Steve Browning

Verbal contract. Small Claims Court.

I used to replace the stock pickup on my Japanese basses with Kent Armstrong Alnico vintage Pbass pickups. They sounded just right to my ears.

I experienced a similar thing many years ago when the handle on an AC30 broke and the metal inner handle came out like a sword from a scabbard. I remember thinking that I had had a lucky escape. If I'd tried to grab it .................

That's really appalling behaviour. Cheap shot indeed!!! 🙂 🙂

. and his last words to BH were something like "and I hope your little ol' plane crashes" after he was ribbed about the bus constantly breaking down.

Absolutely no shame and, to me, you are what your heart tells you. This dawned on me several years ago when I was playing in an excellent band on the south coast. We had the chance to turn pro but the singer didn't want to. He was a huge fish in that small pond but ................ he was a builder by trade. The rest of us concluded that there is an important difference. He was a singing builder and not a building singer. You should not think any less of yourself for doing what you have done and where it is led you. There are bound to be a whole bunch of us here who have done the full time thing and then had to get a 'real' job to pay the bills. As has been said, there are any number of acts that have real jobs to make sure the bills are paid. That's just a fact of like and it doesn't define you. It took me a while to realise that.

Again, in the 80's, I had a Wilkes Stingray. No poles pieces on the pickup and it was a little bit microphonic but the bass was exceptional. Would rather like to still have it.

Please share. Here's my dad playing Sax (his main instrument) and also playing the fiddle on the Victory.

I would have thought customer feedback is important to any company that takes quality control seriously. That includes negative. Similarly, when people are contemplating shelling out a decent wodge of cash they want to know what they are buying. If that was not the case Tripadvisor wouldn't exist. People want to know the business they're dealing with. In my own case, I had a Boogie cab that rattled for some reason. My complaint was handled by getting me to return the cab for the replacement of the faulty speaker (with no quibble at all). On opening up the cab, it was discovered that there were about 4 staples that had dropped onto the magnet and they were touching the cone as it moved. They were removed and all was well. Mesa Boogie let me keep the speaker they had sent over and so I have a spare speaker for a Subway 15. That's exemplary customer service from a big company that could have ignored me and not really suffered much by way of consequence. That sort of experience can demonstrate to others that their business is valued and can reassure them if they are considering forking out for a cab that is not cheap. For the same reason, it is helpful (for some) to know which companies don't provide that level of service and they can make their choices accordingly.

And if we go back to the days of carnets for touring you're already done!

4-4-0-0

It's a shame that modern instruments aren't treated as old classical ones. I believe investments businesses will buy things like Strads but then loan them to the top players to use. That way they have their investment but the instrument is still used. A lot of instruments end up in vaults as purely an investment and that's terrible for a guitar.

There's probably quite a good thread in apocryphal stories!

A friend of mine is Robben Ford's guitar tech and he recounts an incident when Robben was playing at a theatre in New York (his home town) and my friend was driving him there. Robben wanted to pop into his apartment to pick something up. He had put his luggage on top so his gear didn't need to be disturbed. He dropped him off and arranged to pick him up after having unloaded at the venue. He drove there and began to unload. He had been due to have some help but there was no-one there to assist so he decided to unload onto the pavement and rush everything into the venue. As he finished unloading he realised Robben's guitar wasn't in the back and figured (with alarm) that it must have been taken out of the car and left on the pavement by the apartment building. He immediately dashed into the car and set off for the building, only to remember that the Dumble amp was sitting on the pavement at the venue. Quite an interesting dilemma. As it happens nothing was missing, luckily!! And if anyone knows Robben. I'm making that up!!

He doesn't seem to want to talk to anyone on here.

Mine have sort of ended up with names. My 66 is called #1 because it is my favourite and it differentiated it from the 4 other sunburst/rosewood Precisions I had. The 71 isn't named. The 72 is called the Wreck because it looks as though Rory Gallagher must have owned it. The fretless has no name and the two incoming SVLs will be Hannah and Emily. The names will be on the neck plates and that's mainly so that my daughters know which is theirs when they are inherited.

You're right. No complaints over the strength of them at all. They're not flimsy but a heavy amp on top of a lightweight rig has a higher centre of gravity than on top of an old school 'heavy' rig.

Rage Before Beauty, although my parts were redone by Wally I believe. I did the recording with DG (and have my version of it). He's rather more recognisable than I am! The story about the J200 was what I was told at the time. He also loaned a Steinberg with a transposing trem (that he played on the track).

It was a real issue. A very heavy amp on top of two very light cabs that would fall under their own steam. The cabs were very shallow and so it wouldn't have taken much to topple the whole lot over. Obviously you don't set out to do that but things happen and I prefer to try and account for the unexpected if I can. I was using two of the 15" version Compacts.

He is quite shy with people he doesn't know (certainly was when we first met) and so I wouldn't think any the less of him for it. I've probably told this on here before but it's the coolest guitar story I know. When we were recording Pretty Things album, DG loaned Richard Taylor a lovely Gibson J200. The story went that Gibson had made 90 for their top players and dealers. For some reason DG didn't get one and so Phil Taylor (his tech) made contact with Gibson, who made a 91st. That's when you know you've arrived!!

This very question delayed me buying a BF cab. I had a notion that my Bass 400 would just fall right through the cab. IN actual fact the cab held ther weight without a problem. The fact that the centre of gravity was not quite high up did rather trouble me. I did feel a bit nervous with my amp oin the top of two cabs that would fall over when the van went round a corner!!

He is giving the money to charity, as he did when he sold a house in London a few years ago. He is a man to be admired.

Seymour Duncan did sell it to Phil but it was made in 1954 (when SD was 3). It is not known for whom it was built but the general notion is that was a gift for an employee.

I understand Strat #0001 was built in 1954, probably as a gift. It was bought by David's tech (Phil Taylor) and David acquired it from Phil in exchange for a mortgage on a house.

No problem. I was just wallowing in a wave of nostalgia and remember ordering the Bells catalogue and drooling over the (b&w) pictures and dreaming of owning a Precision one day. I guess the pictures were just generic promo shots and remember the Epiphone basses.