BrunoBass

I’ve still got the string tree screw, it was tight but not too long, the tug bar screws however were so short that the tug bar almost pulled off without being unscrewed!

I reshaped the headstock on my PB-50 today. I’d been trying to get somewhere and getting nowhere with a hacksaw. I was in the office today so I took the neck to work with me, one of the lads in the warehouse had a jigsaw and he let me borrow it. I’m pretty pleased with how it came out; I printed off a template of the Mike Dirnt Signature and drew around that. When I got home tonight I sanded back with 80 and then 120 grit paper; it’s nice and smooth now and ready for lacquering. I sanded off the Harley Benton decal too. The only downside is that the jigsaw tore up the edge of the corner I was rounding off, next to the E tuner. That meant taken off a bit more meat than I’d intended to, to hide it, but not to worry, it’ll do.

We were back at the Wine Vaults in Banbury last night, always a great gig and last night was no exception. Early plans to play outside were scuppered by early evening showers, but no matter - great atmosphere, an ‘up for it’ crowd, and everyone up and dancing by the end. I had my MIM Fender Jazz going into my Genz Benz rig, and my Joyo American Sound overdrive thingy on all night for a little bit of crunch; sounded lovely and cut through nicely. Next stop for us is The Swan in Banbury, another favourite of ours in a couple of weeks. Here’s the calm before the storm...

Did you find a big gouge out of the body when you removed the scratchplate? Both @kodiakblair and I have on our recently purchased PB-50s.

Mike’s main recording bass is a ‘71 Precision so the pickup choice and the body contouring on his signature model will be dictated by that. The 51 body style is probably just an aesthetic choice.

And lastly, this. One of the most haunting pieces of music I’ve ever heard. The intro section (0.00 - 0.25) conjures childhood memories of strikes, IRA bombings, plane highjackings etc and the end credits section from 0.26 sounds like the music they’ll play when Armageddon comes. And on that cheery note...

This used to knock me out as a kid, I used to hear this every Sunday lunchtime when my dad used to watch Weekend World, it’s still amazing now. Little excerpt from Mountain’s ‘Nantucket Sleighride’.

One of my favourites. The whole intro sequence is great.

I’ve been spoiled these last few years; our rehearsal space was exactly one mile from my front door, but it closed down recently and we had to find somewhere new. The only feasible and affordable option is two motorway junctions away, 20-30 minute drive each way and around 35 mile round trip. The trade off is that it’s a much better equipped studio than our old one. It’s about the same journey for our drummer and not much difference for our singer/guitarist who lives roughly halfway between the old one and the new one. After a day in the car travelling to anywhere from London to Manchester or further, I must admit that the prospect of getting back in the car after having eaten and changed doesn’t always fill me with joy.

I see The Bass Gallery have a Roland G77 for sale: https://thebassgallery.com/collections/bass-new-arrival/products/roland-g-77 The ultimate ‘marmite’ bass, I think they look amazing and would love one to gig, if just for it’s looks. It’s too much money for me at the moment, and as I’m not interested in the synth element it’d be a waste of money. But if ever one became available as the bass alone I’d be keen. But how does it stand up purely as a bass? Sounds, feel etc? I believe they were built by Ibanez so I assume the build quality was decent. Was it merely a controller for the synth or was it a good bass in it’s own right?

I don’t know about coming close to making it, it sounds like you did make it! That’s a great story, it sounds like you were truly living the dream and if one of my bands had attained the level of success you found I’d have been immensely happy. What an amazing experience. By the way, I’m aware of your band. I can’t admit to being familiar with your material but I certainly remember the name.

Songs I hate playing: Seven Nation Army. We play it because it goes down well and people sing along to the riff, but jeez am I sick of the brain dead piece of 💩 that it is. Songs I just hate: Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader. I hate it and it’s phony geezer Jamie Oliver associations, and I hate the fact that they even sampled the original instead of doing a pure cover.

As an aside to this, a friend of mine was in a band around the same time (1988) and they did get signed, also to MCA, coincidentally. Three album deal, the whole lot. He was numb with disbelief and absolutely made up. They recorded the first album with a name producer, artwork all done, lead single selected, remixes of single all done, video for single made with the bands logo all over it, big ad campaign prepared and ready to go, promos sent out to radio and press, and then... It turned out that the band’s name, that was all over the artwork, video, ad campaign etc was taken from a fashion brand in Japan. No one had thought to mention this earlier, and the fashion brand threatened legal action. MCA just pulled the plug on the whole project and walked away... My friend was devastated, naturally, and it took some getting over the disappointment. He makes his living doing ad jingles now, but I think the disappointment still haunts him!

The band I was in in the late eighties released a self financed single which picked a bit of club play in London and some exposure on local and national radio. This led to contact with a few record companies, having also done several days out where we’d head into London with a box of singles and an A-Z and doorstep every record company we could think of. We had interest from Mute, Island and MCA, and got asked to come and meet the A&R team at MCA. We showed up, played them demos of our stuff and left on a positive note and a commitment that they’d be in touch. We never heard from them again, and being overawed kids none of us thought to chase it up. More recently an up and coming young singer songwriter expressed an interest in recording one of my songs. He’s doing quite well; national tours, Glastonbury appearance, Radio 1 play, but he now has a manager who is insisting he only does his own songs, so it looks like that won’t happen now.

Learn as many as you can. It will hold you in good stead. When I auditioned for the band I’m in now, they gave me five specific songs to learn. There wasn’t anything too taxing so I looked up their set list on their Facebook page and learned as many as I could (I think about twenty out of thirty plus). I think the fact I’d done that helped partly in getting me the job.

Thank you.

Great, thanks.

Can I ask how much for customs? Any other extras? Have they come knocking for import duty? i bought some photo studio lights from Hong Kong a while back; I paid an additional sum for customs at the time but then got hit for another fee from DHL for duty a few weeks later.

I was told that it’s Samick, I can’t substantiate that however.

A thousand times yes ^

My opinion hasn’t changed since the last tine this old chestnut came up; I still think they’re a no no and if our singer turned up to a gig with one he’d be severely admonished. Mind you, he also has a pint glass holder that clips to his mic stand, and that’s almost as bad 😂

I saw pictures of that, looked great. Which paint did you use and what preparation did you do? I’m thinking of maybe painting mine.

I started on the headstock too, using a printed Mike Dirnt signature template. I’ve started with a hacksaw with a new blade, this is going to take some patience as the progress here is the result of twenty minutes hacking away. I’m thinking of an alternative method; I’ve put out the call on Facebook to see if any friends have a bandsaw I can use! I won’t go into detail on this but here as it’s more for Build Diaries.

I’ve stripped the bass down, in readiness of reshaping the headstock, and in doing so the budget nature of the bass has truly revealed itself. The fretboard appears to be bare wood, with a satin finish on the back of the neck, and the headstock. It might have a finish on it, but it’s very, very light. That’s no problem, I’m going to add an amber tint anyway. A lot of the screws are screwed in at angles, instead of straight, and the tug bar was screwed in with screws that were so short it just pulled off. No big deal, there’s a reason why this is cheap as chips. Most disappointing though is the mess I found when I removed the scratchplate. I was between replacing it with a white one or just removing it altogether. The latter option is a no-no now that I’ve discovered the gouge and the fact that the photo flame paper ends with an abrupt edge. I think as the sum of it’s parts the PB-50 (or my PB-50 - others might be better) is a great, budget bass. Underneath the hood it’s pretty shoddy, but for £85-ish it hard to justify any major complaint.

We’re back again at my favourite venue at the weekend, Banbury’s excellent Wine Vaults. Always a great gig here.