rushbo

At the risk of parroting what lots of others have said, I’ve used Grolsch grommets for the last 15 years with no problems ever. Although I don’t throw the bass around, I’m pretty mobile for an old fart, and never once have I had the strap come away. I bought 100 in a bag from eBay maybe 10 years ago - all my basses and guitars have a pair on as do the instruments of most of my band mates. You may raise an eyebrow about trusting the safety of your beloved (and expensive) bass to a bit of rubber that isn’t designed for that job, but in my experience, they’re perfect. I fitted strap locks to a bass of mine many years ago and they were nothing but trouble. That was my experience then- hopefully they’re better made now. Oh, a quick heads up- I had a couple of the Fender bottle top strap locks and after a couple of years, they started to get stiff and brittle. The Grolsch versions just go on forever!

Worth a peep here:

You've made my day. I've never seen that before. There are a few bits of footage of HL playing live in London, but I never thought for a minute they would have actually made a video. Thank you...

A brilliant band from New York called Hugo Largo. A bit arty...not everyone’s cup of tea, but they made two stunning albums in the eighties.

Fortunately, I've never had an amp go bang at a gig, but my elderly and up to then. bombproof Peavey TNT combo, inexplicably packed up at a rehearsal a few years ago. I've always got some kind of DI with me, in the form of Behringer BDI 21 pedal, my Zoom B3 or the DI on the combo, so I'm confident I'd be able to finish a gig if disaster struck. I'd be a little nervous without a backup.

I saw the Stones earlier this year. It was a great combination of the kind of enormous venue that I hate with a band who I thought should have retired thirty years ago. They were incredible. A superb setlist with just enough hits for the casual fans and just enough deep cuts for the purists. Jagger can still sing (and move like he still owns the stage) and the band played brilliantly. I was blown away. Having seen a few "heritage acts" in the last few years (including Mott The Hoople and Neil Young) 'phone in lacklustre shows, I was expecting the worst. But the Stones delivered. I guess it depends on the artist - I've not seen Sir Cliff recently, but as long as he can still do it and people enjoy what he does, then more power to his (tennis) elbow. 10cc are still on the road and are still worth seeing, in spite of a rather "triggers broom" approach to band members. Bill Nelson's rare live shows are still stunning. Not quite in that bracket, but I saw The Posies and Colin Moulding of XTC play two of the best shows I have seen for ages recently and they have been playing since the 70's and 80's.

Yes. This.

TC +I featuring the incredible Colin Moulding in Swindon on Sunday night for me. Absolutely superb - Moulding still plays like an Alt-Rock McCartney and Terry Chambers still whacks the kit with gusto and aplomb. The rest of the band ain't too shabby, neither.

Those cardboard covers are ace. I saw some on T*lkb*ss a year or two and they looked like they do the job. The only drawback is that you cant fold them down and at a pub gig with limited space, it could be a bit of an issue.

We all know what he REALLY means...

Ace.

This makes me feel really happy.

Worst gig, you say..? Well, I've got a few to choose from... An old Manic Street Preachers type band I played with many years ago, was tricked into playing a bikers wake. Various chapters spent the night glaring angrily at each other and completely ignoring the band. The only reason they weren't knocking lumps out of each other was because they'd agreed on a truce up until midnight. We crammed an hour-long set into 50 minutes, got off stage at 11.50 and literally threw all our gear into the van and sped off. We'd been travelling about 6-7 minutes when we saw about half a dozen cop cars speeding towards the venue... Or there was the gig in Bolton where we travelled from Brum in the snow to play to about six people. Uncharacteristically, I got blind drunk and played a chunk of the set lying on a bannister rail at the top of some stairs with a 30 ft drop to my right. After the gig, we were interviewed by the music guy from the local paper. Unfortunately, I picked up his tape recorder, started singing Judas Priest songs into it, then slammed it onto the beer-soaked table, thus breaking it. I'm not sure if he ever printed the piece... Or the wedding gig where the two families absolutely hated each other. No one danced apart from the bride and groom (who were lovely). Instead, every few minutes, a group from one side of the room would march across the dance floor and have a little scuffle with some "opposing" guests before skulking back to their side of the room. As we were packing up, the police were called to stop a fight between an incredibly drunk and belligerent lady and an equally over-refreshed guy in a wheelchair. Pretty evenly matched, I'd say. We do it because we love it, right? Right?

Potential thought process behind modification: "I'm a little drunk. It's the middle of the day. I've got all this sandpaper and a bass I no longer play. The next door neighbour needs four knobs for his bakelite radio. I know what I'll do..." https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bass-Collection-Sgc-Pick-Up-Bass-Guitar-Nanyo-Made-In-Japan/132778689044?hash=item1eea3a0214:g:6VkAAOSwXUdbmSxE

I've got a slightly earlier version of this - I think mine was called the "Icon"... They're fantastic basses for the money. It'll need a bit of a tweak out of the box if my experience (and that of James Nada) is anything to go by. Intonation can be tricky and mine had a little bit of fret buzz which was cured by a tiny tweak of the truss rod. If you're looking to play a whole bunch of clever slap licks, then this isn't the bass for you. Roll off a bit of treble, grab a pick (and maybe even a cheeky bit of sponge at the bridge for a mute...) and you've got a great sounding, lightweight, fun instrument to play. I keep meaning to change the stock strings which are an OK set of roundwounds, but now they've gone a bit dead, they're starting to sound better. Anyway, short scale flatwounds are a bit pricey... They're nice and easy to mod, if you want that "authentic" Macca look - teacup knobs and a quick repaint of the selector switches and you're getting close to Fab-ness, if that's the direction you want to go in. They're ace basses for not much money. I'd be inclined to get a hard case for it tho', as they're a wee bit fragile.

I quite like the shape, but it looks superhumanly fiddly to navigate.

Another vote for Chris Squire and that gorgeous, righteous clank. Martin Gordon was pretty nifty on the Ricky when he was in Sparks, too...

A decent, basic, beginners amp with a good stand and amp for £100? Regardless of the wonky plate, if it plays well, that's a good deal. (just spotted - it's a guitar amp though...)

Whilst browsing on Shpock for bass related bargains, I came upon a bit of a curio - an FBT MM 83/B bass combo. As the seller was approximately 1km from my front door and I was able to negotiate a pocket money price for it, I took a punt. Some switch cleaner and some hard scrubbing of filthy tolex later, it's turned out to be a fairly decent bit of kit. It's solidly built and sounds pretty cool. ...but it's a bit of a mystery. It's 80w, so it's never going to trouble my Genz Benz Contour rig as my gigging combo, but it'll be useful for the occasional acoustic/drummerless gig. It's made in Italy and dates from about 1980 (there's a very similar practice combo on the 'net which the owner thinks dates from then...) but I don't know much more than that. Thanks to the miracle of Google Translate, I found out that FBT was known as "The Italian Marshall", apparently. There are two or three similar looking amps/combos detailed online but precious little info. FBT specialise in PA gear now, it seems. Any Italian amp specialists out there who can shed any light on this?

If you need a hand with the setlist, drop me a line. Oh and if you don’t do “Gimme the Car”, I will sulk. Really, really, sulk.

Rest assured that it'll remain unmolested... I was really surprised at how good it sounds and how well it intonates, given the rather "primitive" bridge. I'll use it in anger at rehearsal next week to see how it copes in a band situation, as it would be a shame not to play it. ...and thanks for all the info, Bassassin!

Thank you sir. The panel allows a little bit of access to the pots and output jack. Maybe I should whack a set of active EMG's in it, just to mess with the purists...

I blame that picture of Blue holding that lovely, red Gibson... I picked up a slightly tatty, but generally intact semi-acoustic bass - an Eros Mark II - with a view to replacing pretty much everything except the body and neck. "All the hardware will terrible and made of either tin or cheese and the intonation will be so bad, it'll be unplayable beyond the second fret", thought I. Well, that's not the case. Once I'd scraped off the filth and given it a very quick set up, it seemed to play quite nicely. Pots were very scratchy and it had the weirdest fret buzz I had ever heard - a sort of fretless "mwah" noise, but just on three frets of the "D" string. A turn of the bridge height screw and bobs-yer-proverbial. A quick squirt of switch cleaner, followed by the dreary task of putting the thing back together (seriously... trying to put the pots back into a semi-acoustic is like trying to perform gynaecology through a letterbox) and it sounds way better than it has a right to. The action is medium low, there's no mains hum and the tone controls actually make a difference to the sound. Who'd have thought it? It took quite a bit of cleaning and there were some nasty, but shallow scratches to deal with. Out came the rubbing compound and some elbow grease and it looks the business. Well, I think so. Has anyone else had any experience with one of these? I've seen a few Eros basses, but they always seem to be generic Fender copies. The only info I could find online, was from a 1975 Rosetti catalogue, where I found out they were a bargain at £65.