Doctor J

Occasionally, I used to stand-in for a mate's blues/rock cover band when they were without a bassist or drummer. On one such occasion, they were playing at a bar which had recently re-opened after lengthy and extensive refurbishment, a place trying to rebuild a client base. Most of the set was to one disinterested oul fella. He left, after a while, leaving only the barman. Then he disappeared too, and we played on to an empty room. The drummer decided he needed to pee quite badly, so went off to find the loo which, as it turned out, was two floors up and badly signposted. We three stood there for quite a while like absolute dopes, on a stage in an otherwise empty room, in total silence. When he eventually came back, the barman returned too, perhaps he had asked him for directions, so we started another song, at which point my old Peavey MKII let out a mournful wail and died which, mercifully, signalled the end of the evening.

How old are the strings?

Nice. I've had a couple of EB4s over the years and liked them a lot but the extended and curved pickup ends just don't make my thumb happy so ended up moving them on. I'm happiest on a 38mm nut too.

Had a singer storm off stage and leave the band halfway through a gig. We carried on, sadly, despite the cold hand of severe acid-tinged paranoia grabbing hard. Had a guitarist too heavily sedated to feel his hands or his feet, play a gig limply slumped over on a stool. Same guitarist, frustrated by his guitar cutting in and out, once flung his guitar hard onto the stage in frustration, then fired it into the crowd. He then realised it was one of only two guitars he owned so dived into the crowd to try to retrieve it. As support, had a singer elbow the singer from the headline band hard in the throat when the guy came on to try and bail us out after an ill-concieved gong solo wasn't the crowd pleaser we hoped it might be. Security were very clear the show was over very quickly that time. We once learned the hard way that mixing accordion and disco doesn't make for a happy crowd. I once slipped in water on the stage and crashed into the amp, a hefty Trace 4x10 combo perched atop a tea chest, and lay sprawled underneath as it teetered back and forth deciding whether or not to fall forward and crush me. Never had a drummer perish but did know one who hid in his shed for two weeks while pretending to be away on holiday.

She sounded like Nelson Muntz, sadly. I thought Joan Jett was spot on until she forgot the words. St. vincent was struggling with time, rather than pitch, oddly. Grohl Jr was superb, it must be said. Nice to hear those guys playing those songs again. The show will make you feel old, however. Some of these performers are really showing their age.

A reason. I've been buying music since I was a kid, I've no need to rent it again from those greedy barstwards.

Maybe it's just me but it looks wider than 38mm nut and the curves at the bottom of the headstock aren't quite as pronounced as the SR? It's modded, whatever it is 😂

I'd say it's a Fernandes FRB with either a prototype or reshaped headstock. The headstock is skinnier than a Soundgear.

Pat Badger isn't a name, it's an instruction for those who live on the razor's edge.

I had heard it a lot before I ever heard it from him, it's not as if it was rare before he adopted it too.

Well, I'm just repeating what he said when the bass was released. He said it's a P pickup under the one cover, so...

Yup.

Mark King is the King for a reason. If you've got gear that doesn't have his name on it, that's some rare shizzle.

Lots of them, I would guess, it's not an unusual thing. Billy Gould's Zon is a PJ setup with a single cover for the P. You could get one made out of wood fairly easily.

The recordings never lie.

I remember chrisguitars, usually a decent site, had a Coronado II bass listed for quite a while. For some reason, an owner had crudely gouged a hole, roughly the size of a cornflake, into the back of the neck around the 5th fret and inlaid a plastic jewel, like an emerald. They probably used their cro-magnon forehead to hammer it in. It was't a clean job, it wasn't a smooth job, the jewel stuck out, quite literally, of the neck. Eventually, it sold too. People forgive all kinds of sins if the thing is old.

I'd say crazy, personally, but I'm not the target for old gear. I would not be surprised at all if it sells at that price.

The pickup is wired to the switch and the switch is wired to the preamp, no? Leave the switch alone, so.

Vigier Passion and Arpege have 40mm nuts and the strings don't taper out too much at all on their way the bridge. They're far comfier than a 4001 too and usually quite light.

Any thoughts? Well, I wouldn't really have a use for it so I won't buy it, but you might have an entirely different set of criteria. What do you think?

If you use .105 for E when tuned to E, then it would make sense to try to keep E, A and D the same gauge, no? I use a .145 for B on a 4 string ESP Jazz I have in BEAD and sometimes drop that B to A. In my experience you've got to have bigger differences in gauge the lower you go, not smaller.

Hate is a very strong term, needlessly so. Many basses have been bought and sole over the years, can't say I've ever been so upset as to actually hate any.

I think slap bass and funk are two very different things. Slap can be a feature of funk but, to me, funk is about punctuating space, the interaction between multiple instruments and silence, combining to create a very rhythmic whole. Someone is slapping a bass does not make it funk, frequently it's the very opposite.

Expect the asking price of any old tat to skyrocket in the aftermath.

But the bar on a 5 string is not an unusual feature across other brands.