NancyJohnson

It does look to be the same bass...dings in the same place.

I found one in Australia a while back that was in better shape for around half the price. That said, the shipping, duties etc. made any purchase prohibitive. £1.2K is still way too high. 50% of that.

Gibson 20/20 on eBay. Milton Keynes. At £1.2K, too rich for me... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1987-Gibson-20-20-bass-guitar-make-me-an-offer/254288675631?hash=item3b34c9432f:g:V04AAOSwOwJdIdlP

Amazon are ALWAYS my first port of call for any online service; I pay for their Prime service, so next day/next working day delivery on pretty much everything, TV service etc. They're generally the cheapest in the online marketplace and at the end of the day it's down to customer choices. The only negative (as discussed earlier up the thread) is that if you do have an issue (rare), it does seem very difficult to find a contact form to advise them. On the subject of how ethical they are, I have a good friend who has worked at a (very, very) high level for both J P Morgan and Chase Manhattan; he's of the opinion that while Amazon are throwing a bunch of money at whoever their accountants may be, they're not actually doing anything that's specifically illegal, it's moreover a case of the business being well versed in tax law, what the legal loopholes are and knowing how to exploit them. Concerning the @T-Bay experience, I just find it difficult to grasp why Amazon (who, if your description is correct, only acted as the marketplace agent, not the owner/seller), would not handle a return/refund/replacement for the component you purchased; in the ten-odd years I've been buying from them - literally hundreds of purchases - there's been a couple of instances where things have gone awry, most noticeably a UPS that wouldn't hold a charge, they just replaced the unit like for like and didn't even want to old one back. They bent over backwards to satisfy my issue.

In an alternative universe, I wonder whether the guitars and basses procured by Mr Phillips have a consciousness and when they wend their way to his workshop/kitchen table for necessary upgrades and modernisations, their heartwood is actually screaming for mercy.

It staggers me to this day when stories like this hit the media. Irrespective of the tag you want to apply to these people (SJW/Snowflake/Strawberry/Me-Generation etc. etc.) SURELY if you move to an area you do your diligence don't you? Man alive, go out in the evening and investigate the area. Guildford is a reasonably nice area, The Star is literally at the bottom of the High Street, about 50m from a church. Did anyone complain about the bells ruining anyone's lie-in on Sunday morning? Nope, because music venues are easy game.

Nothing to see here. Move along. Bwahahaha! You've left this to me in your will, huh?

In recent months, The Star in Guildford, a venue I've both frequented and played at several times, was subject to a noise abatement case bought about by the occupants of an apartment block adjacent to the venue. The apartments had been converted from an older office block, the new tenants had taken residence, failed to do their due diligence and get this, din't like the noise emitted from the venue, so a legal case was brought against the venue by Guildford Borough Council. Happily the matter has been quashed; it appears moreover that the GBC case was fundamentally flawed and the judge threw the matter out. It's a moral victory and a victory for sensibility. It's a wonderful venue and so geared up for live music; killer PA system. https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/live-guildford-star-pub-court-16511558

I hadn't seen the site, so bookmarked! I hope he's back; I feel a real affinity with pretty much everything he's been part of.

Mighthy Atom uploaded a full set from 2004 about a month ago. He still hasn't surfaced. How the hell does someone just disappear?

M-Audio BX5 here. They're powered and go painfully loud. I Just run a pair of cable from my PreSonus USB thing. Peachy.

Scratch that. It does. I found a Jazz to Hoppus body conversion online. The guy filled the bridge pickup rout with resin. Genius!

Just by way of curiosity, and bridge pickup routing aside, does anyone know whether the Hoppus scratchplate fits and covers the routs on a regular Jazz bass body?

Errr, yes and no. It's a 1978 Aria Primary, but to be honest it's a country mile better than the '79 Fender that I owned for years. There's links elsewhere.

Blimey. I'd be scared to ding it. Dinging is my thing...

The guitarist has a couple of Precisions...if nothing suitable turns up in the next month, then I'll use one of his or my Aria. Thanks for the offer!

Thing is, I've always tended to play with everything full on/open, so all I'd probably end up doing is find the best sounding switching set up and leave it as is; I know a PJ pickup set up works well enough...I rarely mess with tone controls, so I guess if I did go with a Jaguar, it would be one of the simple ones.

A while back I was rehearsing somewhere and i happened upon someone using what I believe was a US one...with all the switches. It looked really nice. Did some investigating last night, and yikes, Jags do seem to come in a lot of derivatives; probably just a PJ though...none of the switching options though, I'd never use them.

The happy medium being it's neither a P or J. I'm actually warming to Jaguar basses now too.

All the Gibsons went to assist in paying for the Lulls. I have a Hamer FBIV I could use I guess...

It's a four piece London punky band, the individual members are pretty well established (I can't say any more on this front right now)...I've known the guitarist for years and he's Gibson, through and through. Les Pauls, Juniors and Junior DCs. I guess I'm hoping there's a possibility that this might go onto something else elsewhere too, so I need to play things straightish. A couple of years back, I did a gig with the Johnsons and I was approached by a dishevelled guy who said I was a brilliant player (aaw, shucks, thanks) and asked where I lived and whether I was open to other projects. A bloke from another band on the bill asked me whether I knew who the guy was and told me it was Bill Carter from The Screaming Blue Messiahs.