NancyJohnson

Well, here we are then.

Hi Gabriel I don't really have many more photos of it; somewhere in the loft I have the photos the guy took when he did the fingerboard, but they're not scanned. I'll have a look and see whether I can find them. Paul

That's my old bass. A bit of backstory. I bought it in Lewisham 1980/81...£375.00, so about a month's salary. It had a bit of an issue with the fingerboard and the wood was lifting a bit between the nut and the third/fourth fret on the E-string side. I took it to a luthier in Kingston who built baroque instruments and had formulated a method of adhering wood to metal, but there seemed to be an issue with the aluminium not being machined 100% (there was a shallow dip...a fraction of a millimetre) so the wood was never going to adhere properly, if that makes sense. He put a fretless ebony board on it. I didn't like the bridge at all so he installed a Badass and glued in two small strips of ebony to fill in the gap in the body (these are visible in the photo below). New brass nut. I used it as a fretless for a while and then took it to (the late) Richard Knight in Addlestone and had it refretted. I kept it for a few more years...it didn't get much use and traded it in at ABC music in Addlestone for something else (I'm too ashamed to say what). I often wondered what came of it and saw that it appeared on the Travis Bean database a few years back. I seem to recall that the owner posted up somewhere seeking a replacement original bridge. The bass appeared on eBay in 2015/16 so I assume your dad bought it. I know it was in Oxford at one point; I was playing the Bullingdon in Oxford one night and I had a few email exchanges with the owner who offered to bring it along to the gig so I could use it for our 30 minute set. Didn't show up, sadly. Anyhow, here's two photos. You can make out the figuring on the body, but it looks a lot redder in your photo. The other shot is of me and my best mate when we were doing early live sessions for Virgin at The Townhouse in Shepherds Bush. I forget who we were playing with...it was a signed duo of guitarists, a white guy and a black guy who had inked a deal with Virgin, Hugh Padgham was supposed to have been producing. No idea what happened! [Edit]. I mentioned to Gabriel by PM that I have photos the luthier took when the original fretboard was off. I'll try and find them and get them scanned in.

London could certainly be split differently...along these lines or by postcode prefix (W/NW/N/E/SE/SW/WC/EC). Obviously users/contributors/mods would need to apply a bit of common sense and do a cursory Google search. There should be little need to breakdown the SE area into 30-odd different sections.

Feeling is that if you had my home patch (Berkshire), you're limited to 15 towns (Ascot, Bracknell, Crowthorne etc.); if everything is sorted alphabetically by town, then venue (for instance) 'The Acoustic Couch' or 'The Cellar Bar' it should be fairly simple to navigate. There's no need to drill down into civil parishes. If it's well modded, it could be a decent utility.

My mum was into old big band stuff, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin etc. and loved The Beatles, Kinks, Rolling Stones, Small Faces. My dad wasn't really into music as such, but he did like Hall & Oates. The Carpenters and a bit of Philly soul. [Edit]. My brother is ten years older than me. Never connected with what he listened to other than it was rock (ELP, Yes, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin etc.); he did buy me singles...see next paragraph. So, my first musical loves were off a diet of big-brother purchased 7" singles; Sweet, Sparks, Mott The Hoople, early Queen. Oddly, we had an LP of the King & I soundtrack that I still adore to this day. Latched onto punk, primarily The Clash, Television and The Heartbreakers. While there was always music in my life, there were bands that really took precedence. Rich Kids, early Van Halen (pre-Hagar), early Japan (first three albums), The Alarm, Big Country, Living Colour, Jellyfish, Shudder To Think, NIN, The Wildhearts, 3 Colours Red, Sugar, Veruca Salt, Counting Crows, Fountains Of Wayne. The only regret is not appreciating XTC until some time after they'd called it quits. They have to be one of the greatest bands this country have produced. Yeah, I know people will go, 'What about the Beatles?' If you're interested, go and dip into the XTC catalogue and see how they grew from the angular angsty punk/powerpop of White Music (1978) through to their final album, 2000's Wasp Star (by which point they were essentially a duo comprised of Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding). It's astounding.

I do remember the Lemon Rock page from years ago, there was so much out of date information on there ten years ago...it doesn't look much different now!

I've had a brief message exchange with kiwi and ped about (perhaps) setting up a sub-forum here to ease the inevitable questions when you're playing a new venue. I'm playing a few new venues in the next two or three months; there's just no information about where to park, loading in etc. My suggestion would be simply to have an area with subdivisions (England/Scotland/Wales/Northern Ireland/Isle of Man/Channel Islands) and within this Counties (Avon/Bedfordshire etc.) and then towns therein. I know we're never going to be able to hit every venue in every town, but there's certainly going to be venues where several of us will have played previously. The idea being to provide a definitive listing of venues, primary contacts, ease of load-in, local parking, venue type (club/theatre/toilet), capacity, music style etc. In my head, it should heavily moderated...this wouldn't be a place for long discussions about your gigging experience or slagging off the venue, just the fundamentals. It might help getting you gigs at these places too. Any interest? Paul

I ran an Ashdown MAG combo years ago, it was a 2x10 model; I ran several different MAG cabinets as extensions. 1x15, 4x10 and 2x10. They all worked fine...I think the 1x15 was the more pleasing of the bunch; it just gave me a bit more wobble. We get too hung up on what'll work with what; gear nowadays is pretty robust and in truth it's probably quite difficult to break. 40 years playing, never experienced anything major.

Wood shrinks and swells, if the frets are well bedded it's unlikely that they'd move but if the neck material contracts the it's feasible you could have a tiny bit of overhang. Just buy one of those fret levelling things and run it along the side of the neck a few times. Sorted.

What colour do you want to stain it? I've had very good results with Fiebings Leather Dye...it's not very forgiving, so application with a Q-tip and mask off thoroughly. I stained the fingerboard of my Lull from a rosewood light brown to black with no issues (after it had dried, I used meths to wipe the excess off the dot inlays). I've seen a few aluminium headstock thingies pop up on Facebook (https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/DroplightIndustries?ref=l2-about-shopname) - it's customisable, 10 characters in a Fenderesque font. It might be a different alternative all these waterslide decals. You could just have Polvobass on it.

As soon as I saw 'Signature' in the headstock I thought of the Lee/Lifeson backstory. Considering the legacy, I'm surprised how little information there is on the brand - there did seem to be a time about 15-20 years ago where there seemed to be just too many Jazz bass clones on clearance with unmolested headstocks sporting the Signature logo.

It might not really be a buyers market IMO and an awful lot of very samey basses. I have something new coming in the next few weeks (Spector Euro-X) and I'd like to get another Darkglass 1x12. I am obsessing a little over getting a Fender Jaguar bass at some point (my wife's idea to buy something I wouldn't lose sleep over if it got nicked at one of the sh*tholes I'm likely to be playing in the next few months).

Most of the day I've been listening to the Super Deluxe of Thin Lizzy's Live & Dangerous. I'm not a huge Lizzy fan by any stretch, but (much like UFOs Strangers In The Night super deluxe) it's interesting to hear how the band's playing differs over the shows. It's all good, although I was disappointed there's nothing from when Midge Ure was gigging with them.

I loved Fabrique. The original vinyl is up in the loft and I bought the reissue ('The Height Of Fashion') a few years back. Dave Harris oversaw a multidisc (4CD) reissue a couple of years back, just couldn't justify the £140+ price and hoped it would turn up on Spotify at some point.

Just scanning through posts here, I'm in my 50s, probably easier to say I have more affinity with guitar based music than stuff like (for instance) 80s synthpop and rap/hip-hop. Given the playlists I posted above, it's quite reassuring to see a lot of youngish guitar bands writing reasonably well crafted 3-4 minute songs. I've always had a love of female-fronted bands, so bands like The Beth's and Momma really tick all the boxes for me. I think we all know what we like to listen to and reckon (as musicians and not as people being force fed a diet of oldies and formulaic product) that we can all see what's better than the rest within our listening genres.

Modern music, huh? For quite some time, I've listened to an American radio station during the day - W-EQX; they're based in Manchester, Vermont (listen live here: https://www.weqx.com/) - it's been a revelation. I've just discovered so many stellar new bands through them. Every new year, they have a top 100 countdown - here's the last three years. Obviously there's going to be some clunkers, there's so much great stuff. Momma. Snail Mail. The Beths. Beadbadobee. Sports Team. Soccer Mommy. Men I Trust. Glass Animals. Go listen! 2022 here: 2021 here: 2020 here:

Made in Mayfield, East Sussex by any chance?

The Beths. New Zealand indie pop. If you like these two, it's pretty certain you'll have some affinity with their entire back catalogue.

WE CALL IT THE JACO "BASS OF DOOM II" ...because nobody else does.

It looks as though Epiphone have discontinued the Thunderbird and EB/SG basses for 2023 and resurrected the Newport. https://www.epiphone.com/en-US/Collection/bass

Gene Simmons and Rex Brown, anyone? Well, OK. The Thunderbirds probably come out for a song or two...

These bridges (humorously referred to as BBOT - bent bit of tin) are all going to be interchangeable - Allparts would be on a hiding to nothing making something that wouldn't fit. If you want to stick with this style of bridge, it would honestly be worthwhile putting a request for one in the wanted section; there's loads here that have swapped these out for different ones and have their old bridges sitting unloved in their parts boxes. Hell, if I have a spare one, I'd send it to you just to be shot of it!