Burns-bass

It looks like a Zeta Crossover Bass. They sell for between £600 - £800.

Taylor Swift is a multi instrumentalist and an incredible pop songwriter. Go back about 50 years and you’ve got Dolly too. Might not be your thing but these two women have written songs that change lives.

I’ve got 3 sets of used strings. 2 sets are Fender standard length, the other are a shortscale set. These are I believe the strings fitted to Fenders from the factory. All used and either going as one set or to the recycling centre.

Laura Marling. An incredible guitar player, songwriter And singer. Genuinely an amazing talent that I’ve loved getting to learn her back catalogue.

What model did you go for? Id love to hear what you think about it. A few people have been a little disparaging about the EUB until it’s plugged in!

Turn up on time. Be polite. Learn the parts. Have gear that works. Don’t turn up drunk. Don’t drink while playing. Don’t play a solo in the middle of the track. Don’t stop playing completely if you mess up. Look at the other players while playing and smile. Offer to pay your share for the rehearsal space. Help the drummer carry his/her gear out at the end. Don’t leave abruptly at the end. Don’t arrange anything straight after the rehearsal so you have to leave quickly. Don’t say you’ve got loads on and can’t commit. Do all this and you’ll be ok!

You’re a journalist too aren’t you? Everyone assumes it’s all boozy lunches and non-declared income. I make most of my money writing about dull software or gearboxes. HMRC allows you to self-declare expenses of up to £1000.

I don’t feel so bad about some of my recordings now.

I’ve had two Snark tuners break too, so interested in this!

Wrong place. The idea that small business people are always on the take is cynical and offensive. How many gigging musicians declare all of their income?

Just seems like pointless negativity to me. Now if he started making guitars, that would be a different story!

These are bespoke instruments aren’t they? So rather than criticise a massively talented bass builder, question the tastes of some of his customers! If you’ve got almost £10k to drop on a hand-built bass I imagine you’d be confident in your choice.

Traders often prefer using PayPal as it creates an audit trail.

Stage school innit.

Given a £22,000 Bass appears to have just sold on Basschat, I think we can deduce two things: 1) The market for vintage Fenders is bouyant. 2) Basschat is the best place to sell a bass in Europe.

My kids are the same age as yours (3 and 18 months) and I experienced the same. As well as music I work as a writer (which I enjoy), run, ride bikes and enjoy gardening. My wife an I co-parent, which essentially means we try and share childcare as much as is possible as she works too. I just had a realisation at some point that I can’t do everything I used to, but I can do something - so I make time every day to do one thing. That might be an hour long run, half an hour practice on DB or reading some short stories. My wife is learning Norwegian which is her escape. When you have kids there’s a tendency to give everything over to that endeavour, but it’s worth trying to keep as much of you intact because they’ll soon be doing their own thing.

Having personally owned some beauties, in my opinion it’s pretty much all nostalgia. But there is something that’s unquestionably romantic about an old guitar, and Fenders in particular. The vintage market is an odd one, and like all collectibles can crash at any time, but if I had the money I’d prefer to have a room full of old guitars than anything else.

I’m not impugning you or questioning your knowledge on these things, it’s just difficult (well, impossible) to be definitive on these. Your guesswork informed by experience is most likely to be correct I’m sure.

Guess so. I’ve seen a fair few basses that purport to be one thing and turn out to be another. When you strip a body it could really be anything... Anyway, the best result is a ‘74 neck on a ‘69 body and I guess without going back in time we’ll never know so it’s all good guesswork!