NancyJohnson

The seller has had some really nice stuff previously, some very tasty Hamers, vintage Yamaha and Ibanez.

I stripped an Ibanez Roadster a few years back, no idea what the wood is... used black Fiebings leather dye. Didn't have any real issues with the application; I did a couple of coats, applied with a clean rag, and lightly sanded between these as the fluid lifted the grain. Like you, it was the finishing over that that was the issue; there was a bit of rubbing back. There were a couple of patches where it seemed to be a real struggle to get the dye to take on the body, so rub back, reapply. Eventually I just clear coated it several times without knocking it back between coats. I let it dry for a few days, spray again. After several coats, orange peel was minimal, sanded back and applied a final coat. Used some Crimson compound to try and bring out a shine (suspect T-cut might have been cheaper!!).

I'm not going to post links, just search on Gumtree. Hounslow.

Sun is out, I'm prepping for dinner tonight. I have a 30-track Mariachi collection on shuffle. Planets aligning etc. Beautiful.

Me and the wife.

It was my late mother who took me up to Denmark Street for the first time, one of the infrequent trips up to her old stomping grounds with me in tow; she obviously felt it was important for me to experience this place as well as as much as possible within the Oxford St, Charing Cross Road, Shaftesbury Ave, Park Lane and Piccadilly pentangle. I reckon I was 13 tops and going into one of the guitar shops (along with Desolation Boulevard) was probably the reason I wanted to play.

I'm listening to a soundboard recording of David Sylvian at Hammersmith Odeon, 1988. A friend of a friend worked on the tour and knowing I was a bit of a Japan fan, procured this for me years ago. I've never listened to it until today. Pretty spectacular, I've heard worse live albums.

Years ago I went to a photography exhibition and in one of the photos saw the name Nancy Johnson plastered all over some prescription pill-pots in one of the photos, I just thought, 'Ooh, cool name,' and wrote it down. As part of a small project for coding websites, I purchased the co.uk and set about all manner of goofery about a fake band called Nancy Johnson and their ridiculous escapades touring Europe and the USA (I think you can still go to the internet archive and pull up most of it). Roll forward a couple of years and by jingo, I'm in a band, we decide to adopt the name Nancy Johnson and off we go. Where things get stupid are that promoters are reading the website and think we're something we're not AND once in a while promoters seem to thing Nancy is a real person and actually ask us where our singer is. Inevitably, the line up changed (much like Pete Frame's Rock Family Trees) but I was the constant throughout until I bailed because of personality/musical differences. During the interim period, the new singer decides that we need a new name and adopts Who Killed Nancy Johnson?, which somehow reflects a change in musical styling from a fun pop/punk band to something a little more aggressive. If I'm brutally honest I wasn't really a fan of the WKNJ? rebrand. At the point of my departure, they carried on playing material I'd written/co-written and went through three bassists until calling it quits last year. Of the name Nancy Johnson, I don't know whether ownership comes into it to be honest, it's just a name, but in my little world I suppose that name came through me and I was the main driving force; I'd have preferred if the rebrand had been under a different name entirely and not including the original name.

Nope. The heel joint is like 1/2" thick, the article is nonsense from that perspective.

Truth is, shims are a little like snake oil. I'd wager that there's many guys on Basschat, that for one reason or another have needed to shim a neck; better playability/action, saddles too high/low. In most cases you can probably just use a (single) piece of a cardboard cornflake box or maybe just a playing card between the screws and end of the neck pocket, although some would undoubtedly advocate that a full size shim will improve tone/sustain and so forth. Reality? There's absolutely no necessity to line StewMac's pockets for the sake of a plywood/wood shim. Reckon there's loads of you out there with bolt-on neck basses that haven't got a clue what's lurking inside the neck pocket. The neck wood isn't going to flex or bend if there's a playing card in there and it's not going to make the slightest difference tonally Remember also that Fender experimented with a tilt adjustment on their 70s Jazz basses; that was just a three screw neck plate...loosen off one of the screws, make an tilt adjustment (a bolt goes against a circular plate attached to the heel) and tighten everything up. These are probably viewed as vintage classics now. .

Haven't tried is a bit of a loose term. I mean, there's hundreds I haven't tried for one reason or another; from memory the one popular bass I've never played is a Stingray. I played a Status maybe 30 years ago (didn't own it, it was at Kingfisher in Fleet) and I had a noodle on a mate's NS Radius a couple of years back. These two experiences, despite being many moons apart, were validation enough for me that I don't like headless basses in the slightest.

Never had an issue, never knew that it was a thing, either. In hindsight, I genuinely adored the bass; I loved how quirky it was. Honestly wish I'd spent a bit more time under the hood. It was way too hot.

I think Lee Voss does this in spades - he's incredibly fluid in what he does.

I used to love the Anderton videos back when it was Lee and Nathan King; there was genuine chemistry and banter from a pair of exceptional players and I really miss that. Now it's all a bit meh. By observation, CiCi (well, if You Tube videos are anything to go by), appears to have decentish chops, but there's really very little evidence of this in any of the current bass-centric Anderton output.

Need to get a new soldering iron. FFS.

At present, it's just a bit of soldering. The tiny size of the tabs on the pot is a bit of a ballache; god knows why I can't find something that isn't Hornby sized.

Still not working. Because the pot connections are so tiny, I extended the black/ground and wired them all together, then took this to the ground and then out to the jack socket. (Does anyone actually make a pot with large tabs and a long shaft? I need a screw thread of about a centimetre.) Any ideas?

One thing I'd watch for is that when you're trying to hit a D, you'll get an F. 😀

I think it's time for another shoot out!

Everything is here, but arrived too late to get it sorted. Tomorrow. In a moment of clarity/madness, I ordered a pack of Dupont connectors, which I can strip back and use for connecting everything, limiting the amount of soldering I'll need to do.

I'm about 20 minutes from where Colin usually puts it on and about ten minutes from @cetera. Usually pick up Andy @Wolverinebass en route as well. Taxi!

Matt - I've got a spare room if you need an overnighter.

I was sent a link to a video of his a couple of years ago and was asked, 'Can [you] do something like this in the next lot of recordings?' When I said no, the guy I was working with asked if I was jealous of the bloke's talent. I just replied it was beyond my ability, not really musical and whythefeck did the bloke have d-tuners in every string? There's no doubting the guy has machine-like ability/accuracy, but it's showboating; the bass equivalent to keepy-uppy, or snooker trick shots, or those knobheads shredding in guitar shops (although to a global audience as opposed to a few guys buying strings). I've not investigated anything beyond a couple of videos. No idea whether he does band stuff, not really bothered/interested to be honest.

I have a small hole in the bass body that allowed switching between active/passive on the old John East circuit; I was going to use that for an on/off switch. No worry, I'll just put the new switch in and leave it unconnected. Thanks for your input chaps!