Bassassin

Check out the chasm around the neck pocket - if you fell down that, you'd have to gnaw off your own arm to escape. If it went for £30 it might be worth getting a scratchplate that fitted, but it's still a plywood Korean copy with an embarassing brand name! Jon.

Fascinated how he knows that "the guard, knobs, pickups, tuners and bridge are all original Ibanez", and what exactly he thinks that means. Irresepective of the fact "Ibanez" isn't a manufacturer & never made anything, ever, the hardware & pickups used on these basses came from manufacturers such as Gotoh, Nisshin Onpa, Chushin etc, and is also generic on many other 70s MIJ basses from dozens of unrelated brands. If it's an original headstock decal - and I'll give him the benefit of the doubt based on the 3-part neck construction - then that's the only thing I'd say was made by Fujigen Gakki, & the only thing you could call "Ibanez". I'd be 99% sure it's not a Fujigen body, & there's no reason to believe it's MIJ or even from the same era. Jon.

Seriously good deal - and nice to see someone not trying to profiteer. Apropos of which, a quick skim through FleaBay last night revealed a couple of chancers with Thunder 1As priced around £250. Never gonna happen. J.

I own a couple of basses which might be considered "challenging" to Fender-normalised attitudes: Lace Helix [sharedmedia=core:attachments:46079] Ibanez EDA900 [sharedmedia=core:attachments:72012] Kawai Sleekline [sharedmedia=core:attachments:46249] Tokai Talbo Nothing incredibly weird, admittedly - maybe more "eccentric"... Jon.

Way, way back, I had an HH VS bass combo & after a bit the amp part packed up. I borrowed an old Marshall 100w head, which I ran into the 1x15 cab of the HH for a few gigs. It sounded a whole lot better than the original amp did! Jon.

[quote name='andy159' timestamp='1424598468' post='2698033']did they come with the little knob pointers under the knobs or were these added on? [/quote] They came with them - mine has them, and I have a matching Westbury Standard guitar which has them too. I do really need to have a cull - recently moved to a smaller place & realised how out-of-hand my bass-hoarding had got! I do like the Westy but I've only gigged it once in the 7-or-so years I've had it. It's provisionally on the hit-list, but like you say they don't come up too often, it'd be hard to find another. J.

Not too keen on the pointy shape (besides, the Westone Dynasty was much more out there!) but the paint jobs on these were ace. A few years ago I missed out on a Westone Concord guitar with the same 2-tone metalflake finish, which was £55 in a local pawn shop. I didn't have £55. Jon.

Fair point, well-made! I want one o' them... J.

Very nice! New bridge is an upgrade as the originals tended to crack & bend in half! Just stick a couple of black speed knobs on it & it'll be sorted. I do like mine but never really play it as the single P unit doesn't get the sound I want too easily. Should I flog it? Jon.

[quote name='Dr H' timestamp='1424463601' post='2696714'] I've recently picked up a RB-888 (Bean Bass) and this has won me over - so lightweight, medium scale, thin, fast neck and a great range of tones from a single humbucker. [/quote] Those are proper rare - they hardly ever come up & I don't remember ever seeing one in real life, even back in the Olden Days. Pics or it didn't happen etc. J.

Very cool - it's actually a relative of the Eko BX series, the exact same bass turns up branded as Camac, I think. As far as I know Brandoni was (maybe still is) an outlet for a lot of the old Recanti-made Eko parts and that'll be the origin of this. If I was still anywhere near Sheerness, I'd be proper tempted by this. Jon.

I had a Gibson Marauder copy with transparent pickups, dead-on copies of the Bill Lawrence originals in the real Gibbo. These are actually potted in clear epoxy - coolest looking guitar pups ever! Jon.

[quote name='Paul S' timestamp='1424429139' post='2696163'] I prefer my spirits draught. [/quote] J.

He's also selling a [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GENUINE-IRISH-GHOST-IN-BOTTLE-/261758416360"]ghost in a bottle[/url]. Just £430 to you. Imagine what a full-size ghost must cost. J.

So - we've managed to get 2 full pages from the opinion of some bloke out of a band that split up 6 years ago, about another band which had a couple of hits 9 or 10 years ago. Fingers on the pulse, and balancing skilfully on the ragged, bleeding edge, us lot. J.

[quote name='uk_lefty' timestamp='1424297843' post='2694989'] It even looks wet on the big welts under the bridge. Is it wet? I don't understand!!!??? [/quote] Dinosaur sh!t. J.

For when you really need that "spent 5000 years up a Stegosaurus' bum" look. Amaze. Jon.

The Stranglers, and a local band called The Warm Jets were mostly to blame. Me & a bunch of my punk/new wave-mad schoolmates decided we wanted to start a band after sneaking into a pub (we were 15) & seeing our first-ever live band (the aforementioned Jets). Walking home afterwards, half-deafened and crazed with adrenalin and a sly half of bitter shandy, we formed a band. We all liked The Stranglers, so that's who we were going to sound like. I got bass because no-one else wanted to do it - I honestly have no idea why - but I was proper happy it turned out that way. None of us could play a note, and we never actually tried playing together, but two of us ended up wasting our lives in various other bands. Jon.

It's a lot of money for a modern Aria - I like the finish but not the cheapo bolt-on, scarf-jointed neck. Should be closer to £150, imo. I suppose this is based on the [url="http://www.matsumoku.org/models/ariaproii/catalogs/78_pb1500_slick/78_pb1500_slick.jpg.html"]PB-1500[/url], from the late 70s/early 80s. J.

[quote name='Lord Sausage' timestamp='1424103120' post='2692637'] Anyone on here wrote a good two hours of original material liked by hundreds of thousands of people!? [/quote] No, obviously not. We're all of us just a washed-up bunch of miserable, embittered. talentless sh!tehawks and deep down we all know it, and the success of the likes of Oasis just highlights our mutual monumental uselessness. It's almost unbearable. [i]Unbearable[/i], I tells ya. Popularity and £££££ are obviously the only yardsticks that actually matter. Oh, and hard drugs & chicks too. J.

I thought the Kaisers were good fun in a one-trick-pony sort of a way, Oasis on the other hand were never more than turgid, derivative, one-dimensional bores, and I found their popularity at the time quite incomprehensible. Noel's good value for money in interviews & never seems to take himself too seriously - I've always though that's because he appreciates that as a musician/writer he's a below-average chancer who just got very, very lucky. Good luck to him, really. Liam on the other hand has always seemed like a nasty, dimwitted little w****** who would've ended up in prison if he'd not been in a band. Not sure which would've been preferable. Jon.

Shouldn't really post this here, but this is the best example of Ibby SR silly-cheapness I've seen in a very, very long time - looks like a 1990 MIJ, Fujigen-built SR1300 or 1500 (not really sure) for a massive £126 BIN: [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/191504734916"]http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/191504734916[/url] J.

Bit pricey even for a real one! I've always liked these & still have residual GAS - I still kick myself for not grabbing one that was on BC about 5 years back - £100 including hard case... J.

It'll be interesting to see what it goes for, but my gut feeling is that something like this is really more collector's oddity than gigging musical instrument. J.