SteveXFR

Thanks for the tips. Since there's no wild disagreement I've gone and ordered a couple from designacable. Van damme cable (in a nice shade of green) with neutrik plugs (in red for a horrible clash)

I was looking on Andertons earlier to get some new leads and prices range from cheap to bloody expensive. Is there actually any difference in reality?

My local usually has two basses in stock around £300 each. He said he's tried stocking more variety of basses but they don't sell and he gets stuck with stock he can't afford to have hanging around. He's got loads of guitars, violins and ukuleles in stock. I guess bass isn't popular enough. He also doesn't have much stock of lots of other instruments so it's not just discrimination against bass

This has gone severly off topic but who doesn't like the charming Ms Lawson

How dare you. Take that back. She is a goddess and would never use sprouts.

I'm getting worried reading this. I got a new harley benton and the fretboard was super dry, to the point where it felt rough. I put on some lemon oil and half an hour later it felt better but still not great so I put some more on and now it feels super smooth but not oily at all. Could I have over done it and set up future problems?

Stone the crow - Down

I oiled the fretboard on a new Harley Benton this morning. It was really dry out of the box so thought it would do it some good. It looked like it had gone within 10 minutes so I guess it was either absorbed or evaporated

Cheers for the tips. I barely scraped through last time. I think the jam sessions could be great for developing my playing and I think it'll be good fun once I have some idea what I'm doing and can relax.

It's a good plan but it's in a small village. There's only one pub. Or did you mean 12 bar blues? I was prepared for that but nothing even close came up. There was a bit of reggae, some jazz and a bit of rock.

A few weeks ago I went to my first jam session and very quickly realised that I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Someone would start something and then others would just come in and join them. I didn't know what to play or when to play it. Everyone else was making some fantastic noises but I sucked although people were encouraging. I'm guessing I really need to know chords (I don't really know much) but which ones? There's hundreds of the buggers. Are there a few fret board shapes which will help me scrape through?

White Riot - The Clash

Eternal Flame - The Bangles

Hanging Tree - Queens Of the Stone Age

Aenima is just a masterpiece of an album. It's up there with my favourite albums of all time.

That's exactly my thoughts. If I don't like it, I'll sell it on again and probably lose nothing or very little. Even with cheaper gear, it only seems to depreciate once and age doesn't seem to be a factor. A six month old Squier P bass seems to cost he same as a 10 year old Squier P bass

Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle - Nirvana

Donut Hell - Okily Dokily (Ned Flanders themed death metal band)

I know the Thunderbird is one of several basses he uses. I've got a VP Thunderbird but rarely play it even though it's my favourite bass to play. The only way to play it is loud and aggressive.

Nancy Boy - Placebo

From memory, the Gibson and Epiphone bodies are made from the same wood, both are neck through and the only difference is the shape is a little different and the Gibson has a 9 piece neck while the Epiphone has a 7 piece neck. I'm not sure that'll make make difference.

They've done a convincing job. It's the right shape for the Epiphone, pickup position is different to Gibson and it's got the cheap pressed tuners and the Epiphone Bridge. Maybe it is just an Epiphone, probably a nicely prepared one but just an Epiphone.

It looks like a completely stock Vintage Pro Thunderbird. I can't imagine Alice Cooper letting his bassist sound sub standard just because he had beef with Gibson. The current Epiphone sounds much closer to the 70's Gibson than the current Gibson does.

50 Million Year Trip - Kyuss