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I have a gig! Praise be. The eternal question arises; what gear shall I take? The answer is simple. The best of everything. Best amp, best cabs, best bass.

When a chance came to get hold of one of my old basses back in a trade I of course had to say yes. This arrived today: a 2014 Fender AV 64 Reissue Jazz in a FSR Daphne Blue with matching headstock. It's bloody lovely so goodness knows why I got rid of it in the first place. I have a love/hate thing with Jazzes but hopefully it will hang around for a while. We'll see...

Caveat: this is not legal advice. I think this comes down to whether there is a contract on the basis that you have already paid for it. If there is, and given that at the price you paid you reasonably assumed that was the correct price (and not an error), the company is bound to honour it. That does not mean they would. If the contract would depend upon delivery, then there is no contract and they must refund the money you paid upon cancellation by either party. It is unacceptable for them to pull this stroke, in my view. Were I in your position, I would give them a choice on the spot: supply the piano at the price you paid, or else refund the money immediately. But I doubt they have a valid basis for taking the money and then trying to shake you down for more. They might have a valid basis for cancelling the order, in which case you must receive an immediate refund. Personally, I would insist that they honour what you regard as an agreement (do not concede ground on the price-matching point), and point out their weak position in law should they prove reluctant. If they won't budge, get an immediate refund and call the other place quickly. There is no way I would pay extra money to these people.

The T2A fuses arrived today and the amp is now working just as it should, without blowing fuses. It draws around 0.35A (88W) from the mains when it has settled down, which is not unusual given how delightfully inefficient valve amps are - my Princeton Reverb draws 0.24A (61W). The steel bird cage gets quite hot above the valves, but my PF-50T did the same. I'm calling that a win. I just need a name now - any suggestions?

At last I have a matching pair.

Hardly adequate (dark, flash from phone), but I snapped this just after wiping down the body after 2nd coat. A little darker and deeper red, with the grain still nicely visible. It will not get much darker than this from the 4 additional coats I will add, so pretty close to end colour I think.

Did someone leave it on a radiator? It seems to have melted... One fugly bass.

Just pulled the trigger on a TMB30 on Ebay. Have been circling a shorty for quite a while now a have a few gigs lined up so really looking forward to this little stubby turning up.

Free Nissan Main Dealer - The Special AKA

Go to the CAB website and check your statutory rights but IIRC they sold you the item at the price you paid - they can't add money after the fact.

It begins... and very well might end badly!

Long time no hear, Yabby You

Before I bought my first bass, my band which was a writing and recording only project would borrow one of the two bass guitars owned by people we knew at school. One of these was a home-made thing put together by someone who'd seen a photo of a P-Bass once and then had tried to make their own from memory using only what was available from the parts box at our local musical instrument store. The other was Mosrite-influenced "Woolies Special". Neither were really worthy of the description "musical instrument". We'd got by with these for about 4 years until I actually went out and bought one myself in 1981 - a very battered and heavily modified Burns Sonic Bass which had appeared in the afore-mentioned musical instrument store. It cost me £60 including the OHC and the shop chucked me in a Fender-branded strap. For a while I wasn't entirely sure that it wasn't also home-made as there were no logos on it other than on the Tri-Sonic pickups. However I was able to get hold of "The Burns Book" by Paul Day which confirmed it was actually a proper Burns Bass guitar made in either 1961 or 1962. And that's what I used in my first two bands and on the demos my second band recorded that got CBS records interested in signing us (they decided to go with Wham! in the end), and them for writing bass lines in my synth band, until I bought my Overwater Original 5-string in the early 90s. I still had the Burns Sonic bass until 2 years ago when I had a ruthless pruning of my musical instrument "collection" and got rid of everything I wasn't using. Here's photo of me playing it live in 1982...

Many thanks to all for your words of encouragement, advice and welcome.

Interesting tidbit of information there - so Mr. Glover had got past his (deep) purple phase by then was more into the yellow/red end of the spectrum?

There's the GR Pure 800 if that's any use?

(B)Raking the law(n) - Judas Priest

That’s the one! 1983 (my YOB coincidentally) and one of the few white stingrays with non yellowing lacquer.

Genuine question: if you can't tell the difference between a cheaper P bass and a more expensive one, why buy the expensive one in the first place?

To bring some perspective my auntie used to live next door to Roger Glover in Richings Park, Iver, Buckinghamshire and my (then) teenage cousin Pete used to wash Roger's car to make a few bob. One time Roger was in his garden planting out some marigolds and my uncle leaned over the fence and said 'Rog, is Smoke On The Water heavy metal?' and Roger put down his trowel and thought a bit and said 'No, Norman, it's hard rock but played with a hint of heaviness'.

The Abyssinians 'Declaration of rights'

From Musicfestnews.com on Facebook

Is Mr. G a known Dead Head? I bet he grows magnolias.

I've only had a brief go on the C4, but it's looking good. It's replaced Octave up and down pedals, so that'll be my 1st focus. (The right-hand three pedals were all previously @SumOne's 🙂 )

Andertons have a mint pre owned one for £645

Thanks man, I've gone ahead and bought the huntington via this forum. Got it for 450 in mint condition. If I like it then I'll probably look at something more high end next year 👍 if I love it though then it's job done 😁

Really? There is an issue with recreational drug use interfering with treatment for mental illnesses, but my dear old mum had bipolar and never went near a recreational drug in her life. Her behaviour was at times as outrageous and loopy as Jaco’s - although far fewer people saw it. We should beware conflating recreational drug usage and mental illness, and also demonising people for drug issues (there are plenty of people with gambling, alcohol and other addictions which also ruin lives). Im also very dubious of viewing these matters as greatly important when there are far more positives - after all some of the great composers of the classical genre had mental health issues.

Indeed. Horrible stuff. Although I’ve no room to talk. I clearly have problems of my own to sort out.....according to the BC swearing filter, I lick donkeys.

I don't know. But I hope someone beat it to death with an iron bar then set it on fire.

My first bass was like this: Short-scale Jazz-ish thing branded Grant. I remember it being awful, although now I appreciate a lot of perfectly good instruments were dismissed as garbage because they were so badly set-up out of the box, & stuck in the hands of clueless kids who couldn't tune up, never mind set truss rods, action & intonation. However I do clearly remember the bridge positioning being so off that the G string was almost hanging off the fretboard above the 12th fret. What happened to it? I murdered it,basically - painted it white, ripped the frets out, painted it black, somehow split the body, took the covers off the pickups... Last I knew of it, it was in the loft of an ex's house. That was maybe 30 years ago, it's probably still there, for all I know.

My father-in-law had Smoke Gets In Your Eyes played at his funeral/cremation.

Could we have the bride and the groom on the floor please? Then into Smoke On The Water. Reminds me of a friend of ours who used to sing in a band that did many functions over the years. He once asked for the bride and groom etc then asked for the brides parents. Everyone Was stage whispering frantically, Al,...... they're dead!

I'm going to the post office in an hour, so any final orders for this batch, do it now!!

Yep 15uf.. but dunno about Butch, David, Jack or any of the Casady's

GAK selling a red 424x, same price on website and Reverb, £280 delivered RED (I really need to stop picturing that with a white pearloid pg)

Ahem…

If you can find a used one that hits the top of your budget then check out the Spector Bantam bass.

Thanks for posting this - what a positive documentary. Jaco suffered from what we would now call bipolar disorder which, for anyone who is a relative or close friend of someone with this, will know that, as for all forms of mental illness it can be supremely hard work with that sort of relationship. I’m afraid that people complaining about this is really discriminatory in the same way as complaining about other disabilities or people’s sex, age and other illnesses. I’m sure if it were now there would be far greater support for someone like Jaco. That he was a genius on bass should not be in dispute - I learned so much from him (and Alan Spenner, Leo Lyons, Jack Bruce, Louis Johnson, Bernard Edwards - more recently Jamerson, Dunn, Babbitt - in fact an absolute mammoth of a list right up to the current day - but Jaco’s work (also as a writer) really moves me - when Two Views of a Secret was played on the video attached it almost moved me to tears - fabulous! I also am a great fan of Henning (and was from first seeing him at the beginning of the 70s on DB with Oscar P - usually on the tele) - there have been many jazz players I’ve admired - but Jaco taught me to groove on electric bass (as did most of my other influences), followed by the note selection and patterns, voicings to make things interesting (even the most mundane) - there’s a mass of truth in Zawinul’s input to the documentary about his view of Weatyer Report - I have heard other stories of Jaco idolising him and finding it hard to gain praise from him - especially with his solo stuff - so good to hear Zawinul say in such positive terms what he thought of Jaco and his music. Jaco’s tone was pretty well unique at the time and his accuracy staggering on fretless (Pino - another influence - took this approach as well but added his own flavour). I can say in 1980 I was really after copping some of Jaco’s tone and groove (and Pino’s)!! Though I didn’t own a fretless (yes a Stingray) till 2010!!!

I really wish I didn’t agree but sadly I do. I’m also double jabbed but with underlying medical issues, an elderly family member we’re supporting through cancer treatment, the almost certain need to head back onto a commuter train in September/October and a kid with special needs… this autumn still somehow feels too soon. Doubly so with the transmissibility of the current variants. I would also have voted for next year. And @silverfoxnik, @Hamster, @cetera happy to help out when it does come around to pulling it together (as part of the North Surrey massive).

Are you talking about Jaco the hugely influential, innovative, bass player, or Jaco the person? You only have to listen to Jaco with Weather Report, his solo albums or his various guest appearances to know who the bass player "Jaco really was". I have never heard of Michel Hatzigeorgiou, but I'm always keen to check out any players who I may have missed, so did a quick Google. The first video result was Michel doing a Jaco. Michel's Wiki also states that Jaco was his "main influence". To be honest Hellzero your posts kind of remind of the great Vim Fuego quote, "I could play Stairway to Heaven when I was 12, Jimmy Page didn't write it till he was 22. I think that says quite a lot"

In reality I think the only people that would bring us anything close to the old TE sound is Ashdown. And I'm not sure they want to, or that there's a market beyond 3 or 4 of us on this site, who would buy one new. Reality makes me sad sometimes.