Good choice in music!! Good start!!
It really does depend how much you want to spend. As always, you get what you pay for, but for a couple of hundred quid or more you can get a great bass. I'm a big fan Ibanez and Yamaha, you can't go too far wrong there in my opinion, but Warwicks are great basses, and as said above, the Rockbass stuff which is the budget end of the range if you like can be really good too. However you can pick up second hand Warwick Standard basses for 300-400 quid, it depends how much you've got.
It's difficult if your local place has half a dozen pieces of crap and not much else, but if you can, take your time looking, and get to a couple of decent music stores if you can, it'll be worth the effort.
The Yamaha BB basses are really good, don't know about the weight, but the range of tones really is killer for the money, and again, Ibanez don't make many duffers, at least, I've never come across one.
Good advice to get some help from someone who knows about basses and get them to go with you too.