prowla

I agree - do something about it!

(You do in the UK too...)

Can you make sure it doesn't rain, please? 🙂

I've got three older wooden necked headed Statii and they are very nice to play. However, I inherently associate the name Status Graphite with (erm) graphite basses (and headless ones at that!) - I've got a 4-string one of those too. So, I'm finding this announcement a bit confusing, but maybe it's just the start of the process. But it's good to see the man back in business either way! (The pic is three of mine, with the other being a Groove.)

Great - I missed the travelling musician rules update - thanks! Yes, I did mean the buyer! 🙂 Yes regarding non-EU manufactured kit; it just means it's more expensive to buy from box-shifters there. Now, whether UK-based companies treat that as an opportunity or not is a question only they can answer.

There were a couple of half-baked aspects of the ready-baked deal, two of which affect musicians: Access for Touring bands - this needs to be sorted out, but perhaps is a thread in its own right. VAT & duties on used kit - this is not acceptable IMHO; why should individuals flogging s/h kit be taxed? The taxes on new kit should be similar to before; it's just where they're collected which has changed: VAT is charged once (ie. you do not pay both EU + UK VAT). Import duties are not payable on EU-manufactured kit. Import duties are applied to overseas imports, but they were anyway. Bigger companies (eg. Thomann) handle the taxes for you, so it's invisible. Caveats: If you are dealing with a smaller company, they may not be geared up to handle the tax and so it'll be levied at the point of entry to the UK. The courier companies will handle tax at the point of entry, but they may charge a processing fee of £10-20 for doing so. If you run a smaller company, then there is new admin overhead in processing taxes/duties; I would've thought this could be automated and I guess there are programs to handle it (or it could be handled in a fairly simple spreadsheet). Other factors: Covid has arguably bumped up the prices of items as people have had money to spend and nothing to do. The war in Ukraine has bumped up prices of everything and inflation is much higher than pre-Brexit. Interest rates have gone up significantly, affecting the prices of everything. The OPEC cartel has raised the price of oil, which increases transport costs. There has been some opportunistic price-gouging by manufacturers & suppliers. Me, I have to say I mostly bought in-UK anyway, as shipping costs could be a bit pricey pre-Brexit.

That looks really crap.

Given that it's a Hardly Bentone, would it have been worth that much in good condition?

I guess you can think of them as different instruments.

When the music stops…

That is an ugly bass.

I was chatting with the Bright Onion folks last weekend. The Ninjafox has the same profile as the Stomp and a light surround to the switches.

I set up on the stage, but the smaller rooms with several people in seemed a bit cramped.

I find the HX Stomp affects the sound even with everything off, so I run mine via a looper switch so I can take it out of circuit. I have a Ninjafox 2-button momentary press with a TRS cable to the Stopmp's expression/control jack input, which I have configured to do bank up/down. I've got a Morningstar MC6 connected to my C4 (via a Neuro interface on the underside of the board), but I've yet to program it.

I went; I did see a nick plec box on the JC guitars stand - they make them from the offcuts and include one with customers guitars. I had a chat with several folks at their stands, but didn't buy anything and came away with a couple of freebie tins from Bright Onion and NRG Effects. Went to Brighton afterwards, had a stroll around and a meal, then left Westwards as there was a major hotel fire (the police told me everybody got out OK).

I think that the one in the picture may have just been available at that photo shoot rather than actually his. I didn't get round to doing it up and sold it on to someone else who did a really good job of it. TBH, I half bought it because I had promised someone one of the knobs they had, so when I sold it it had one less on it!

If it was a few years ago, I bought it! There's a picture of Bill Wyman playing one, but they didn't claim that it was actually his one.

Good spot - that's the wrong picture I posted (it's a 2010 4003)! This is the one it was supposed to be (with the blue '78)...

Is on the wall of the shop or was?

Shaftesbury, Japanese, 70's, Chushin Gakki, thru-neck. Upsides: nice - just about at the top of the tree for fakers, pretty much as near to a real Ric as you can get for factory produced, mono and "Stereo-Sound" outputs, Ric-compatible parts (except tuners). Downsides: the binding can start to come away on the inner edges of the neck cutaways, the tuners could/should really have been better, they are susceptible to neck-lift just like real Rics, why did they put the upper strap button there? I used to want one of these back in the 70s too, but I managed to go straight to a Rickenbacker (which I've still got). This is a CMI sibling I had, next to a real '78 Ric. (Oh, and I bow to @Bassassin's knowledge on most things faker!)

I once worked for a company which had an employee sell customer details (it made the news); all of the contract staff were marched off site.

I would strongly recommend never using PayPal F&F unless the person actually is your friend or family. If they insist, just step away. I had it happen in an FB group just this week; someone had something in the UK which I wanted and would have otherwise cost me double from the US after shipping & fees. The seller would not budge on F&F, even when I said I'd cover the fees for G&S, so I didn't go through with it. Just don't pay for goods using F&F.

A Squier Jazz should do the job.