Bassassin

Elton was among the first artists I got into when I started listening to music properly as a kid in the 70s. Although I couldn't count Dee as a direct influence, it was clear (as soon as I became aware of such things) the level of musicianship within the band was stellar and Dee's playing impeccable. Also I had no idea he was from Gillin'am in Kent, just like me! Fellow Medway Tahns scum!

Well - I listened to 4 tracks (which was pretty much the time it took to read through the thread) and it's OK, I quite like it for this sort of thing. Some stellar playing, as one might expect, but like most instrumental fusion it makes me think: bland, over-fiddly prog with the edges buffed off, & someone blooping down a saxophone instead of a vocalist to give it context. It sounds composed, rather than improvised, & that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned - although it'd take repeated listens (that it isn't going to get) for me to start to properly appreciate how it's structured. There were a few passages where I thought - if I'd had that idea I'm sure I could do something epic with it. But I never have those sorts of ideas.

Not enough to change the design (if you can call it that!) the way the body has! I may have mentioned my antipathy for that slapped-on afterthought before - the only bit of the 4001/3 design John Hall didn't bother to trademark!

Imagine going to such lengths to make your Rickenbacker not look like a Rickenbacker - and then going "oh, sod it" & slapping the original ugly afterthought scratchplate back on it completely unmodified, not even bothering to trim it so it doesn't hang off the bottom edge of your svelte new Pointybacker.

Better late than never... Early/mid-70s Matsumoku-made starter-ish thing. Weird pickups, thin (but solid mahogany) body, generally OK unless it has a corkscrew neck, like the one of these I have, sitting around in bits! Fantom was a Japanese home-market brand - probably not that many of 'em in Hull. Wouldn't pay £300 for it.

I think this is a 70s/80s Japanese copy that someone's trying to fob off as genuine. To make it look more 'authentic' they've tried to make the pickup routing look rough & gone over the wiring channel with a forstner bit - notice how it's dead straight rather than the slight curve of the routing on genuine 4001s. The hardware (apart from the tuners) back up the theory - the chrome saddles & round tailpiece holes (real ones are more square) indicate it's a copy bridge, & the bridge pickup looks like the unit found in MIJ Shaftesbury 4001 fakers - the corners of the bobbin are much more squared-off than the genuine unit & the poles have rounded heads, not the hex heads of a modern Rick Hi-Gain or the squared-off slugs the pretendy horseshoe reissues have. The neck unit (which I assume is a toaster) has a single magnet rather than 6 individual poles a genuine toaster should have. Several Japanese brands had specific McCartney replicas - amongst others Greco, Kasuga/Heerby & Fernandes sold them in their home market in the 80s/90s (and probably later) and all of those would have had a single truss rod. A tenner says the one on this bass will be metric rather than the imperial size you'd imagine Rickenbacker would insist on!

It's some dude's weirdo tribute bitsa. Nothing to do with John D & not a replica. I suspect it has a limited market - and that's who's trying to sell it! Looks like he's handy with a laser engraver, at least.

They're very nice - I have a black one. It's a late 80s/early 90s SB-ELT (or RSZ, if you're an 80s hair metal fan, as they were exactly the same instrument), pretty close to the Matsumoku-era SB Elite II & SB-R80 but with some small differences. Not clear whether these were Japanese or Korean as none of them have been seen with country of manufacture or serial stickers. If I could get £700 for mine I might be tempted. It's in a bit better nick than this one.

That's the fella.

Roughly, pre - 90s, I'd say. Although that might be because I'm not comfortable considering the 90s as a 'vintage' era just yet.

I had one ages ago, different brand I think. It's a Warwick Fortress Flashback copy. Certainly not 80s Korean - '00s Taiwanese or Chinese. Mine was OK but nothing special.

I bloody love these! Kicked myself for ages after I once missed out on one here for £100! Couldn't justify it now as I'm not gigging & too lazy to sell any of my bass surplus to make space. Which is a shame as I'm FB pals with the seller, who's also a BC member, or at least used to be.

Right dull, drab lot I've got. Think there needs to be a green San Dimas P/J in my future.

The Chickenbacker bridge design seems to originate on Korean-made Shine copies from the early '00s: The Shines were pretty decent basses by all accounts, & came fitted with Seymour Duncan Rick-type pickups as standard. Never been hands-on with one but I think they had conventional Fender-ish neck/scale proportions. Like a few other Fakers from that era (Indie & Wesley spring to mind!) it seems they though they could get around RIC's litigiousness with a wonky headstock shape - John Hall's C&D letters set them all straight about that, so you don't see too many of any of them!

Same pickups as yours, by the looks. I suspect that suggests this is also the manufacturer of your bass. A quick Google of Melodija Worich brings up a green version of the above bass (which looks a bit inspired by Yamaha's BX-1) on a Talkbass thread: https://www.talkbass.com/threads/need-help-p-beginners-questions.844571/ Same tuners/bridge. I think Melodija Worich probably improvised this system around existing conventional bridges.

Odd question. Realistically the huge majority of gigging musicians, whether or not they started out in original bands, will end up in a cover band of one sort or another if they want to be out performing & taking home a few quid. Not really for me - I was in a cover band which ran alongside my original band in the 90s - with the same guitarist - basically because we were getting regular gigs, OK money & it helped subsidise the 'proper' band. It was fun & we had a regular crowd many of whom ended up coming to the original band's gigs, but I've never been drawn to playing covers just for the sake of getting out gigging. Maybe one day?

Looks an awful lot like the sort of generic Fender derivative you'd pick up for £120-odd from AliExpress. Might be quite an expensive sticker saying 'from the Glorious Motherland'.

Exploring Birdsong - 3-piece female-fronted, keyboard-led progressive rock. I think they're stunningly good. Their vocalist Lynsey Ward guested on Lifesigns' last album Altitude - checked them out & I think I like her band better! They've so far released 2 EPs, waiting with bated breath for an album & tour.

Unbranded Sildenafil?

Not much from pre-internet 80s & 90s bands, but my last gigging band (2000-2014) I have pretty much everything - helps that I did the all the art & web design so it's all stashed in a folder on a backup drive.

Fretless in hyper-technical death metal? Think he gets away with it. Cryptic Shift.

Silly, silly bargain. If that was a bit closer to me, I wouldn't be able to help myself!

On first impressions I'd put my 50p on that being a hand-made one off. That bridge/tuner system appears to be basically two 4-string bridges mounted together, maybe a replacement for a missing/broken & unobtainable original part: One similar to this: ...and something like this, modified as string retainer/tuner: The string clampling solution is perhaps a little inelegant, but that's otherwise a great improvised headless system.