Chiliwailer

What a rabbit hole - I’m leaving this well alone now 😂

Looks like this is a sensitive topic for Sterling Ball…

Interesting, I always thought pre-Specials were mostly Ash, with the occasional Alder (like trans red), and that Poplar was just in some brief instances. For example, this old page from EBMM simply states Ash as the body wood, which is how I recall it for years, but I may well be wrong; wondering where you got the info about Poplar? https://www.music-man.com/instruments/basses/stingray

Sorry to read that. You may be able to find the original advert, via Google cache - it may say ‘ash’ as the body in the spec, which they still list for all Stingray Specials despite EBMM stating something like ‘select hard wood’ in the spec for a few years now. So if yours is a Poplar one, you’ve been misled, albeit perhaps not intentionally - but I do notice they get body wood wrong from time to time, which I find quite annoying. The EBMM serial database may help, or an email to the distributor Strings and Things, who are good folks.

I really like these - https://www.fralinpickups.com/product/split-jazz/?srsltid=AfmBOooGyRHW3CfNFrEQRSDyeEjulbfhzg4CBm04nOBCQJCtx3RHj8q5

Yep - always wanted one, but slab bodies exacerbate my nerve pain; so that’s a few quid saved 😂

I hear you 👍 It’s funny, but purely given how crazy prices are these days, I thought the Icon version was less than I’d expected. I knew a fair few players that could easily drop £6k on that bass, and it wouldn’t be as a display of wealth because £6k is nowt to them, but more the fun of owning it, and playing it. Don’t get me wrong, there were some guys that seemed quite morbid about big ticket purchases, but the majority seemed to be getting a kick out of it. I work in social care, which is chronically underfunded, and despite the fact that many wealthy people do give to charity, I just wish the £35k they spend on a vintage custom colour Fender went to a better place, or at least had a special ‘luxury tax’ that went to social care, but such is life.

This isn’t meant as a criticism— I see posts like this quite often. I’m just genuinely curious about where that perception might come from. For years I used to sell high- end guitars to wealthy people, and I wouldn’t say they were "boosting their ego." For many of them, it was more like seeing excited kids genuinely enjoying themselves. They had the means and privilege to spend big (though relatively that’s ’big’ to you and me and not to them), but from their interactions I much more often saw them as genuine enthusiasts, getting joy from the instrument, rather than anything else.

Cheers, appreciated. Your tune had me grinning - and tearing it up on a growly Spector, good stuff 👌

Cheers for the cool pic @Baloney Balderdash, was inspiring as it somehow reminded me of the early 90s, listening to ambient beats as a kid, so here’s a kind of homage with that in mind. Posting it now rather then wait for the mix to settle as I’ve been spending way too much time on this track already and, as usual, just need it over with now 😣 Old Age : New Age - the then young contortionist used to perform in the early 90s in ambient beats clubs. Now living off-planet, he’s a midnight street artist in the underground scene. Guitars are kind of ‘synthy contorted’ in his honour.

Really nice to converse with David when selling him a little item - good to meet you, and thanks for an easy deal 👌

That’s it, still good fun, and for me it’s the taking part that counts, and hearing what others have made of it. I genuinely can’t imagine anyone other than me wanting to hear one of my tunes more than once anyway, so maybe it’s best they are spared the experience in the first place? 😂😊

Urgh @police squad you got me GAS’ing again - Rics were my first love as a kid, and I’ve not had one for 15 years… 🤔😬 Looks great 👌