was Friday night and I had been playing a gig at the Red Lion and after the gig I drove home and had an accident. It has always been on this date at this time I joined the A31 and the other driver rear ended me etc. I am sure also below a certain financial threshold per year, it is classed as a hobby and not a business, professional, trade etc. However, if a pro or semi-pro (how do you even define this) and you have registered your vehicle for business use as a musician then I can see that you would possibly declare it.