troubadour

Starbies have had a well compiled roots and dub playlist on the go for the last couple of months. Most of the earlier mentions above are represented. A few more suggestions from it:

Who No (Wa'an Come) - The Wailing Souls
Rockers Dub - Joe Gibb & The Professionals
Revolution - Dennis Brown
Satta Massagana - Abyssinians

and the always good for a laugh (I hope): Wa-Do-Dem by Eek-A-Mouse!

[quote name='ivansc' timestamp='1466632479' post='3077513']
Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu mainly)

Toured with them back in the seventies. Great guys great band.[/quote]

Wow, that must have been awesome! I probably saw you then. I last saw Tony with Jon Langford's Ship and Pilot band in London - still competently doing his thing.

Thank you Blue, most definitely my cup of tea. I will have a good listen this evening.

I had the good fortune to see Nick Lowe live. He didn't make my top 5 bassists list but I agree with your down-to-earth guy assessment.

As someone who has tried to make himself like Frank Zappa over the years without achieving total success, I've been following this thread with interest.

I will say though that there are some great bass lines that I enjoy playing along to, in particular:

Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance - fun to sing as well*

Peaches En Regalia - covered this in a jazz band I was in

Valley Girl - one story goes that FZ called Scott Thunes at 3am to come to the studio to put the bass down for this and his anger at having to do so is evident in his playing

* if anyone can advise me where I can buy a pair of Mod A Go-Go stretch-elastic pants I'd appreciate it!

I'm running out of interesting "facts" to bump this with.

I know if someone picked it up and played it they would be impressed with the p-bass sound, the fantastic neck and the quality over and above anything else at this price.

If only it were in a shop but again at this price it wouldn't be worth them taking it on a commission sale.

I'd love it to go to someone who would appreciate it. But if it doesn't that well known auction site beckons, sadly.

[quote name='Count Bassy' timestamp='1465936409' post='3072320']
It's just like tantric sex.....


You stay in all day but nobody comes.
[/quote]

Fantastic

Just received a bass from Japan. It took two days to get from Tokyo to the UK. Then another 12 days to get to my house. The UK part was handled by PF. Bless them.

It's Layla for me. Just not a song I wanted to listen to for pleasure. Probably over-familiarity. But it's great to play. Well I think so anyway

Timely topic for me Steve. I'm just going through a similar "light-sizing" exercise. I've managed to get down to 7 1/2lbs with Yamaha. And I'm impressed with the quality you get for the money.

A couple of basses I had suggested to me when I first started my quest were a Fender Precision Lyte and a Fender Cabronita. I imagine they would certainly look the part. Unfortunately I never tracked any down to assess though.

I'll be following your thread with interest, thanks for raising it.

Impeccable, as all the previous feedback says. Book sent first class and received next day. Can't wait to get stuck into it. Thank you.

So good they named me twice

One near identical to mine FS at a small privately owned brick and mortar music store in the foothills of Northern California where they take pride in their selection, service and competitive prices . . .

[url="https://reverb.com/uk/item/1667387-kramer-striker-700st-late-80-s-black"]Nor Cal Guitar Supply[/url]

. . . reduced from £249.90 to £178.30. It'll be almost as much again with shipping and import charges. I'm reassured I'm on the money at £150 !

Not sure how I came by these, it could have been when I renewed my BGM subs . . .



. . . anyway I have no use for them. According to a popular internet shopping site the RRP is £34.99 and they sell for £22.99.

I would be very happy to accept £12.00 which will include postage.

. . . they're new and unopened btw

Everything Harry said above. Absolute pleasure to deal with. Thank you Dan.

I have just made my first sale and I currently have a couple more basses listed. Any feedback would be gratefully received. Thank you.

[quote name='machinehead' timestamp='1465326511' post='3067238']
I thought there was a pinned topic on couries - good and bad. I've looked and can't find it though. Apologies if it's here somewhere.[/quote]

It's at the top of the Basses For Sale forum. I've just made use of it for advice on shipping my MIM P. As already said, the consensus of opinion is UPS via Interparcel.

Thing about their insurance though, they a little misleading quote 2%. In fact it applies in steps, £5 for £250, £10 for £500. And there's VAT on top.
So for my £300 bass I had to pay £12 i.e. 4%

. . . and their tracking information leaves a bit to be desired too.

Funnily enough I have the perfect example for sale at the moment, and can I generate any interest?! I guess we must all have one already.

So near and yet so far! If only you had 3 of them. Thank you very much for looking for me and photographing them Rich.

This sold really quickly. Thank you to the buyer. And thank you to everyone who PM'd me. If anyone is disappointed can I just say that I also have a bass for sale that is every bit as good as this quality-wise but half the price! Please see my Kramer listing. Go on, dare to be different!

Great idea Andy. I can't watch your video at the moment so I'll look forward to seeing who your 5 are tonight. Meanwhile mine are mostly from my early days as I've come across so many great bassists since then, all with good things to learn from, the list would be virtually endless:

Bruce Foxton (for getting me started)
Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu mainly)
Tina Weymouth (I'm in love with Tina)
Andy Warren (Monochrome Set still going strong)
Jean-Jacques Burnel (for making it count)

[quote name='gary mac' timestamp='1465067107' post='3065118']
Interesting to read the back story [/quote]
[quote name='madshadows' timestamp='1465068590' post='3065133']
Cool bass and story [/quote]
[quote name='kodiakblair' timestamp='1465129303' post='3065460']
Congratulations on the Yamaha[/quote]
[quote name='megallica' timestamp='1465170339' post='3065870']
I owned a 550 and 800 bass which were so nice to play and light.[/quote]

Thank you all for your kind words. Yes, this bass does really seem to punch above its weight (if you'll excuse the half-pun).

I bought this in 2013 from a guy in Glasgow. I don’t think he’d looked after it very well. It cleaned up nicely but it still carries a few dings from those days. I haven’t added any as far as I’m aware but I’ve had the benefit of not worrying too much about it should I have!
It’s so good in every other respect that it immediately became my no.1 bass. It’s the one I’m playing at this year’s Ribble Valley Jazz Festival there in my profile photo. It still would be my no.1 bass were it not for the weight. It’s a not unreasonable 4.05 kg (9 lbs) but that’s still too much for me nowadays I’m afraid. It has a set of Rotosound RS66LC’s on at the moment (yes I like everything light).
I’ll just let the photos do the rest of the talking, even though as you can see I’m no photographer. If there are any bits you’d like a better picture of please let me know and I’ll try.













Slight crease about half way along the neck. It’s on the lower half nowhere near where I put my thumb and I’ve never felt it while I’m playing:


Pictures of the neck pocket, nothing wrong with it - just that I’ve seen they’re often asked for:




Ding on body underside, measures 11mm longest diagonal


Dings on top and rear of body above top cutaway (6mm and 7mm respectively)


Headstock end on, few dings and marks:


I think £300 is fair. I don’t really want to trade as I’m happy with my Yamaha now and I’ve another coming this week. I could be tempted by a super light weight precision that would be all.
[size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]I live near to Skipton, work near to Preston and I travel around the north a bit. For instance I’m in Sheffield on Thursday and Sunderland on Friday. I also have the packing materials that my RBX came in so it should be straightforward for me to ship elsewhere if required.[/font][/size]

[quote name='Rich' timestamp='1465119896' post='3065368']
I have a vast knob
collection. Let me check, might well have something similar. Is it a splined pot shaft?
[/quote]
Thank you very much Rich. Yes they look to be normally sized splined shafts. This is one of what I think are the originals . . .

. . . they're only 17mm high. The ribs are quite wide (2mm) and deep and there is a marker notch in the top. One of those would be super if you do have one.
This is the cuckoo in the nest . .

. . . it's taller at 19mm with groups of 3 closer together, less deep ribs and no notch in the top. Two of those would only assuage my OCD temporarily I think!

[quote name='markstuk' timestamp='1464772115' post='3062294']
Yup, Mark does have opinions but they're mostly coming from a good place..[/quote]
Exactly. And I like that. You don't have to agree with him. You can even have your own opinions if you like!
I bought my Sandberg from him on a very pleasurable excursion to his premises. It's turned out that I've not got on as well with it as I'd hoped but that's not Mark's fault.
He also sold a bass for me on commission which was done very professionally and went really smoothly.

In my pursuit of lighter equipment I took a chance with a long distance purchase of this splendid little bass . . .



. . . and I’m really pleased that I did.

It is quite a rare piece as far as I can tell - a Yamaha RBX550RS Special Edition in Metallic Blue with matching headstock and black hardware. It weighs a reasonable 3.5 kg (7 2/3 lbs).

It is made in Japan and the serial number is 1M25 followed by 3 digits. The available resources suggest to me that this may be Yamaha’s guitar numbering system E4 which would narrow it down to the month of June in 1986, 1987, 1988 or 1989.

Thanks to the power of the internet though, I have been able to trace its history back to the seller before the seller I bought it from.
Seller number 1, usednet_corporation, advertised it on jauce.com ([u]J[/u]apan [u]AU[/u]ction [u]CE[/u]nter) with a starting price of 2,300yen and it sold on 7 April to the second bidder for 2,400yen (approx £15.50 ($22.50)).
At this stage it looks to be in good condition but with a worn set of flats, the tone knob missing and a hefty ding to the lower body exposing the wood.

Seller number 2, ms_tokyo, had put on a medium set of roundwounds (perfect for me) and replaced the missing plastic knob with one that is not quite the same as the other two. They did nothing about the ding, which I can understand. They advertised it with a buy it now of $99 (approx 10,500yen (£68)) which I took. Shipping was at least as much again, it was below the threshold for import duty but there was a small amount of VAT and handling to pay. All in all not unreasonable in my opinion.

I thought it was great as soon as I unpacked it and tuned up. But I took it into Matt at Music Cellar in Preston for him to check over. He only had to make slight adjustments to have it playing and sounding perfect. I did ask him to change the jack socket as well because I’d detected a little uncertainty and I wanted to be on the safe side.

[size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]I’ve touched up the major ding with some metallic blue Airifx paint. Not a perfect match but certainly much better than seeing the bare wood. I don’t notice it now but I do notice the mismatched knobs so if anyone knows where I can get 3 plastic knobs the same please can you let me know?![/font][/size]

[size=4][font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]So there you have it, this is now my no 1 bass and I can start to divest myself of my heavier stuff.[/font][/size]

I was looking forward to this too. I'm a big fan. I'll be seeing him at Love Supreme soon so I'll ask him if I get a chance!