NancyJohnson

On the face of it the boxes are almost certainly genuine on both adverts. The Cactus In The Window seller, just seems to sell tat, but they may have just had a job lot of Elixir Strings and they've sold a few sets. As the honourable member for Bulgaria said, they could have sold the buyer duds and they don't know what they're buying. Maestro Music only seem to deal in Elixirs on eBay. Again it's feasible that the couple of negatives ('My E-string broke after two months, so they must be fake') are just people chancing it for refunds. Personally, I'd spend a tenner extra and go to the Elixir store on Amazon. Elixir will supply direct into Amazon (who act as middleman and take a margin on each sale). Possibly safer.

Professional. Hmm. In my opinion, I think it has nothing to do with ability/chops, gear etc. more about being in the right place at the right time at the start of the journey and having the nuance to sell yourself short constantly. There's hundreds of pro musicians that lack the ability that belies their status. We've all seen them. There are few people at the top of the pyramid. I know plenty of guys who've played professionally and all have second/third jobs to support this. Read some of the blog posts by Jay Postones, the drummer of Tesseract, who was doing graphic design work for a business in Reading 'minutes before [I] went on stage' and finishing up the work post-set while the rest of the band were having a beer. I often wonder how things would have gone for me had Polydor signed us about 35 years ago.

It's goose-pimply good. Man alive, I'm loving this. Holly Johnson aside, there's some footage up on YT of FGTH with Ryan Molloy fronting them. He was generally known for musical theatre stuff, but this 20 minutes is phenomenal.

Holly Johnson - Unleashed From The Pleasuredome, Live from Koko. Jesus, this is brilliant. 5/5. This also pointed me to his Baloise Session on You Tube from last year. Equally epic. Great rocking band, his voice still as strong as from the 80s. He's a bit if an enigma; without FGTH he'd be largely unknown, but he walked away from it, protracted legal case(s) etc. Patchy solo career, largely disappeared, and so on. We've seen this too many times. In all honesty, his voice is pretty unique and he should have become a national treasure. Message ends. Go listen. It's great.

I've always detested NYE intensely, it's always seemed like a horribly forced celebration. I honestly couldn't care any less about partying; my wife likes to see the new year in, but I'd sooner just have an early night. Like many people I know, I can't bear Jools Holland and the absolute falseness of the Hootenanny; it's recorded weeks beforehand, it's formulaic and tired. Look at the last one. Jesus. While there may be some appeal to a certain sector of the populist music fan, it's just full of artists that should have quit years ago and a few instantly forgettable artists (*except Rachael & Vilray). And Ruby Turner. Me? I'd like to see some kind of indie-rock extravaganza. I wouldn't mind if it was recorded ahead of new year; nobody is fooling anyone. Get a bunch of decent new guitar bands, The Beths, Momma, Soccer Mommy, Starcrawler, Snail Mail, Men I Trust, The Interrupters, Sports Team, beabeedobee. Let them do a three song set each, ten minutes each, and get a decent headline act to do 30 minutes after midnight (maybe the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs or something). Get Richard Latto to present it.

I can't bear it. We stuck it on and saw Rachael and Vilray, who were just awesome. Beautiful.

I've never had an issue with Andertons. When you consider the amount of kit they sell through the shop and online, there's an inevitability that once in a while something will go awry, but just remember they're the reseller and in all likelihood getting product out the door is way more important than sorting out queries. It doesn't matter whether it's musical instruments or shoes. First point of call with a warranty issue is always going to be to go back to where you bought it from - if, in the case of @KevP's neck, then Andertons contact Fender, they'll have various exchanges and Fender should investigate, then replace/repair if there's a genuine fault - we all need to realise Anderton's don't just snap their fingers and a replacement neck arrives within 48 hours. Kev has also not gone into specifics about the nature of the issue or how his tech knew there would be a future issue. The time of year the issue was reported could be an issue; all businesses go through busy periods (Christmas) and slack lower staffed periods (summer), which can stiff response times. Any delay is always down to the nature of retail and issue-resolution, believe me, if you've worked in any type of retail (yes, I have), then you'll realise that. That said the lead time from Fender (two months) does seem a little long, but you've not made it clear whether the replacement neck was a stock item or had to be manufactured from scratch to be model specific (is it the Ultra model as opposed to 'Ultimate'? I don't recall an Ultimate series.).

Somewhat delighted to see the UK's Danger Money and the expanded version of Night After Night have dropped onto streaming services in recent weeks (the first album has been up a while). I checked a few weeks ago and neither were there then. The live album from Japan shows in early summer 1979 (line up Jobson, Wetton, Bozzio) is a freaking delight; it's blasting out as I type this. It sound so, umm, fresh. So many bands owe a debt to what I'm listening to at the moment. Are you reading this Steven Wilson?

I wouldn't even consider using my monitors (an old pair of M-Audio BX5s) for practice purposes; the primary 5" drivers would just get quite pharty. I have a powered monitor up on the marketplace at the moment (10" speaker); that's about the smallest I'd go.

Just weighing in as the voice of reason here, I don't think I've actually measured the nut on any bass until a couple of minutes ago. When you're all going on about how the odd 2mm making all the difference I do wonder how you cope up the dusty end.

I'm working, so it's a case of just looking properly later. I did have a quick scan; it's surprising how little I know about the bands that played and how even on the day it was very much a case of dipping in and out and tuning in for the full sets of the bands that I wanted to see. I obviously remember the bands I recorded on VHS, but beyond that, nada. I had no recollection of The Style Council playing, or Adam Ant, Elvis Costello, Sade, Bryan Ferry, Old Wheezy, Dire Straits, The Who. The US show, I can only recall Bryan Adams and The Power Station. Blimey.

Ian Hunter solo stuff.

My wife got me a Gator 1212 gig bag as part of my haul. Perfect for the Darkglass and associated new project*. *Details TBA shortly.

It is all a bit odd how a different PC can just wreck things. Thinking back, I also had an issue disabling some B&O software on it that was processing audio as well. I'm not on the market for another desktop, but I won't buy another off the shelf/one-size-fits-all PC again.

I have a huge (15 hour) Christmas playlist on Spotify...all old crooners; Bing, Deano, Doris, Frank, Fred Waring, Burl Ives etc. Just stick it on shuffle. We usually put it on on Christmas Day and it sees us through all day, then back to normal programming on Boxing Day.

The main stuff: Early teen years - Sweet/Sparks/Mott The Hoople; Late teens through 20s - Predominantly US/Canada rock and UK punk: Kiss/Rush/Motley/Clash/Pistols/Van Halen/Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers. I adored It Bites. I was a huge Japan fan early on too, pretty much as soon as the first single came out; In my mid-20s to 40, I just lost interest in commercial hair-metal and punk and got more interested in what had evolved out of metal/punk. Janes Addiction/Living Colour/Dan Reed Network/Veruca Salt/Soul Asylum/Pearl Jam/Shudder to Think/Nine Inch Nails/Rival Schools/The Wildhearts/3 Colours Red (who I've been listening to today), plus stuff like Jellyfish/Sugarbomb. The last 10-15 years, I've enjoyed Motion City Soundtrack, a lot of small label US-indie stuff. Right now, I have a distinct soft spot for female fronted jangly guitar pop/rock. Momma, Dead Pony, Little Big League, Housewife, Sports Team, itrenintrenitreni. Dronningen, Blood Red Shoes, beabadoobee. I hadn't really embraced XTC when they were still together, so definitely a latecomer to that party. In addition to this, I like to dig into my favourite albums. I still adore Rumours, Band On The Run and a clutch of others.

I'd prefer to be Fauci than Trump, I suppose. Let's try and address the salient points here. #1 The headstock. You've compromised the strength of the neck behind the nut by routing so much off to accommodate the string anchor unit - how much wood is there diagonally where you've cut it out at the right angle? Less than a centimetre? The screws (eight?) will also compromise the fibres in the wood. The dowel you used to plug the old B-string hole has left ugly black marks (this may be grease/lubricant used by MusicMan to get the original ferrule in). The old string anchor hole (filled) is visible. I'm not certain, but have you shaved so much off that an original machine head screw hole is showing? #2 The front and rear of the headstock. I think this speaks for itself. The black witness line of the undercoat finish on the rear, the 'glass smooth' filled holes. The visible dowel front and rear. Honestly, #3 The new bridge (#1). While I don't doubt the hardware looks fairly robust, in your attempt to hide the scar left by the original bridge, you've rubbed back the original finish with a high grit paper and ruined the original finish; this is possibly to flatten the surface to accommodate a flat-plate of some sort for the new bridge to ride on? I'm unsure whether this could be buffed out, but it looks terrible. #4 The new bridge (#2). The rubbing back I mentioned above is clear here. Looking from this angle it looks like you've slipped with the router or there's been some chipping of the finish by the low B-string tuner. There's also an unfilled hole by the high-B tuner. Absence of any finish in the routed out area. I'm assuming this bass will be played sitting down as there's no strap button. #5 Rear of the bridge. Words fail me. It's like you've free-handed the router. I'm assuming you masked off the area with tape of some sort and when you pulled it off it tore away the lacquer. Good grief. If you'd had a catastrophic headstock break and wanted to try to get it customised rather than sourcing a new neck, then I'm sure one of the builders here could have fashioned something original under your directorship, this though? Nah. It's awful.

Cables have arrived and all sorted. Loudness has returned. Thanks t'all!

Thing is, hardware and labour account for nothing really. People want originality at the hands of the maker, not something created by a guy in his driveway. I've no idea why anyone would do this type of thing, was there actually anything wrong with it? The unfinished parts, the partially rubbed down area around the bridge, the messy filling of the machine head hole, the poorly filled machine head screw holes, the bad sanding on what's left of the headstock, the bad routing around the new bridge. There's not a lot of wood left around the nut, so with screws holding down the whatever-it's-called-thingie at the ex-headstock end, the wood is going to lose a bit of structural strength. You can argue all you want that these retail for £2.5K, but let's face it, it's not really a Bongo anymore; for £2K (and a bit of patience and haggling), you could probably pick up a 6HH easily enough (a lava pearl 6HH model sold on Reverb recently for £1,500).

*Just got an Amazon notification that the cables will be here before 4.30pm. All will be revealed!

No case = 45 year free relic service. Premium £££.

If I had the desire, need or want, I'd make it happen irrespective of the price; most I've paid for a bass is £5.5K (my Lull five string) and £3.8K for a guitar (Gibson Theodore/investment). Not wanting to go down the 'How much???' rabbit hole that much, but I was looking at the Anderton's site earlier; I'm amazed how much Fender stuff sells for new. Mexican Precisions, Jazzes and Jaguars are £700-725 (Player series...whatever that is), Japanese and 'Corona' Performer (aren't Corona basses made in Mexico and bolted together in California?) start c.£1,200 and the American stuff is a £400+ premium on top of that. It's staggering how much these retail for (and yes, I understand all about dealer markups). I can remember the old Bell Music catalogues from when I was a kid. Yes, I know it's 45+ years ago and inflation (blah, blah, blah), but a Precision bass is still a £240 instrument in my eyes.