rushbo

That is just so...neat.

The sellers chances of selling this bass may be slightly impeded by the fact that directly under the ad, in the "more like this/sponsored links" section is an ad for a brand new version of the instrument for £50 less than their asking price.

Blimey. If I heard that on an audio recording, I'd have put money on that being an upright. Full disclosure - I am an unrepentant Rockin' P Bass guy and consequently unused to the dulcet tones of a proper bass, and a bit deaf. That said - that was great. Fantastic playing too.

I've used daisy chains in the past, but I often suffered with unwanted noise issues. This may have been to do with them, my patch leads or one of my more dubious pedals, but since I've been using a Harley Benton PowerPlant Junior and decent connecting cables (Warwick flat cables), all is good. I power my vintage Zoom B3 multi FX, my Sennheiser wireless receiver and a Behringer BDI flawlessly with the HB power supply. It's a slightly more expensive option (£37 with p and p) but for durability and peace of mind, I think it's worth it.

Whilst trawling the FaceBook Marketplace for God -knows-what, I happened upon this. In case you can't read the faux-mother-of-pearl logo, it's a Roberts "Savage" bass. About two hours after pressing the button, a very nice man delivered it and scarpered. It was a nice bass - it played well and sounded OK. The pickups needed rewiring (which was mentioned in the "For Sale" ad) but other than that, it was AOK. Sadly, the honeymoon effect kicked in pretty quickly and the more I looked at it, the more I knew I was never going to play the bloody thing. Not even in my Roxy Music tribute band. I managed to find a buyer for it who was thrilled with its distinctive look. I hope he's still thrilled now.

What an absolutely brilliant live shot.

If you show a six year old a picture of a P bass for ten seconds, then give them a crayon and ask them to draw what they have seen from memory, you'd get a design like this. I'm sure someone loves this, but that someone ain't me.

I would disagree with almost everything here, but when expressed with such passion and eloquence, I could almost be persuaded. Almost. Regarding fret dots, when they come up with some midi/bluetooth/magical device that connects your fretboard to some discreet earbuds which scream the chord changes into your ear whilst playing, I'll be first in the queue. Whenever I see one of those clever fretless players, nimbly navigating an unlined fingerboard I feel jealous and a little nauseous. I still need a few signposts, even after the best part of forty years of playing in pop groups. I'm pretty laissez faire about whatever a bassist chooses to twang upon. However: Pointy headstocks on anything other than a Flying V; and More than four control knobs on the body of an instrument should really be punishable by a fine, a slapped wrist and an ASBO. If you need a Haynes manual to work out why your bass sounds like a dinosaur with sinus issues, rather than, for example, James Jamerson, I'd consider downsizing.

Almost the opposite - he ate so many burritos he could barely move. He practically had to be put in a wheelbarrow at the end of the meal.

I eat as little as possible prior to a gig, following an incident at an all you can eat Mexican restaurant, some time in the early nineties. My bandmates availed themselves of the tasty treats on offer with great gusto, meaning that they were all bloated, tired and borderline nauseous for the show. The van ride home was no picnic, either... Post gig curries were responsible for there being a bit more Rushbo than I'd have liked, and having lost a chunk of weight, I'm now a bit more conscious about what I eat, especially late at night My post gig "feast" might be a bowl of cereal or, if I'm feeling saucy, cheese on toast. All accompanied by a mug of tea and some terrible TV.

I'm generally not a fan of headless basses, but that looks lush.

Truth x

That BG250 was a steal! I got one with a footswitch for £150 and I thought I'd made out like a bandit... If you're happy to look beyond the branding of almost any piece of musical equipment, there are bargains to be had. As someone who regularly gigs with what some would consider to be "low end" gear, I wholeheartedly approve. Good work fella!

The smell of pie and chips wafting gently from the backline would be a massive distraction. I love pie. And chips.

For a couple of the bands I play with, it's Converse all the way. For the Roxy Music tribute, its either Chelsea boots or Cuban heels. I'm pushing 60, so the day may soon be upon me where I have to wear something more... orthopaedic, shall we say. When that dreadful day arrives, I'll need to make some serious decisions about performing live. Things I have learned from gigging: At least one member of the band must bring a roll of gaffa (black), a set of screwdrivers, a hammer and a Stanley knife to every gig. Mostly for repairs. Sometimes for self defence. Bring a spare. The thing you never bring a spare of, will eventually fail at the highest profile gig you will ever play. Make sure everyone is using THE SAME SETLIST. Think you play better when you've had a few beers? No you don't. If a lead can be gaffa taped to something, then gaffa tape it to something. I speak from experience. The minute you put a drink on stage, someone will kick it over. At a gig, at least one of your carefully programmed effects will sound nothing like it's ever sounded before. In a bad way. There are others, but I've made myself feel sad writing that list out.

That is an astonishing likeness.

On my rare forays up the dusty end of my bolt-on neck, I can't say I've ever been hindered by the join. Hindered by unfamiliarity with the terrain perhaps, but never the build of the instrument. My preference would always be for a bolt on, and that's not just because I'm a Precision bass fanboy. I enjoy tinkering with basses and having the ability to swap bits around is a real boon. And unlike everyone else on here, I have bust a neck beyond repair. After a lot of swearing and a browse through the pages of eBay I was able to give the bass a new lease of life with a new neck fairly easily. I've had some lovely basses with set necks, including a gorgeous Spector 5 string, and I can't say that made any difference to how I played it. Would I buy an instrument with a set neck today? Yep. If I liked the instrument, I'd buy it regardless of how the long pointy thing is connected to the funny looking, jigsaw piece shaped thing. However, I have to admit that a nicely done neck to body join is a very sexy thing indeed. Find an instrument you love to play and play it. My main bass is a combination of an Indonesian Squier P/J body with a left handed, Mexi Fender neck. Every time I see it, I find it incredibly difficult to not pick it up and have a twang on it. Resale value: £0.00. Sh!ts I could give: 0.

My main gigging bass is a bitsa PJ, with a Squier body and an inverted Mexican Jazz bass neck. The pups are Entwistles- my favourites. What really works on this bass is that I've fitted a three way pick up selector switch, so I can go from 70s thump to 80s twang really quickly. I'd recommend that mod to anyone who is having doubts about the PJ configuration.

That sounds like a good deal... I love cheap basses. I've had a few and honourable mentions go to Harley Benton and Retrovibe. If I had £400 to spend on a budget bass, I be looking for a secondhand Indonesian Squier P/J. I've had two or three of these and the quality is great - equally as good as a Mexi Fender, in my experience. They used to go for around £100-£120, but people have got wise to how great they are, but they are still incredible value. Solidly made, versatile basses - that goes for the Indo Squier Jazz and Precision basses, too. Get one of those and a secondhand Zoom B3 and you'll still have change for a couple of good quality leads and a gig bag.

A rhythm and blues band I was in a few years back, played lots of shows with Dr Feelgood, including one at the Robin II in Bilston. About 30 minutes before we were due to start our set, I was putting our merch stand together. As we couldnt put our backdrop on the stage, I thought it would be a great idea to have it behind the merch table. So, I nimbly jumped on a bar stool (in my cuban heels) to pin the backdrop to the wall and almost immediately, not-so-nimbly, fell off onto my right arm. It hurt, but I could still move it. "This is a good sign" I thought. We got through our set, but as I was breaking my rig down, my arm really started to hurt. I drove (!) home and thought about going to A&E, then in typical dumbass man style, I decided that a couple of paracetamol and a good night's sleep would sort it. Nope. I took myself off to A&E bright and early the next morning. Diagnosis: fractured right arm. I was in plaster for a week, which just happened to coincide with two other gigs and my week off from work. Oh what fun. Usually when I tell this story, I try to impress people with the line "Did I ever tell you about the time I played a gig with a broken arm..?"

Another lengthy story - this time about my stint in a proper, leather trouser wearin', rockin' band. It was a Tuesday night and probably drizzling outside. Not that we would have known as our lock-up was untroubled by natural light…or ventilation. But we liked it that way. We were halfway through one of our thinly veiled excuses for a wah-wah freakout, when in runs the owner of the lock up in a state of high excitement. He told us that a band had pulled out of a gig at a local venue that very night, and that there was a big rock audience there just waiting to be entertained. Excited by the opportunity to play to real people, we loaded our gear into the back of the van and set off. We pulled into the venues' car park which was FULL of expensive and opulently chromed motorbikes. While we unloaded the van, we noticed that no one seemed to be having a lot of fun – in fact there was a really sombre air in the place. Wait a minute…why are all these guys wearing black armbands? Yep. It was a wake. We’d been tricked into playing a bikers wake. No wonder the other band had pulled out. Nervously, we set up the gear. Occasionally a glass smashed and voices were raised. This was not going to be a good night for anyone, especially us. I dutifully set up my trusty bass, taking care to put it into dropped D tuning for our first, epic number. Satisfied, I left the stage and hid in the toilet for about 20 minutes. It was in there that I heard the sound of music…not ‘Led Zeppelin IV’ which had been playing on a loop since our arrival, but a Bluesy jam. I left the safety of the urinal, only to find three bikers had ‘borrowed’ our gear and were jamming away in the key of A. All apart from the guy on the bass – sorry, MY bass, who was looking bemused. I jumped on stage and told him the Bass was in a weird tuning and maybe I should carry on from here. I strapped it on and ploughed through ten minutes of aimless twelve bar noodling. After that, we had a few minutes before showtime, so I raced to the bar to get something to steady my nerves. It was there I met the erstwhile Bassist who told me the back story to the gig. Apparently, the wake was for a biker in a local chapter who had come off his bike in ‘dubious circumstances’. ‘See them?’ he pointed at a group in the corner. ‘They reckon he was killed by them’. He pointed to an equally dour looking bunch. ‘But they…’ he pointed to a third group ‘reckon it was them’. He pointed to a fourth. ‘So why aren’t they beating each other up?’ I asked, nervously. ‘Truce’ he replied. ‘Until midnight tonight’. I checked my watch. 10.50pm. Yikes. I quickly shared this information with my bandmates and we ran on stage to get this over with. We waited patiently for ‘Stairway To Heaven’ to finish as we thought we’d be beaten up if we interrupted that. Finally, we caught our breath and lurched into song number one. And so it began…. The first song had a great ‘car crash’ ending where we all played the final chord over and over, finishing off with a highly choreographed KA-BLAMM! accompanied by a heroic, Iggy-esque leap into the air. One person clapped. It was the bloke on the sound desk. We raced through an hours worth of material in 50 minutes. It was at this gig we realised that almost all of our songs had the words ‘Death’, ‘Ghost’ or ‘Murder’ in the lyrics, which were hastily changed on the fly by our quick thinking and terrified lead vocalist. After a few songs, even the sound guy stopped clapping and the only noises we heard between songs were the gritting of teeth, glasses breaking and the odd scuffle…and the occasional muted sob from our drummer. At 11.45, we finished. As the last chord rang around the room, we started yanking out jack leads and tossing equipment into the back of the van. As we were frenziedly throwing stuff off the stage, a large biker collared our drummer. He gesticulated sharply to the aged piano to the right of the stage. ‘Ay mate, d’yow play piano?’ Relieved that it wasn’t a death threat, he smiled and shook his head. ‘Y’ow can’t play the f*ckin’ drums either’ came the less than friendly retort. I have to admit that even under the shadow of doom, that made me laugh…under my breath, of course. By 11.58, we were all in the van, bloodied but unbowed and we raced out of the car park. It was a while before anyone could speak, so the usual post gig autopsy would have to wait until another, less stressful night. About two miles down the road, we passed a fleet of Police cars racing in the opposite direction, blue lights flashing. I checked my watch. The time was 12.04.