Steve Browning

I went to the Boston website and looked for the UK distributor. Luckily I am a Rotosound endorsee and ordered them via my artist relations chap.

Possibly any Rotosound seller can probably order one for you. 

On 03/04/2025 at 09:49, Dood said:

And who could forget the wonderful Ishibashi! https://intl.ishibashi.co.jp/search?q=Fender&options[prefix]=last&filter.p.tag=electricbasses&sort_by=relevance 

 

I sourced my PB70US from them directly many a year ago. Another silly moment where I decided to sell it.. DOH!!!! 

Yup. Done the same thing. Sold a pair of PB70-US basses and kick myself daily for doing so. Especially the ash bodied one.

Yes. The Boston PB 415 TI.

On 02/04/2025 at 08:40, Steve Browning said:

 

Just looked and they're distributed in the UK by Rotosound. Happy days!! I sent my newly delivered 1983 '62 Precision reissue back to Fender because the scratchplate looked so awful. I was put off Spitfire by an extraordinary tale of woe on BC a few years ago.

The pair I ordered yesterday arrived today and they're excellent. Especially for the price. Very happy chap. 

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1YHJjcnrcU/

A list of the gear and serial numbers etc

What's a nice vintage Fender without a nice tort pickguard? 🙂

On 02/04/2025 at 08:40, Steve Browning said:

 

Just looked and they're distributed in the UK by Rotosound. Happy days!! I sent my newly delivered 1983 '62 Precision reissue back to Fender because the scratchplate looked so awful. I was put off Spitfire by an extraordinary tale of woe on BC a few years ago.

Just ordered a couple of the scratchplates and will see what they're like in the flesh. 

Yes. I've asked for serial numbers. 

Yes. It was in Bremen.

Thank you for your assistance. 

I've asked Maggie (Brendan's wife) for any serial numbers. 

Band of Friends features my chum Brendan O'Neill and Rory's old bass player Gerry McAvoy. Unlikely to pop up in the UK but please keep an eye out nevertheless.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/02/brighton-pier-owner-to-delist-from-london-stock-market-and-go-private

Get out your little violins.

5 hours ago, Alanko said:

 The Spitfire chap seems barely in control of the process of making the tort, then passes off the results as something unique and interesting. If it has a giant unmixed yellow blob in the middle then he will come up with some marketing blurb and a cute name for it. The Avantguard offerings look better with a slightly wet, suspended animation look to the tort. It also looks like they over-buff the pickguard once completed, however, melting don't of the details.

That was the gist of it, and going on about the customer becoming his friend. Sounded really rather weird and slightly uncomfortable. 

Just returned from a very pleasant couple of hours in Michael's company. He and I first met about 35 years ago.

Today, I took along one of the basses he had a go on back then, and came away with a really lovely Fender Japan Precision fretless. A lovely guy and an excellwent chat. Super easy from start to finish and great to catch up after half a lifetime (based on 3 score years and ten).

20 hours ago, Alanko said:

The pickguard chat in this thread was enough to make me sign up. The red tortoiseshell pickguard on the Fender Hama Okamoto Precision Bass is pretty good. A cut above the standard dark maroon modern Fender tort or the various lurid tortoiseshell pickguards on eBay. This is mine:

 

 

The tort layer is thin, but is the right mix of red, darker and lighter shades. The white sub layers are more parchment than stark white as well. 

 

I am 99.9% sure these same pickguards are sold separately under the 'Boston' brand, part number PB-415-TI. I bought one of these pickguards from a Dutch seller and put it on my AM Pro-II P Bass:

 

 

It isn't a Spitfire or Lavaguard pickguard, but a few tweaks to the colours used puts them well ahead of other cheap pickguards.

Just looked and they're distributed in the UK by Rotosound. Happy days!! I sent my newly delivered 1983 '62 Precision reissue back to Fender because the scratchplate looked so awful. I was put off Spitfire by an extraordinary tale of woe on BC a few years ago.

11 hours ago, TimR said:

This is Pimlico's law. The longer a discussion goes on about musicians' pay, sooner or later someone will bring plumbers into the chat.

 

It's like Godwins law but with different kinds of tanks. 

But it's a perfectly valid argument and one most people can understand. 

That must be a real freak occurrence. Having visited the factory, I can tell you that each person makes one string each day and the strings are packed by hand (which is something to watch I can assure you!). Getting the wrong sizes in a pack would be close to impossible. 

That's not suggesting that hasn't happened, but the chances are infinitesimally small. I'd be buying a lottery ticket. 

Blimey Simon. There's bound to be one where you are (and I don't say that as someone coming from Pompey - we have our own variety).

31 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

What irks most are regular punters who only buy tap water (not even a soft drink) and one (known as the seagull) who subsists only by swooping down on abandoned drinks...

Surely you just put the price of tap water up to £5 a pint (I think it's only free when served with food), free to band members (as some drink water 'onstage'). Possibly under-investing in bar staff gives the seagull his reward.

Yes. I like it for the tune being played. Nice groove.

I was slightly generalising. Food sold above ambient temperature becomes a service of catering and standard rated. Everything else is food and sold according to the Law

That's why chocolate Nesquik is standard rated and strawberry isn't. 😂

38 minutes ago, Steve Browning said:

Tim is wrong. The reason is in my answer. A pub provides a service of catering. That is why it is standard rated. It doesn't sell food.

 

A supermarket doesn't prepare it, cook it and serve it. It doesn't pay staff to do those jobs either. 

I should add that a supermarket cafe charges VAT on catering in exactly the same way as a pub/restaurant. 

Tim is wrong. The reason is in my answer. A pub provides a service of catering. That is why it is standard rated. It doesn't sell food.

A supermarket doesn't prepare it, cook it and serve it. It doesn't pay staff to do those jobs either. 

False on both counts. I can see a pub with a brewery attached getting charged Duty directly. Otherwise, it's factored into the price paid by the pub (or by us at the supermarket).

I can see the difference if you are talking about certain foodstuffs, but that's pretty niche. A pub doesn't sell any food, it provides a service of catering (as does a restaurant). That is why all such polaces charge VAT on meals etc. That's nothing to do with beverages though. I( recall the furore when VAT was put on takeaway food (as a service of catering).

It's an interesting question, and possibly one of those where the answer is what you are happy with.

In general, I would work on the principle that your level of pay is directl;y related to how seriously the payer takes you (taking into account market forces). Here in Pompey, the level of pay for pub gigs is pretty much what it was 40 years ago. There's something inherently wrong there.

In certain circumstances I am more than happy to pay for nothing, and do regularly. A commercial enterprise should not expect me to entertain their customers for nothing.