NancyJohnson

I get a bit of a wobble on if I see any (yes, any) bass in black with a dark board and matching headstock. It will always make me do a double check. Point of fact those Stealth/Darkglass Stingrays; I have no need or desire for one, but they do look beautiful and I recognise that.

My two Lulls are pretty much the one/two shop stop. I've been through so much kit over the years, I figure these will be with me until I cark it, even if they're just on stands reminding me of glories that could have been.

My Vitriol.

I'll always remember a mate of mine, quite straight-faced, telling anyone in earshot that he'd been in his car listening to Simon Bates doing Our Tune on Radio 1. He recounted the tragic tale of a young couple (let's call them Jane and Mike) who had met young, fallen in love and married, only for Mike to lose both legs in a tragic accident at a sawmill where he worked. We were all listening with our mouths open, at which point he said, "So old Batesy goes, 'So for Jane and Mike, here's their special song, Elvis Costello and The Attractions with I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down.'" Oh the hilarity.

I have a bass player mate who fell offstage while ducking to avoid being hit by a bottle. Sprained ankle and bruised ego. Does this count?

Gadzooks.

Despite achieving double-figure Thunderbird purchases over the years and while I never pulled the trigger on one of these, I did actually play one for a few minutes in New York when they came out. I have to say that the first mod I would do on a three-point bridge was replace it with a Hipshot Supertone; this was the first time I'd seen the Babicz bridge, so I eventually went the expensive route of swapping out the Hipshot Supertones for the Babicz units. I honestly couldn't work out what the microswitches were actually doing, if anything. Any change to the tone must have been so subtle my ears weren't registering it.

Living Colour today.

I had a Precision from that period and the finish was bombproof; I'd take (with a big pinch of salt) the claim a previous owner lived in Orkney...what did he do, leave it outside or use it as an oar? That looks like it's been in a flood. It's odd there's little evidence of finish damage on the neck.

I know NS Design are in business to make money, but the cost of the extraneous hardware is quite prohibitive when you consider what it costs for the two strap systems and the end pin. Concerning the end-pin, surely there should be a simple way of cobbling something together with quick-release clamps (rather than something you need to screw in like on a cymbal stand) for a tenth of the NS Design price. We all probably have the parts knocking around to facilitate this.

So, this'll be the last picture for a bit. Got the bridge pickup back from Josi a couple of days ago. Concerning the wiring, at present* it's just wired it through a three-way switch into the output jack; no volume control (yet). There's no grounding issues, it's silent. For the record, the knobs are just dummies on old pots; I have some of the same knobs on order, but in chrome which will set things off nicely. I need a truss rod cover. Dunlop Straploks fitted. To be honest, it sounds quite lovely as it is; I'd argue I always play with everything open, so the wiring apes this. I needed to do a bit of up and down adjustment to balance the pickups, action is borderline rattly. I suspect that if I left the holes open in the body, I'd be aching to put an East in, but right now as it's all closed up I'm happy with it visually, I'm okay with it. Of the Warman pickups, honestly if you need a decent affordable P/J set, check him out. [Edit v. 2.0] I woke up quite early and figured that as the pots I used for the dummy knobs were EMG push/fit connector types, it should be easy to put a volume control into the circuit at least. Took about ten minutes at lunchtime. So this is parked for now...

It's odd (perhaps not odd, but cited) that elsewhere Rick Beato says they regularly tuned down a half-step although it's apparent from the videos that Mark Hoppus is playing off an F# where Beato is playing off a G.

Bit of You Tube algorithmic juxtaposition yesterday. New Rick Beato (Blink182) and an in-remission and newly grey-haired Mark Hoppus (he is pushing 50, you know) doing play-alongs. The Rick Beato clip is, as usual, very well put together, enthusiastic and highly enjoyable. The play-alongs, if nothing, demonstrate that playing can be simple and effective without the need to showboat. Mark Hoppus admits he's not the most gifted of players but I've always felt that what he does do is contribute (musically) to something that consequently becomes greater than the sum of the constituent parts. Obviously it helps having Travis Barker in the engine room.

Warmans.

Tell more...

If you just want reassurance that the bass is comfortable from a seated position, rest assured that it is.

Don't forget The Shapes.

With the tripod - and despite me just playing at home - I seem the spend a bit if time dancing around the legs...there just doesn't seem to be a best position for it. I'll probably end up with one of their endpins at some point, but then we get into dilemma #2 of how to put it on a stand when you're done (the optional 'stand' brackets do not fit the supplied tripod!).

So, it's been five weeks since I got the NS NXT, so here's where we're at. To recap, I'd only played an upright twice before getting this for my birthday; I've been playing 15-30 minutes a day, generally along with random (slower) music off Spotify. (I've only played a fretted bass for one recording session in this period.) While I'm enjoying things, my only negative is with the (supplied) NS tripod stand; it's perfunctory but not ideal, so I would appreciate some input regarding endpins, which I think would better suit how I want to play. I suppose I also need to factor in whether they would extend far enough (I'm 6'4"). Otherwise, all good though. My wife adores the little Mick Karn mwaahs more than me playing all the right notes, and you know, I think the EUB is actually making regular (fretted) bass playing a bit more effortless.

Just an observation, pretty much any time RGD is on TV, it's like a drinking game. RGD says he's black (glug, glug, glug). RGD says he's American (glug, glug, glug). Yes mate, we get it.

I used to have girlish crushes on bands I'd discovered, the ones that nobody knew about. I do find though that these bands suffer diminishing returns once they become part of the mainstream. Much as I loved (for instance) Japan, the first two albums along with my on/off love affair with Quiet Life is enough; I honestly do not need to deep dive b-sides remixes from the later catalogue. Just as an aside, last year I made the splendid discovery of a handful of long-dead punky/alternative bands (with little or no Wikipedia data) where I scoured Discogs to just get everything.

Somewhere on my computer, there's a photo of a matt-black and de-chromed Jazz bass with a Status StingRay neck on it, which looked the nuts. As the Stingray neck is 1/2" or 12mm longer than a Jazz neck, there's a T*lkb*ss link below covering the process (the owner installed a Bad*ss bridge which allowed significant adjustment, rather than resitting the existing bridge forward). https://www.talkbass.com/threads/its-finished-introducing-the-status-jazzray-bass-long-post-with-pics.376597/ The

Initially (before I attached the neck), I ran a wide chisel round the neck pocket to ensure it was clean(ish) and there wasn't any big lumps of lacquer loitering in there, so before attachment #1 it was definitely a case that the angle of the pocket was slightly off - I can only assume that it's been like this its entire life. It's a tiny amount - I doubt the bit of card that I used was even as thick as a Christmas card, but it did the trick.

Afternoon and HNY. This is a long one - for good reason - and a copy/repost from elsewhere here. Seems an apt question to put to the masses. Anyhow, wife put the radio on, first track for 2022 is/was the final 30 seconds of Le Freak by Chic. There's a story that springs to mind every time I hear this song, although I'd actually also say with some certainty that, like Stairway To Heaven, I've never heard it all the way through. Back when all this was fields and I was in my teens, I played in a punk band called The Crime; I was in the 6th form at Strodes College, Egham, Surrey. Strodes was ex-grammar, the only grammar school kids there though were about 40 of Egham's most gifted, the 6th form were a few hundred oiks. I'd been approached by a couple of kids from the 5th year asking if I was the bass player they'd heard about ('I don't know, am I?'), at which point they told me they were playing the college's Valentine's disco three days time and could I play with them. I declined, they asked me again later in the day, so I said yes, jammed with them the next day and did the gig the next night (Friday). The Friday night arrived, I borrowed some khaki combats from my dad and tore up an old t-shirt; the main hall was rammed, the front half about 150 people dancing to music supplied by a local disco guy everyone knew as Fat Malcolm. Back of the hall and outside maybe 200+ punks. (I spoke to a mate earlier, he said there were loads outside too.) A few minutes before our allotted showtime, we were already on stage, standing behind these big curtains (45 minutes of covers by 999, Pistols, Rich Kids etc.); Fat Malcolm is playing Le Freak and making a Tony Blackburn style comment about, 'This is Chic and Le Freak, after this live music from The Criiiiime!'. Everything was live on stage as the chaos started. I distinctly remember our singer shouting, 'We're already 'ere ain't we?' into a live mic, a power-chord ringing out and the drummer trying to climb up a fairly high riser after throwing the curtain opening switch (he was later berated by staff for unauthorized use of electronic equipment). I peered through a crack in the curtain and witnessed the punk guys rushing to the stage, while the disco-dancers hi-jinked it to the to the back of the hall. I glanced over to Fat Malcolm who was desperately trying to get the lids on his disco-twin decks while all manner of stuff was being thrown (and spat) at both him and us. The stylus on one of the decks was skating across Le Freak under a hail of bottles and phlegm. I was laughing uncontrollably for 45 minutes; I knew right then that this was, after barely playing two years, my happy place and I'd always find happiness in music, whatever the genre. I remember little of the gig aside from the sea of punks pogoing, gobbing and stage diving, wads of phlegm covering the stage and the singer. At one point someone threw a Party Seven can (full of wee) that rose spinning and spraying. Arching away, it sailed past me and hit the drummer full in the chest, knocking him off his riser. We didn't miss a note. So there you are. While I've never actually heard Le Freak all the way through, but just a few bars of it remind me of this.