Paul S

That is grossly unfair, as it happens. I have had a handful and consider them to be have been excellent value for money. And David is a great guy to deal with.

Kind words, Nik, and the same back atcha. Did you have your eyes on anything in particular? I'm thinking maybe not the Harley Benton... 😂

Nik bought my Aria bass in the easiest of transactions. But, apart from that, he is such a lovely chap! We spent far too long chatting about gear, droughts and Life in general. An absolute pleasure doing business.

Well, it is short scale. There is a new fretboard with extra frets on the old long scale neck giving you the smaller intervals between frets. And if that is someone's reason for liking a short scale then I guess that is a winner. But not for me - I would prefer the whole thing scaled down with 20 frets on a shorter neck with the associated reduction in weight. Maybe, even better, a 32" scale, with appropriate body, neck and weight reduction would have been nice.

In my old blues rock trio I used to do the MC stuff. I'd always start with 'We are called Toredown. If you've seen us before we have some new tunes. Probably some new mistakes. (pause) But the same old jokes'. 'If you haven't seen us before we go something like this'... the launch into it straight off. We found that the more blues rock orientated punters liked to know something about the songs, especially the more unusual ones - what they were called, who they were by. Not each time. At one point in the gig guitarist Alan would change guitars and, if it was the right kind of crowd, I'd say something like 'There are always people who come to live music who are interested in the gear we use so while Alan is changing guitars I'll just take this opportunity to talk about his stufff. Earlier he was using a cream coloured guitar with two pointy bits and is now changing to a caramel coloured guitar with one pointy bit (pause) It's small details like that can make an evening, I find'. It usually got a titter.

Dave bought a pedal from me in a super-easy transaction. Hope it does what you want!

Not necessarily. The case could be dealt with at Magistrates court but referred to Crown court for sentencing if the judge considered he didn't have enough oomph at his disposal. We can live in hope.

I've had extreme experiences with Royal Mail/Parcel force in September. I have a lot of rare plants in my garden. When I say rare, I mean some are growing nowhere else within these isles. I collect the seed, give it to a lady who runs a nursery and she then lets me have the pick of her stock for my garden. A nice arrangement. I posted off all this year's seed and, after one failed attempt at delivery, Royal Mail say they have lost it. I posted something to Texas, it arrived inside of a week.

Sterling Bongo? Ernie Bongo's brother? Last I heard he was doing a 5er in Wandsworth for nicking toilet seats. Hang on, wrong thread.🤨

Sold a Boss wireless kit to Stuart in the most straightforward of deals. A pleasure to do business!

Looks like it is the same neck but with 24, not 20, frets so it is unlikely to be any lighter. Boo.

Wow. be interested to know the weight.

I am selling off all my basses except for three, two of which are 32" scale - I just find them so comfy. But it has to be said that I dwell down in the depths of the budget end of the market. That said my budget basses have kept me gigging for the past couple of decades. Aria Pro II CSB range are medium scale with models at different price points. They are all good. I have the top end of the range model CSB 450 Black n Gold for sale in the classifieds for a giveaway £300 but, perhaps, not after tomorrow as someone is coming to look at it. Hondo II H1015 are medium scale. Necks on these are utterly superb lumps of maple. Heavy basses, mind. Known for the 3-point bridges to lift but that is an easy fix, often fitted with DiMarzio pickups as stock. Some Westone Concords are medium scale, some long scale. They are excellent and go for very little money, pickups in these are tremendous, very powerful. I believe there are one or two medium scale Westone Thunder basses, too. Fender do medium scale Precisions and Jazzes, usually MIJ for the domestic market, but they pop up fairly regularly. MIJ Squiers, also. I've had several over the years, notably an A series Squier Precision that was one of the best basses I've owned. Should never have sold it. The best of all the 32" scale basses I have tried/owned is the Yamaha SB-15. Superb. Rare, though, but you never know. Any of the above are pretty straight forward things and not scary to take a punt at second hand. There isn't much to go wrong and, if it does, it is usually easily and inexpensively corrected. I've not tried one but Ibanez Mezzo also gets a lot of love on here.

Actually there is still quite a bit left beyond Newbury. Typical northerner 😄

The classic, I think it is called. P1.

I see Nik Kershaw whenever he is nearby, not too often these days, sadly. He is an immense talent. Saw him do a solo acoustic gig at Union Chapel which was a huge amount of fun. He started to introduce 'The One and Only' and thanked Chesney for earning him so much money, adding 'Mind you, Chesney is a bit of a w@nker' only to be joined on stage by him a second later. Very funny. Then they played it, fantastic. As an aside, Nik Kershaw did a tour with Go West a few years ago. Go West would play some tunes, then Nik, then both together - all with the Go West band (who are fab). They all seemed to be having an absolute blast of a time. There was a bit where they played one of the others' songs but in their own style. Nik played 'Missing Persons' and his arrangement was just stunning. It remains one of the best gigs I have ever seen.

I have an HB Shorty with a Tonerider pickup and find it absolutely delightful. You know the score with these so I say copy and paste!

Marcus King, not heard him before. That is today gone...

Voices like his don't come along too often. Aural velvet. I never knew he played bass, off to investgate!

Freddie King also. I wonder of the acoustic 'lace through the head' might be enough of if it would just fall off.

I joined a start-up band which went through a couple of personnel changes but the singer - new to bands but actually a good front man - was becoming increasingly difficult. LVS struck deep - he'd had a few promotions at work and started to believe his own PR, treating the rest of the band as lackies. It came to a head at a birthday gig we did. It is well known amongst my friends that I get grumpy if I don't eat regularly. This gig he said we were to help ourselves to the buffet before we started. Kick off time was raidly approaching, no sign of buffet. He lied, said no mention of buffet had ever been made, I got cross and we ended up having a nose to nose just before going on. I may have said a few things about his attitude and, as I recall, finished up threatening to throw him off the fire escape. Never a realistic prospect, what with my bad back and his obesity but there you go. Immediately afterwards he said I had to go, the band fell in with that so I got sacked. They didn't find another bassist. Shortly afterwards the singer left as his wife had a baby, they asked me back, we got another singer. But it was never the same, really.