bassbiscuits

My dad was very accepting of me and my brother both wanting to learn to play (me bass, and my brother guitar) and agreed to sign the hire purchase agreements which allowed us to buy our first instruments and amps, as I was only 12 at the time. We paid him back every month from our paper round wages. He used to give me lifts to gigs and rehearsals too, and we'd go and see local pub bands together. My dad would have liked to be a drummer, and only i found out recently that his dad used to be a violinist, so maybe that's why he is so open and helpful. My mum strangely never showed any interest at all in our music, never asked about what we were doing or seemed very interested when we'd done well, which was a shame.

Cool pic too.

I went to see them on that tour and Copeland in particular blew me away. I love the thing he does in Wrapped Around Your Finger, switching between the percussion set up and the drum kit without every missing a beat. Perfection.

Ha ha that’s a bit special isn’t it! Wow.

For me it’s either been stuff that I wasn’t using, stuff that was underwhelming or stuff I had to shift to pay for some other bit of kit.

Mind you I also didn’t take art or history at school, but along with music they’ve been my lifelong interests! Hmm.

I gave up music as soon as I could - our classes just involved an old guy rattling off facts about ancient composers etc which didn’t really engage a bunch of 11-year-old kids. It was a shame cos I’ve spent so much of my life involved in music I wish I’d put a bit more attention, put up with the boring stuff and probably would have learned something useful (like being able to read music for starters) if I’d stuck with it. Then again I’ve had 34 years of playing to learn to read music and I still haven’t bothered.

Afternoon Ash - Leicester man myself (well, in Oadby, via South Wales...) Welcome aboard chap.

Stamped codes on the bottom of a pickup is commonplace, but its just that its too indistinct to see what yours says. I've never seen a guitar's serial number on its scratchplate before so i don't know if there's any significance to them not matching the headstock's code. Neck pocket codes and marks also seem pretty random - there's stuff in mine that seems faily meaningless and don't really give any useful info about the bass's age. I expect the extra holes in the body / neck socket are where it was hung for spray painting etc. There are some fairly random marks, codes etc in vintage Fenders as far as I can tell. Be good to see a picture of the whole bass to determine whether the rest of the features match up to the year of manufacture on headstock.

"Pass the Parcel" for example would have fitted perfectly, and made for a family-friendly parlour game-themed hit.

Definitely still up for discovering new music, whether its something similar to my usual style, or something different. As others here have said that could be having your eyes opened to old stuff that you never listened to at the time (for me that's old Bowie) or brand new stuff (quite into the bass parts on current Dua Lipa stuff for example.)

Do we need to start a support group? Anonymous of course.

That’s minging mate.

Which is a shame cos they are lovely basses, with versatile sounds and they look awesome.

Tru dat. I sold my Epi Jack Casady for that reason. It was hollow and very light, and I have neck/shoulder injury, but all the weight was in the wrong place at the neck end, so the balance was horrendous.

Fender Mustang basses, if you're happy with short scale. Mine weighs about 3.5kg.

Singlecuts, basses with very exotic wood tops, anything with more than five strings, or anything that weighs a tonne are not for me. I'm no fan of fake relicing either - it's not a deal breaker, but some otherwise nice basses have enough ridiculously overcooked relicing to put me right off.

that's cool.

True. Its certainly good enough for what I need. I get anxious if I've got lots of money locked up in gear I'm not using.