Bassassin

Always sort of liked the look of these, never played one though, never mind owned one. When I lived in Kent in the 80s there was one (fretless & sh!t brown) in constant rotation in the local shop (Frenchy's in Duncan Street, Gillin'am) - I think I was probably the only regular punter who didn't own it for a fortnight before trading it back in.

Not really a P player but I'm a sucker for black/black/maple, with a cream DiMarzio Model P for preference. Proper 70s rock machine look, & I'd definitely concede a JJ influence in there. Doubt I'd have picked up a bass without his influence. My one's a pretty rare 70s Japanese copy (Daion performer) which I paid about £100 for. It did need a bit of tidying.

Considering their origins as weirdo psychedelic proto-prog Zappa proteges, I always felt the partneship with Bob Ezrin imposed more conventional song structures on them. Although I doubt I'd ever have heard of them, never mind heard them if he hadn't!

Intro. Verse. Chorus. Verse. Chorus. GUITAR SOLO!!! Chorus. Chorus. Fade.

It's because guitarists like to play solos. While that may sound glib, as bassist/main composer in a good few original bands, I've quite often written stuff that doesn't have a bit where everything else takes a back-seat so the guitarist can do widdly-squee stuff. But they just do it anyway.

Thanks! I can help, but be warned: you have just kicked open the door to some paralysingly dull pedantry. This bass is the same thing as the Satellite, and it was made in Korea (possibly by Cort) around 1980-ish. I've seen a few names on these, and I've got an idea there's a Hohner-branded version. Satellite was the budget brand of UK importer/distributor FCN Music, dates are unclear but they seemed to appear mid/late 70s & all appear to be Korean-made - at least, I've never seen an MIJ one. To clear things up, there's no such thing as a 'Teisco Satellite'. Sellers like to call anything a bit old, far-eastern, & cheap/wonky-looking a Teisco, but not many of them are - there were dozens, possibly hundreds of small guitar manufacturers in Japan during the 60s 'guitar boom' (nearly every backstreet wood shop/furniture manufacturer jumped on the bandwagon), most of which were gone by 1970 - including Teisco, which was bought over by Kawai in 1967 & absorbed in to its parent company. Budget guitar manufacture moved to Korea & Taiwan during the 70s, as most of the big Japanese manufacturers focused on better quality & ultimately, original designs. The starter-level Korean stuff coming from Samick & Cort in the 70s & 80s used the designs & hardware types common on 60s MIJ stuff - hence slightly weird crossovers like this Satellite, with its 80s body/headstock but bedecked with tinny, barely functional hardware. If there's a takeaway from this it's that your old 60s Japanese guitar probably isn't Japanese, or anything like as old as you thing it is. Told you, didn't I?

It bugs me that the bridges & knobs are generic off-the-shelf parts, and not recreations of the originals. Also, looking at the specs, these have standard Fender style neck proportions, not the wide, near-parallel neck & tight string spacing the original SB series had. They'll feel & play nothing like an original SB.

I saw Stereophonics as opening act at the Edinburgh Princes Street Hogmanay bash in 1996. Presumably their management blagged the gig as that was best part of a year before they released their first album. I'd never heard of them & what I remember was a loud, high-energy hard rock band reminiscent of early Manic Street Preachers - to the extent they got referred to as the StereoManics for a while! They were quite good fun if a bit unremarkable, but certainly a lot more appealing (to me at least) than what the industry clearly decided would shift more units. Although in fairness they've probably had a longer career as a result.

That, exactly. Back in t'day they were great for the democratisation of music, just like punk in the late 70s which was my gateway. I remember having this argument/discussion with an Oasis-hating bandmate back in the 90s - basically anything that gets kids picking up guitars is good for music. The ones that get hooked will soon look past Noel's 4 chord dirges & sloppy pentatonics for more adventurous music & inspiration. I never liked them, never hated them either. They were just dull - a derivative, unimaginative meat & potatoes pub rock band that somehow got very, very lucky. The big question with the reunion is whether they'll get through the first rehearsal without hospitalising each other. Maybe the alleged £40 million payday (each!) will be a sweetener.

Terrible blurry, dingy photos, cursory 19-word description & zero evidence that it's a JB (not saying it's not, but the pics show a poorly photographed TBird copy with no clear identifying details) doesn't fill me with confidence or a desire to part with £800, to be honest.

Make us an offer & find out...

^^^ What he said! 👍

I've got one. It's compact but not really tiny - maybe he's a big lad in the pic! Replaced the (very) bendy original bridge on mine with a less bendy 80s MIJ 3-point, but otherwise it's stock. That's a DiMarzio Model P on mine - but some (probably later ones) had generic MIJ pickups. Gotoh tuners (doubt any had Schallers from new) & weighs 8.8lbs/4kg, but maybe slightly less without all the dust. Would definitely trade up to a Track IV - always fancied a 2xP but (somehow) never had one. Yet!

Arctangent takes its name from the fourth album by 90s/00s UK alt-metal band earthtone9. They've recently got back together & released a devastatingly good new album, and are playing on the Saturday. If you're going, do take the time to go & see them. There'd be no Arctangent without them.

Hohner Professionals were made in Korea by Cort, mid 80s onward. This based on a Jackson Randy Rhoads knockoff & that's firmly 80s hair metal-era, so it's probably from approx. '84-'90. Cort uses dateable serial numbers so it may be possible to get a year of manufacture from that, if there is one. A brief dig around turned up a French auction site listing for the guitar version of the same thing. https://www.debaecque.fr/lot/102960/11502433-guitare-hohner-hgv-2-micros-no? And that's yer lot!

There were a few others. Matsumoku did an accurate-looking set-neck 4001S type, I've also seen a Fresher set-neck with binding & big inlays, probably made by Chushin. I've also got a pic of a set-neck with triangle inlays & checked binding, no name or identifying details, so I have no idea who made that! When you've seen a hundred different 70s MIJ Fakers in almost as many different variations, you're just left with the distinct impression they were making it up as they went along!

I'm wondering if the idiot AI description's becoming so ubiquitous (even for fairly uncommon/sought-after instruments like this) so no-one can accuse the seller of being wilfully misleading in their ad. Nah.They're just lazy b@st@rds.

Heerby was a Japan-market sub-brand of Kasuga, this is a refinished RB600: Does look like it's got the all-too-common banana-neck syndrome.

MIJ would normally be on the headstock face, it's possible that for some reason it's had a face refin & the original decal's been replaced with a generic one. The s/n & heel do suggest it's an MIJ bass (although E serialisation also appears on late 80s/90s Korean Squiers from Young-Chang) - wondering if it could've been an MIJ Squier originally?

It'd take 30 seconds in Photoshop (or your image editing app of choice, obvs) to remove the rogue tuner & errant string over the scratchplate, then NO-ONE WOULD EVER KNOW!!!

Standard 34". Which is a pity, as I'd be more motivated to do something with it if it wasn't - despite having about a million basses, none of them are short or medium scale!

Thought I'd test the theory using Bing's AI bollocks image generator. The prompt I used was the ad title, plus 'fretless' as that seemed important, even though the seller didn't appear to think so. So - Warmoth Short Scale Fretless Bass Neck with a Blue Headstock. This was the closest to the prompt - and honestly, the more you look at it, the better it gets.

It is. A lot of people seem to want their sales description to look as lazy, stupid & generic as possible these days. Not sold anything on Ebay for a long time, I assume this is a built-in feature now, as it's so common. Strongly suggests that no-one bothers reading descriptions!

Mostly this for just grabbing & plonking away unplugged: And mostly this for recording: Or for making a racket, this:

IMO the best-looking MIJ P-derived design, had a bit of GAS for one of these for a long time. That's the best finish too. Shame it's overpriced by about £300!