NancyJohnson

I'm just curious, question here for owners of NEW basses that have been knocked about a bit for relicing purposes, do you actually take care of the basses and treat them akin to pristine instruments or do you knock them about a bit to add your own mark? My old Aria Primary dates back to 1978... it's in shocking condition; every time I take it out I try and put another ding in it somewhere. Never put it in a case/bag, but obviously I do protect the knobs/machines.

I have a genre-spanning, all encompassing, various artist Spotify playlist containing about 1,500 songs that I tend to stick on shuffle during the day while I'm working; Spotify's shuffle play algorithms are a bit patchy, it does tend to play some tracks quite often, others not so much (when I started typing this it was playing Let It Snow! by Vaughan Monroe, right now it's Telephone Man by Mari Wilson). As I've gotten older, I don't feel I have the time or inclination to invest in new music, which really saddens me, and would prefer to listen to (older) music that makes me feel warm and fuzzy rather than spending an age trying to find something groundbreaking. (Now it's playing Wings' Live & Let Die.)

She's never played in her life, but has always loved The Cure (I think we've covered this elsewhere!).

So. Over the weekend, my wife tells me she'd like me to teach her how to play the bassline from The Cure's Lovecats. OK, I say, which bass would she like to use. She tells me she is happy with the old one (photo below), but remarked the glossy neck finish is 'sticky' so she went with a Lull ('too big') and eventually decided on a Spector. On a whim, I decide the neck is sticky, so I locate some 240 grit finishing paper and sanded it off. The decision took a couple of seconds, the sanding took a few minutes. Dusted it off and lemon-oiled it. Man alive. What a difference; so much faster.

I've seen this a lot in the last few days. So far a lot of positivity, but you're always going to get a handful of people who are just going to post negative comments sight unseen. Interesting. Apparently works with basses as well.

Despite my punk roots, my wife complains periodically that I have a penchant for what she describes as puppy-dog singers (quite where that came from, I'm unsure, but I think she may be alluding to How Much Is That Doggie In The Window? by Pattie Page). Anyhow, I'm not amiss to Veruca Salt (Louise Post/Nina Gordon), Pvris, Paramore, Kristen May (Vedera/Flyleaf/solo), Anika Pyle (Chumped/Katie Ellen), Jennie Vee (Tuuli/solo), Vanessa Carlton, Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill, Le Tgre/Julie Ruin), Michelle Branch. I'm also partial to Doris Day, Ella Fitzgerald. Amazingly, my most played track on Spotify last year was Sara Bareilles' Love Song.

Thank you.

Good grief. Words fail me.

Could have clocked in at under nine with shorter hair!

If you go to a restaurant and find a dead fly in the soup, they'll apologise and replace it. If you've had a bad meal and complain, there's a good chance you'll get a part of the bill comped. There seems to be this sliding scale of complaint vs cost and where tangibles are concerned, you expect the goods to arrive in a flawless/pristine condition and to the expected build specs. Cars or guitars, they'll try and put things right rather than replace, because it's more cost effective, but nevertheless, the product should be pristine at the point of sale (which in the OPs case is on delivery). As @Beedster posted earlier, both parties are now invested (an entrenched) with arguments. As I understand EU regulations, the seller is obligated to repair or replace free of charge or give a reduction or a full refund. Under EU law you have 14 days to return the goods without justifcation/reason. If Maruszczyk want to do the right thing, if it were me (and if I was desperate for one of these basses, which I'm really not), I'd press for a return/replacement; this way the OP gets what he wants and Maruszcyk comes out of this with a bit of face restored. Irrespective whether the issues are tiny, they're issues. Perhaps the sceptic in me would worry whether the replacement bass was 100% and not filled with unseen defect (akin to the chef flobbing into my cold macaroni cheese).

I used to buy so many monthly magazines...Q, What Hi-Fi, T3, Bass Player, Alternative Press, plus the two I still have on subscription (SFX & Empire). I don't read newpapers (I don't know anyone who does). While all these publication likely started as endearing and well intentioned, as one of the earlier posts pointed out, all of them are just in the pocket of the businesses they report on. I suppose there's an inevitability that SFX (Sci-Fi) and Empire (films) will fall along the wayside at some point, circulation has to be very low and unsustainable.

Blimus. This is going well.

Without actually seeing what you have, it's difficult to know whether this is true or not, but at least you didn't go FACT at the end of it! In no way jumping to the defence of Fender they do produce all the compents you've mentioned, but perhaps not currently all in the same bass. On a point by point response, they've certainly made 32" scale basses. They certainly made blocked and bound Jazz width necks, simply because they're Fender and that's what they do. They have also produced a myriad of non-sunburst finishes. They've produced chambered guitars, but unsure about basses, although I have seen Jazz basses with cavities and a maple cap, so it's feasible. Oh, they make lefties too. My point is here, it's like saying Ford have never made a car like my Renault and then going four wheels, leather seats, steering wheel, engine. (and you edited your post after I made this reply...that last disclaimer and that it was a P-bass wasn't there.)

Haha. Couldn't have put it better, myself. Lest we forget, Maruszczyk was pretty much an unknown brand when, many moons back, a new member called Ulas Engin posted up a blatantly obvious piece of backdoor advertising under the guise of it being an official Maruszczyk thread (I believe he also posted the same thing to Talkbass, almost word for word); the poster then disappeared three weeks later, never to be seen again, but the seed was sown and with his job done, the Basschat love affair took root and the flower blossomed. ("Conjecture!" I hear you shout!) Perhaps the guy who fronts the company is just feeling the strain in these uncertain times or maybe he was just having a bad day, but I read this thread and do have an inner chuckle at the albeit small backlash that's happening. I'm sure many people love their Jakes and Elwoods, fair play to them, but at the end of the day, the core basses he's making/getting made for him are simply just Fender copies at near Fender prices, so why not just buy a Fender? There's enough stores out there stocking them, you'll eventually find one that suits and you can easily customise it further down the road. Customer service is core to any business and sure, if you're going to enquire/complain about key points after something is delivered then you (as the manufacturer) need to resolve things in a civil manner, otherwise those tiny seeds of disdain will have a habit of growing (which has been the case here). When I bought my first Lull I had an irritating crackle off one of the pickups and Mike and Paul bent over backwards to resolve things, eventually sending out a pair of new pickups and a loom. That's service. Service isn't the manufacturer replying that you're only picking up on the bad sh*t.

Both of my Lulls.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jul/20/q-magazine-to-fold-after-34-years Stopped reading this over ten years ago and was a little surprised to find out it was still limping along. I guess they never adapted to a changing world; everything was effectively a month old by the time it went to print. Too much reliance on a handful of artistes (Gallaghers, Sheeran, U2) and a bunch of other ones that really weren't much cop. Q Magazine is (was) the tangible embodiment of Later...with Jools Holland, a publication full of bands you're not really interested in and something you just skim through hoping to find something worth reading.

Oh, who could forget Stump. Kev (@spoombung) is still a member on here:

A bit of a thread resurrection here. I'd forgotten how wonderfully discordant and frankly incoherent some of the material by The Diagram Brothers was. Andy Diagram went on to be a member of James and The Pale Fountains. The first Diagram Brother album os widely available on Spotify et al. I've just ordered the Peel Sessions on CD.

I just see that bass and think of bands like early Living Colour. Muzzy could have pulled that off.

While I've got little desire to own a Ritter, I have to say that that from a visual aesthetic, there's nothing not to like. I do love the look of Warner Brother/Simpsons/X-Men finishes (I'd be hard pushed to actually come up with any franchise that I'd want adorned on a bass costing £7/£8K), but this one in particular blows my mind: I reckon Jens just sees bass and guitar building as a playground and anything goes. Credit to him for making instrumenst athat are so nuts to be honest.

A very long time ago (Google search says late October 1978), I worked as an usher at Wembley when they did the in-the-round shows...they did a matinee and then an evening show. We were in the Arena between shows and they came out and played a few bits; there were maybe ten of us in there plus the band; I'm sure there were people outside the arena who would have given a kidney to witness what we were watching. I honestly wish I'd paid more interest and actually realised that I was in the presence of such greatness...I had little interest in them to be honest (I was more interested in The Clash at that point and these guys were just dinosaurs in my eyes). It was only a few years back that I came to realise just how good they were.

It's interesting that it's taken until now for the request to be made and god knows how many guitars Gibson were producing annually back then. I'd reckon that the ledgers for that period probably went into a dumpster during some sort of office/warehouse reorganisation/tidy up in the mid-70s move from Kalamazoo to Nashville. You can (almost) imagine some Brylcreemed middle management bloke (imagine George McFly) being giving a remit to tidy things up prior to the move to the new plant and just going to some lacky, 'Ted, throw these in the junk, we'll have no need for these at the new facility.' Hopefully, I'm wrong.