Happy Jack

I have the almost-matching PBAC version, and it's a seriously nice instrument. The preamp on these things is really very good and my PBAC has a glorious Jazz neck on it.

You have clearly met fewer drummers than I would have expected, Roger. 😉😂

Chaps, not only did I have a fine birthday but (if you're really unlucky) I might even share with you soem video of the preparation of the Chinese Banquet that occupied a fair proportion of the day. 😉

When Sgt Pepper came out, I was 11. Seriously. Hearing a song about being 64 made no sense at all to the 11-year-old me and by a couple of years later I had classified it with Yellow Submarine and Maxwell's Silver Hammer as being a mere joke song. At the time, my grandfather (b.1899), for whom I was named, was 68. He'd been a fine figure of a man in his day, 6'1" with athletic build, served in WW1 and was a colonial policeman for 40 years, but by 1968 he was a shrivelled-up stick-like man, gaunt and tobacco-stained. Today he would pass easily for a man in his 80s. At the time, pretty much everyone over 50 looked (and smelled) like that.

Unbelievably, that turns out to have been Post #13,000 by me. You couldn't make it up.

Many thanks to y'all ... currently engaged in preparing a Chinese banquet for ce soir.

but I knew I would see the day.

I can do all that with my Westone 'The Rail' bass with a sliding pickup!

Have you met my drummer?

I already own one of these amps so I'm not interested in actually buying this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-1970s-WEM-Watkins-Dominator-Bass-MK1-1x15-Valve-Amplifier-Combo/203211789750?hash=item2f505dd5b6:g:nwMAAOSw8Wlfzrar What caught my eye was I have wired the speaker/amp with 2 jacks, as I use an inline DI box (much easier and better sounding than a mike). I can wire the speaker straight through to the amp if required. I genuinely have no clue what this means. I frequently use a DI box, or the DI Out from my amplifier, but clearly he means something else.

Reverting back to identifying the various features of this bass, it's always worth remembering that Hofner weren't engaged in building vintage basses that would attract lots of interest in 60 years' time on the Internet. They were churning out as many instruments as they could possibly manufacture, so as to meet the entirely unforeseen explosion in demand following the early success of The Beatles. Especially with the solid-body instruments (considered to be cheap'n'nasty when compared to the craftsmen-built traditional instruments like archtop guitars) this was a parts-bin operation. There were great stacks of parts and components in the factory, built in different batches and often sourced from outside ... the factories that made Framus, Klira, Hopf and many other brands were literally just down the road from Hofner. Depending on which models had recently had a production run boosted through the system, the next instruments to be made might feature parts or components originally intended for other models. Some of the Hofner basses I had (dating from 1958-65) definitely included non-Hofner parts, especially the tuners. These parts were original fitments, not later retro-fits.

Agreed. Better still, go the whole hog, take some random lyrics from Jimi Hendrix and fit them in any old how.

"I personally imported this bass into UK around 10 years ago, as I don't think they were ever retailed over here." Fascinating ... it is of course possible that Mike sold the bass back to Japan in 2005 only for another Englishman to re-import the same bass in 2010 but that does seem like one helluva coincidence. And the suggestion that they were never sold in the UK rather undermines the vendor's credibility.

OK, this really IS rare. At £1200 it's not too tempting (to me, anyway) but undeniably something a bit different. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stunning-ultra-rare-Tokai-Talbo-B-135-Bass-Good-original-condition-Alu-body/254651491114?hash=item3b4a69632a:g:pl8AAOSwwshfCyez My only real criticism is that Tokai really, really should have hired a graphic designer before turning a 12-year-old loose with the Letraset on that headstock.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bruce-Foxtons-personal-Bass-similar-to-his-Rickenbacker-and-Rivoli-Very-unique/164607059443?hash=item26535865f3:g:T20AAOSwLHpf5zEz Please note that this is not just 'unique', it is actually 'very unique', which means that it is even uniquer than most unique things.

If I didn't already have one, I'd have bought this by now. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ovation-Magnum-III-Bass-1979/133484281562?hash=item1f14487eda:g:DCwAAOSw3ChfKWMM

Excellent devices. I have mine in my (tiny) study ... aka the front landing ... and I run it through a Crazy 8 which sounds just sublime.

Incidentally, one of the greatest gigs I ever attended was at the Hammersmith Odeon, with The Pretenders and The Specials supporting The Who. When I read Ska'd For Life I was particularly looking forward to Horace's recollections of that gig. He absolutely panned it, said it was the most boring thing he'd ever attended. Ah well ... maybe best just forget the diary then. 😂😂😂

On that road lies the ultimate in OCD ... you'd end up losing sleep after gigs because you'd forgotten to make a note of the settings on your Sansamp after you changed them on the fly for Paradise City ...

Or of course just buy a Wal with the 'Pick Attack' switch ...

Dey do dat dough, don't dey?

Could be worse ... you could be watching the original film again. Possibly the most depressing 81 minutes I ever spent.

Just double-checked that in Martin's book (All You Need Is Ears, 1979) and he points out that he had in fact already left EMI (and therefore Abbey Road) at this point and was now running Air Studios. So the equipment he had lent to The Beatles was kit that he had himself borrowed on their behalf from EMI. No wonder he wanted to keep an eye on it.

How seriously do you take the whole Tier 4 thing? Hint: Don't reply here!