lowregisterhead

[quote name='lonestar' timestamp='1390504136' post='2346201'] He's a pretty hot fencer too. [/quote] Wasn't he considered for the Olympic fencing team at one point?

[quote name='wombatboter' timestamp='1390496267' post='2346054'] A funny thing about Palladino is the way he plays... I'm always convinced that people play like their personality is. If you're flamboyant you'll play like that; if you're a shy person it reflects in your playing, if you don't really listen to people irl then you won't on stage when someone else is doing their thing.. But Pino plays rather "busy" imo (but in a fabulous way) but it wouldn't match with the "you play like you are". I talked to him twice and he is this really easygoing person while on stage he's someone who doesn't disappear in the shadows musically.. [/quote] His mild-mannered demeanour in person could be a little misleading, I would say. I interviewed him a number of years ago for an article in a music mag. He was very polite, forthcoming and pleasant to talk to, but he insisted on seeing the article before it was published, and asked for several changes to be made. That might well have been due to my poor journalism in part, but he's a very astute man, and much more aware of his profile than you might think from his public persona, and with good reason - any potential employer who was to read the piece might decide whether to hire him or not based on what he was reported to have said. I'd class him as one of the finest bass players of his generation. He plays for the song, as well as adding great warmth and character to any performance, but his personality plays an important part in the equation. Wherever you're working, you want people around you who are not just great players, but good company. You really don't want to be trapped in a studio or a tour bus with someone who's a pain in the a*se, regardless of what they can do on their chosen instrument. Pino's show himself time and again to be a master of both.

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1390322647' post='2344050'] There's a load of guys selling off gear on ebay which are on the wrong frequencies in the hope that somebody will snag it up as a bargain. I've bought wireless equipment off eBay and it's always the first question I ask if they haven't made the frequency specifications clear. If they haven't made it clear, they either genuinely don't know (like yourself) or know full well and have deliberately hidden the fact. (You'll know the latter when they fail to respond or don't answer the question directly! - fobbed off with things like, no interference anywhere, it works on a range of frequencies, it's perfect etc...). I would hazard a guess that retuning is going to be economically not viable - and a lot of the manufacturers will only rehash the top end equipment - usually at a cost of hundreds of pounds. The most economically viable solution is to buy yourself a new unit, or sell it on as spares etc on eBay. In the UK, you are looking primarily at channel 38 and 70. There are fixed site licenses/event licenses but you have to apply serperately for those - and I guess you and the typical wireless user are looking at using the unit on your travels. The thing which sucks about this unit is that it looks like it has come from Europe (or been bought without knowledge of the licenses from somewhere like Thomann and imported) - and like everybody, Europe have closed down that frequency due to 4G. I can't imagine you being able to use the unit legally anywhere due to the 4G networks taking upmost priority in the spectrum allocation. It looks like Australia has still got some of the band available but is shutting it down by the end of the year. I'm sorry but it sounds like you've been duped You weren't the first and you certainly won't be the last. [/quote] Thanks for the info - the system has now been withdrawn from sale on the forum, and I'm looking at various options from selling it online in Sub-Saharan Africa, to propping up the wobbly wardrobe in the spare room. The second option seems the firm favourite at the moment...

I bought a rather lovely pair of Barts from Sabian - great communication, fast delivery and a pleasure to deal with!

Pete bought my 55-02. Great communication, and a pleasure to do business with. Buy/sell/trade with confidence!

As a footnote, I sent the seller of the bass a message saying it had arrived, and I was very happy with it, but also highlighting the shortcomings of eBay's GPP. They replied saying they would not use it again. Here's hoping the whole scheme will flounder. Unfortunately I fear there would have to be a lot of unpleasantness for a lot of buyers along the way before it does.

[quote name='JimBobTTD' timestamp='1390144274' post='2341866'] Thanks for the support, fellas. I know that this is not [i]my[/i] mistake. The problem is this: I paid (x + y) for the jeans, x being the price of jeans plus postage and y being the extra postage and customs charges. The seller received x. Ebay received y. The worry is that the seller will only (or even only be able to) refund x and Ebay will say that I received the package etc etc. Anyway, it seems that the seller is very keen to make this work…probably as she sold the vase for 6x! Thank Heavens that my seller is willing to pay all costs plus a bit for the inconvenience, as Ebay made it rather apparent that they are going to do nothing about it. The initial purpose of my post - to highlight that the Ebay Global Posting Programme will likely leave you high if there is a problem - still stands. Be advised! I, for one, will be avoiding it for the foreseeable. [/quote] Fair point - I hadn't thought about that! OK, how about this - if the vase is valuable, take delivery of it, and hold on to it until the seller sends you the jeans PLUS the cost of returning the vase to them. If they can't or don't want to, at least you have a quite nice vase you can sell to recoup your losses... it sounds like your seller is going the extra mile though, so perhaps ransom demands may not be necessary!

Another horror story about eBay and Yodel.... http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jan/19/yodel-fail-deliver-ebay

[quote name='JimBobTTD' timestamp='1390130666' post='2341693'] Sigh…word of warning, folks. I am in the middle of a MASSIVE HASSLE to fix someone else's mistake. The Ebay Customs thing is what is turning this from a simple thing to solve to a major problem. I bought a pair of jeans from the US and paid for customs and duties through Ebay. This means that the seller is given an address in the US to which to send stuff and this central place takes care of relabelling and shipping. I then receive an email from the seller stating that she has accidentally sent me a vase. How one would muddle up the two boxes is beyond me, but there you go. I call Ebay to see what to do. If I collect the vase, how will I get the customs fees refunded to me, how will I get the return postage refunded etc etc. Ebay initially tried to tell me that they will not "shoulder the costs of the import fees" and tried to fob me off. It looks like I am going to be screwed here. They expect me to pick up this vase, relabel it and send it back. Upon receipt, I will then be refunded at least what the seller took off me. Whether I will get the customs charges refunded is a mystery. I would try and choose standard p&p and take care of the import fees yourselves if I were you, at least until Ebay trains its staff to deal with problems arising from this new thing! [/quote] I would try leaning heavily on the seller and insisting they send the original item at their expense - it was their mistake after all. The vase is their property, and they should have to arrange for its return, not you. If they won't play ball, don't accept delivery of the vase, open a dispute through eBay for an item not recieved, and leave them to sort it out. You've bought and paid for jeans - that's what you should get, and if they don't arrive you should receive a full refund.

A new acquisition... none more black... apart from the white bits... [url="http://s1141.photobucket.com/user/lowwregisterhead/media/Lakland5594Black_zps4f8a39e0.jpg.html"][/url]

[quote name='Lw.' timestamp='1390041597' post='2340746'] Did the actual process of paying for everything up front work out ok though? I'm thinking of buying from the us as the fx rates are so good at the moment so would be good to know... [/quote] The procedure of paying import duties is straight forward enough - you just get a letter from the delivering agent asking you to pay up before they will release the item. A rough method of calculating what you'll end up paying is to add about 25% to the combined cost of purchase and shipping.

[quote name='BetaFunk' timestamp='1390040068' post='2340715'] How did going through the eBay Global Postage Programme compare to if you had imported it yourself? Was it cheaper or more expensive? [/quote] I've imported a number of basses from the States over the years. By my calculations, the GPP charges were exactly the same as the import duty and VAT I would have had to pay to receive the goods myself. That said, the shipping costs were a little on the high side. When the item first appeared on eBay, GPP wasn't being offered, and on contacting the seller they quoted me $190 to ship insured using their own carrier. The price of the bass was a bit too high anyway, and it didn't sell. They relisted it at a lower price, at which point GPP was introduced to the listing, but shipping was $225. All in all, it worked out fine cost-wise, as I had none of the hoopla and delays of waiting for customs clearance and then having to pay the duty before the bass is released to me. My only concern is the lack of tracking and the pitiful method of final delivery! I'm assuming eBay are making money on the whole shipping process by cutting costs to the bone by using the cheapest delivery agents throughout, but that will undoubtedly end in tears for some unfortunate buyers. As I said, I think I've been lucky, and I won't use GPP again. Whether sellers have the option to ship the item themselves if the listing stipulates GPP and the buyer doesn't want to use it, I don't know. I'm guessing that eBay give the seller a financial incentive to use GPP in the first place.

Just a little bit of background on eBay's shiny new 'Global Postage Programme', which some of you may have seen as the preferred method of shipping on some US auctions in the last couple of months. I've just received a bass I bought from a eBay seller in the States, who sent it using the new eBay system. It was a bit unclear how it all worked, but the idea of paying all the shipping and duty up front to speed things along, so no hoops would need to be jumped though to get through customs etc., seemed a good concept in theory. Unsurprisingly, it was a little different in practice. Let's start with the good bit - I received the bass today, and it's great! The seller shipped the bass on the 8th of January from their shop in North Carolina, and sent me a message to say it was on a 2-day service. Wow, I thought, that's fast. What then became clear was it was on a 2-day service to eBay's International Shipping Center in Erlanger, Kentucky. Via my eBay account, I could see it had arrived there on 11th January. 3 days then, but never mind. There were a couple of other entries the same day, 'processing' then 'customs documentation', then silence. Yesterday, it was finally shown as shipped internationally. Another shipping number appeared today, showing it was in the UK with a company called Citipost. With nothing further to go on, I called them, but was told they were just a handling company, and the parcel had been transferred to Yodel for final delivery. At this point I was seriously worried, for the reasons described here: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jan/10/yodel-worst-parcel-delivery Citipost gave me a phone number for Yodel, which had an announcement saying it had been discontinued, so in desperation I checked their webpage using the reference number Citipost had given me, and lo and behold, it was out for delivery to me today. I was in and out of the house all day, so left notes on the door, alerted the neighbours etc., but nothing came. Then about 7pm, I was upstairs and thought I heard a light tapping at the front door. I should add that I live in a detached house with a large and very obvious entryphone panel right beside the front door, but they didn't use that for some reason. I shot downstairs and could see a large box propped up against the glass, so I opened the door, and was just in time to see the driver getting into his van out in the street. He saw me, and pointing to the box, mouthed 'parcel'. If I'd been 5 seconds later, he'd have gone, leaving the best part of 2 grands worth of bass on the doorstep. No signature was required, apparently. Despite eBay's assurance that the item is their responsibility as soon as they receive it from the seller, and that it's fully covered against loss, damage, and any other mishap, if there are yawning gaps in the tracking, they use the cheapest and worst delivery agents in the destination country, and they dump valuable items on the doorstep after dark without even waiting to see if anyone is in, I'm seriously unimpressed! It leaves me feeling that despite having received my goods unscathed, frankly I got lucky. Anyone else used this scheme?

[quote name='Bassassin' timestamp='1389543241' post='2335284'] A lot of Top Twentys were rebranded Teiscos, made in Japan, so unlikely to be more than cosmetically similar to the Kays, which I think started appearing 10 or so years later. For anyone with a genuine interest (or a morbidly perverse curiosity) about these crude & faintly disturbing instruments, there is, as there is for any slightly unsavoury personal predilection, a website: [url="http://www.mark-cole.co.uk/teisco/"]Teisco Twangers[/url] J. [/quote] Wow. Some of the basses are wild - I particularly like the '68 Phantom-B! BetaFunk makes a fair point though, there was not a lot else around within a teenager's budget, especially in the 70's where I grew up, in North East Scotland. There was one 'posh' music shop in Aberdeen (Bruce Millers) but if me and my mates dared to set foot inside it, we were usually sent packing by the assistants, presumably for fear we'd trash the guitars. When I eventually got some money, I took revenge by going to their rival, Middleton Music. Any Aberdeen muso over 40 will remember Brian... he had better gear anyway! Happy days.

As a young boy, I was always hankering after a 'Top Twenty', the Woolies brand. Not sure if they did a bass, but here's the guitar version, perhaps only slightly less hideous than the Satellite and Kay offerings... same factory, perhaps? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Top-Twenty-single-pickup-model-from-the-sixties-/290870375530

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1389349679' post='2333067'] I've got some rocks that must be a few hundred million years old. I wonder if I can get big £££££ on ebay if I describe them as 'rare'. [/quote] I'm old, rare, yet seemingly worthless if you listen to some of the people I've worked with over the years...