Dan Dare

And get your computer confiscated.

Sounds distinctly dodgy.

I use a wire brush and Dettol.

"Final price drop" is my favourite. I wonder if those ad's are placed to satisfy 'er/'im indoors who is complaining about the place being cluttered up with gear. "I'm trying to sell it, honest, but nobody's interested. Must be due to the recession", etc.

PJB are clean. Too clean for my tastes. I like and use their cabs, but their amps leave me a bit cold.

I'll add PJB to the mix if you want clean.

He play in the right order, but not necessarily the right notes.

Yep. I have a Trigger's Broom K&M mic stand that is almost 50 years old.

"Maybe you're looking to stand out from the crowd". Yes, but in a good way.

The Gotoh 203 has the two extra holes. It's a good quality BBOT replacement, made from chromed brass and at least as good as the Fender. The one above is not a Gotoh, which has a curved edge to the base plate.

I'm a K&M fan. I also have a couple of Quiklok mixer stands, which are solid and have lasted for years. If their bass/guitar stands are as well built, they'd be worth a look.

I'd ask Watford Valves for suggestions. They recommended a lower output ECC83 to me for a preamp which solved a similar issue to yours.

Whilst you can get lighter P bodies - swamp ash, poplar, etc - a P bass neck weighs what it weighs and there's little potential to lighten it. Those beefy tuners add to the tendency for neck dive, which tends to be more pronounced on a lighter instrument, because the neck makes up a greater proportion of its total weight. You can reduce that by using lightweight Gotoh or Hipshot replacements, but they're not cheap. I'd agree with those above who suggest a P pickup on a different style of instrument. Either that or try a strap at least 4" wide. I have a Pinegrove wide strap on mine, which is very comfortable. The Levy is nice and good value, too.

Gigs? Drive. I own the PA, too, so no choice. Rehearsals? Drive. Drummer lives 20 miles away (I'm in the sticks) and has converted his garage into a studio/rehearsal space, so even though I only take basses and use the rig he has there, there's no public transport option.

I'm very similar - violin and piano - although I didn't learn the piano for long. The office downstairs from our flat complained about the noise of my practicing and as my father worked for the company that owned the building, the piano went and I switched to the violin (which I could practice in a room in the attic so the sound didn't reach the ground floor). Very useful in that it taught me to read in both clefs and also to use the fourth finger (pinky). Why so many don't use it is beyond me. Just makes things so much easier.

Love the guitar p/u, too.

So-called rust erasers are fine grit grinding stones/pads (I have one - not this model - for kitchen knives, etc). Personally, I wouldn't bother. Pole pieces are quite soft metal and I wouldn't be keen to use this on them unless the corrosion was particularly severe. A little surface rust doesn't affect the ability of the pole pieces to do their job and if you remove it, you just expose fresh metal, which will promptly start to rust.

And plenty of it. Those were the days. Sigh...

You can never have too many cabs.

I don't recall suggesting "pointing and making it obvious to everyone else". Putting on a good show comes before everything, including music and of course, ego.

Hmmm. One has to draw the line somewhere 😁

I enjoy giving the old tonsils an occasional run out, but only do it if it's needed.

I wasn't thinking of yelling "You plonker" and glaring. More a raised eyebrow kind of deal. Only half of them felt differently to me and it wasn't a matter of life or death, fortunately. The keys player always gives them a note if needed (say where there is no intro to lead them into it), so that hasn't happened yet, touch wood.

Interesting conversation in the band the other day (no rows or fallings-out, but differing opinions). Thought I'd ask you lot. What should the policy be if someone makes a mistake whilst playing? It's inevitable that mistakes happen from time to time - the question is how to cope with/minimise them. In this case, our singer started another verse, rather than a chorus. I went with her, but a couple of the guys tried to stick to the arrangement. We rescued the situation, but had a discussion afterwards about what to do if it happened again. My thinking is that if one of the musicians makes a clam, the band should plough on and let them realise and correct (with a few pointed looks, etc to make them aware). Very few people in an audience are going to think "That bass player dropped a clanger" or "That guitar player got it wrong". Most aren't likely to be musicians and, crucially, the main focus is on the singer. However, if the singer makes a mistake and the band doesn't go with it and leaves him/her high and dry, people will think "the entire band screwed up". It makes sense to me that one should adapt on the fly in order to escape the situation gracefully and as unnoticeably as possible. Others felt the arrangement should be adhered to no matter what. What are your thoughts?

Of course not. We're all stupid, apart from you. As for your being "being uncaring and being some kind of tool that wants to put people in their place", you said it.