Burns-bass

That's strange. Must be a commission sale and the seller wants £2,000 for it.

These are amazing basses. Unique design, lightweight and built to a fantastic standard.

This is wonderful.

Totally agree. I wouldn’t buy a refin either, but it seems people do and at least this one comes with provenance and a huge amount of evidence to support it, not like some of the junk out there.

Reckon if I was going to buy a refin it would be this one: https://www.andybaxterbass.com/collections/bass-guitars/products/1964-fender-precision-bass-sb-clive-brown-refinish

Yes, that's what I have. It provides a check of each plug and tells you if it's correctly wired and grounded or not. I'm no electrician (and the guys who put in the cabling also have an RCD) but I do it every venue I go to now to ensure me and my equipment will be OK. One of the singers in my band got a shock one gig and we ended it early as we had no faith in the safety of the venue. After that, I didn't want to take any risks.

We always take plug testers to gigs after a dodgy connection. Cost £15 or so and easy to stick in the gig box. https://www.screwfix.com/c/tools/socket-testers/cat7910008

The personal trainer bit is good advice. I had lots of support after a motorbike injury 18 years ago and I still use the training plan. Always speak with a medical professional and best of luck.

I can’t speak to your problems and I think a medical professional will be the best bet. Personally my bass playing, posture and overall mental health has improved after going to the gym for the last year.

I quite agree. He wasn’t very good but it was a wedding and they were all very, very drunk.

Musicians are mad people. I recently did a well paid wedding gig and the saxophone player turned up late because his roast wasn’t ready in time and he was hungry. Nearly cost us a lot of money and it also included a free meal. Which he ate.

I left a band positively and respectfully about 18 years ago. Fast forward to a couple of months ago and ex band member messaged me about a new bass position in a gigging Blue Note jazz band with some monster players. As @Steve Browning said, don’t ever burn bridges. It’s not worth it.

Sorry. I’m a trustee with Citizens Advice so I talk all this stuff a little too seriously. The guys at ATB seem ace and I’m sure it was just me being me, but it didn’t feel right to me. I appreciate I could have been a mad time waster and in their game they probably meet a fair few of those!

I understand all that. I’m 100% certain the deposit would have been refunded if I’d gone to the shop and decided it wasn’t for me, but I didn’t like the way it was handled and the suggestion I was a timewaster or somehow not trustworthy. It was enough for me not to buy the instrument.

It’s a nice answer but I’d say it’s as worthless as a “sold as seen” notice in a shop (ie you’d have a very good chance of getting all the cash back in court). The deposit should relate to the potential losses a company light face. In this instance. I’d argue the losses were negligible. I also felt the deposit terms (10%) was too much.

I asked Mike at ATB to reserve a bass and he told me the deposit wasn’t returnable (which is against all commercial law, but put me off enough not to bother with a trip…)

This is a most excellent review and I concur with it completely. It’s a beast of a gig bag!

Aside from question of whether it’s art or not, AI will destroy the ‘incidental’ music industry and those are real jobs that will disappear. We should feel sorry for those people. My business (journalism and copywriting) has been destroyed by AI. I’m lucky that I have a specialism and industry connections that will keep me on work for a few more years, but trust me it’s destroying livelihoods for real people. I have an estimated 2 years left doing my job. I’m actively retraining into a new career which isn’t as easy as you’d hope at 44. Technological progress comes at a cost to real people (the many) while increasing profits for some (the few).

In the real world this is excellent advice. Doesn’t always work with vintage basses!

I was once in a band where the singer and drummer were in a relationship. Drummer decided to dump the singer before a gig. As we approached the last song (and therefore the denouement of their relationship) she turned to him in tears and threw her guitar on the floor. I picked it up and played the last song.

Not sure I’d put Davie and Charles at that level of creativity and virtuosity but the principle is the same, I agree. I think we sort of agree. I love showing off. I regularly go to classical recitals where it’s 2 hours of virtuosity. I play jazz and that’s basically continual showing off. I’ve played so long the whole point now is showing off because the basic stuff is dull. But because nobody actually comes to my gigs, im not monetising it! I actually saw the pillar that holds Chopin’s heart. Apparently he was afraid of being buried alive so when he died he had it take out and sent back to Poland.

Wasn’t it you that was comparing some kid playing slap bass at 200bpm to Lizst? The context here is YouTube not music in general. And I stand by the fact that what they’re doing is technical feats with little to no musical value. It’s what lift music is to real jazz. What Andre Rieu is to classical music etc etc.

That's because we're in Bristol which is objectively the best place in the UK.