TrevorR

Looking at the Warwick Custom shop website their prices seem to start at about €6k and go up to €9k. Presuming that they are built in a similar fashion to the above with significant shaping being done by CNC cutters with hand finishing it throws a new light on the €6.2k starting price for a completely hand built Wal...

You keep thinking of it as a bass guitar, which is where you're going wrong and getting all confused! It's not MEANT to be a bass for someone to buy and play. It is 1) a piece of sculpture based around a bass guitar theme, 2) a "collectable" one-off item, and 3) a piece of marketing. That's not to say that it's not a stupid idea but, as others have said, there are fat walleted collectors who would lap up that sort of thing to put in a glass case in their collection - as an objet d'art. Frankly there's a bit of me that's surprised that they're only charging 5k... That sort of "art piece" could probably go for 20k to a well-heeled Warwick enthusiast!!! It's a mad old world!!

Sand blaster!!!!!!

They hit it with a sandblaster!!!! Look at the bolt coming in from the edge to help stabilise the neck!!!!! Aaaaarrrggghhh!!!!!

No worries. It won’t be my guitar he picks up...

For many years it was this. No pedals bar a Lehle switcher and a tuner... Now it’s more likely to be... ...with just the LMII and the 2x10.

Summer weather always makes me pull out the first album by the lovely Stephanie Kirkham. Pure summer vibes for me! ...and/or a track she did a few years ago...

Well a hey dum a do dum a die... Whack fol me daddio!!!

And pop over to the Facebook Wal fans page to see if there are any Surrey based fretless owners.

Cracking track!

Just saw this today. It’s wonderful!

Used a Boss TU for years but love my PolyTune pedal. So another vote for TC.

I’m rather fond of this one... the Beatles and Bon Jovi

I always liked that one. Another fave was a cover band I saw advertised called By Jovi. And I always thought that "Magic - A Kind of Queen" was rather elegant!

On my Aria SB700 I'll use fully open, fully off and backed off a wee bit (that's a technical term).

Yeah, but none of us in the band actually liked DM... of the 150+ odd songs outside our core song lists we could busk through with a cheat sheet for a special request DM did not feature once!

Rather that than what Martin Guitars did a few years ago. Did a signature guitar for someone who might have been famous in the popular music world but wasn’t actually known as a guitar player or performer of any sort (he did some keys and arrangements for an obscure band you’ve probably never heard of)... Step forward the Martin Guitars George Martin signature acoustic gutiar...

We used to do that one... good as a end of the night smoochy one. We had a sax player so it figured. Speaking of which, given our line up was drums, bass, sax and male singer who doubled on acoustic and electric guitar, the request that really flummoxed me was the guy who came up and asked in all seriousness whether we did any Depeche Mode or Yahoo. “Sorry mate, we’re not really set up for it?” “Huh?” Points at stage, “Erm, can you see any synthesisers?” “Oh yeah, fair enough.”

Our B/L would say, “We'll learn it for next time.” Which, since we did a lot of weddings, seemed to show very little faith in the bride and groom’s chances!

Had mine 20+ years. Still going strong!

I have one of these. They’re brilliant... https://www.zoro.co.uk/shop/welding--brazing-and-soldering/soldering-irons-and-stations/8100udk-expert-soldering-kit/p/ZT1000919X?utm_campaign=pla-Welding%2c+Brazing+%26+Soldering+-+&utm_source=google&utm_medium=shopping-pla&utm_keyword=ZT1000919X&istCompanyId=6aa6787b-063e-4414-802d-129f235df603&istItemId=wtqiiqqapm&istBid=tztx&gclid=CjwKCAjwpIjZBRBsEiwA0TN1r_QHzI0nyvV2mp1Fw8lTt4RtDR8n6eP8BwbluRR50aAwsY5iiVweEhoCZy0QAvD_BwE

And there’s a Levy’s one at Andertons about 3 links down on the Google search... ...the Union Flag ones look cooler, though.

Another AFH occurred to me. There used to be a guy who busked in the shopping centres near us doing his own songs and trying to sell his home produced CDs. His set up was... Acoustic or semi-acoustic guitar, Madonna style headset radio mike and an overweening sense of his own genius. Also an act which resembled a courts jester on acid. His attire also berfectly matched this approach. To be fair he put 110% into it. He would bounce around while singing and then, taking full advantage of his wireless set up, bounce up to passing shoppers singing into their faces and generally scaring children (literally - saw many a toddler crumble into tears as he looked up to him). My mate Pete called him “That Mad Busker Blokel Anyway, after several years lay off I decided I fancied getting back into gigging and saw a card I never a local music styles and artists listed as influences on the ad seemed great. All artists I pretty much liked. OK it was originals and I had been thinking covers but if it was any good... why not. I gave number on the card a ring and he seemed like a genuine, nice bloke on the phone. He suggested he could pop over one evening, bring a couple of his demo CDs to give me an idea of what his music was like and chat about his vision for the band. That seemed fair enough so a date was set... Fast forward about a week and there is a ding-dong on my doorbell. I open to door and my first thought is, “OMG it’s the Mad Busker Bloke! What do I do now?” Anyway, I invited him in and put the kettle on. The evening went well enough although a lot of it seemed to comprise of him telling me what a musical genius he was, how the music industry was missing out by not capitalising on his talent and how “This time next year, Rodney, we’ll be millionaires!” Other than this extreme level of (delusional) self belief he seemed to be pretty personable and the songs were... well, OK. And certainly better than when performed by a demented Timmy Mallet-alike leering in your face in the local shopping centre. In the end I, against my better judgement, found myself agreeing to come along to his band following Wednesday. Help! Anyway, at the time my job entailed semi regular trips to Brussels, Maastricht and Paris. Sometimes at pretty short notice. Well, the following Monday afternoon it all kicked off. On Tuesday afternoon it was confirmed that it really needed to get over there toot-sweet and Eurostar tickets were booked for Wednesday morning. I let “MBB” know that, regretfully I wouldn’t be able to make it and they work might be a bit unpredictable for the next few weeks til things settled down. But NEXT Wednesday,, what about that? He agreed. Sure enough, next Tuesday I was once again booking Eurostar tickets and phoning him to let him know. The following week when I called up and left a message on his answerphone to say I was, once again, off to the land of moules frites at short notice I never heard back. In hindsight, I think it might have been the universe being kind to me... I think that a few weeks I need his band and he would have driven me crazy...

Welcome to the UK Blue!!!! The pub scene is so very very dysfunctional when it comes to booking bands...

Well, I for one can assure you that I’m not an eleventh century King of Denmark, England and Norway!