If this had come up 6 months ago when I was living about 20 minutes from Horley, I would have been all over this, pretty pronto. However, I’m now 530 miles away.
Best of luck, Nik. I’m in a similar position with having to start over in a new location. We moved to Perthshire last December and have only just moved into our house. I keep getting, “Have you joined any new bands?” from some friends who seem to have forgotten that we’ve been in various stages of lockdown for over a year. It does seem very daunting.
The smart move is to buy one from Bass Direct (actually a better bet, post B word) then any issues are their problem. FWIW I’ve not had a day’s issue with my two custom Elwoods and my off the peg Jake (now sold) was equally fault free.
I saw him at The Hammersmith Odeon in the ‘70s. I was a loud, energetic gig, unfortunately spoiled by a crap mix, where the bass bins in the PA actually made me feel nauseated. Still glad I was there though.
There’s a guy on YouTube who has the most awesome tone on a JMJ, he’s strung his with GHS Boomers.
I had a happy accident when I fitted the cobalts, the E string started to come unravelled within the silks as I started to fit it (a quick chop with the cutters stopped that). As I was carrying these as spares, a potential calamity was avoided.
EDIT: Found one the videos
First up, congratulations on securing yourself a place at ACM, well done. 👏👏👏
Secondly, happy cake day! That’s some present, very nice indeed. Your boyfriend, he’s a keeper.
Having moved out of my old house 6 months ago and the majority of my belongings going into storage, I have finally been reunited with all of my stuff (way too much stuff it seems, not the bass stuff you understand ). Anyway, I cleaned the fretboard of my new JMJ Mustang with my never ending supply of lemon oil and the ‘board now looks lovely. I also restrung with a spare set of old EB cobalt flats (long scale); it sounds so good. The bodies on my other basses now seem big and cumbersome by comparison to the Mustang and just don’t have the same tonal gravitas. The JMJ is looking more and more like a keeper.