Paul S

A perhaps not so idle thought, as I might find myself in the market for a Mustang bass soon. I am looking at the MIJ single split coil ones rather than the recent rash of P/Js - did they ever come with black bodies, black pickguards and a maple neck? I've seen pics of that combo on 70s/80s USA ones. Also the Squier VM Mustang had this option - which is actually quite tempting, I had one and it was great. Muchas gracias

There is your solution. Right there.

Makes perfect sense to me. My MM Sterling is now passive, sporting a P bass pickup and different electrics.

Describes me to a tee.😂

Made my eyes water just reading that. I had this with a bass once, forget which, and I ran the string through a washer at the back of the bridge. Wasn't pretty but it worked.

Strings arrived, all is good. Thanks again.

In my little band I enjoy several - American Girl, Lido Shuffle in particular, but Psycho Killer is most fun. Our singer really gives it some welly, too. Bon Jovi tribute bass line I enjoy the most is probably Living On A Prayer. Nothing much to it but it is powerful and drives the song along so nicely.

I saw them first time at a tiny little venue in the basement of the Queens Hotel in Westcliff when Herr Schenker was still fresh from the boat - just before Phenomenon was released. My mates and I were at the youth club playing table tennis and someone said this band UFO were playing. No-one had heard of them but we decided to take a punt! Saw them a couple more times, once near the end when they had a huge bust up on stage and Schenker waltzed off.

At least going on such a long walk would have been good exercise.

Thank heavens - some folk should never be trusted with sharp implements.

Thank you! I'll order some. If they are the wrong ones I can blame you now ..

After a bit of Googling it looks like these could be Thomastick Infeld Jazz flats. I've certainly bought these before now. Anyone able to confirm, please?

Doesn't ring a bell for anyone? I would have bought these and have never bought half rounds - definitely flats.... But which?

Over the weekend I fished various sets of flats out from my spare strings draw and fitted them on to a P bass to see which I preferred - this for my new blues band. I have some very thick gauge, extremely high tension that look like silver snakes with black silks at the top. These were too uncompromising, albeit nice and thuddy. I think they may be La Bella 760FS? Anyway, matters not as they are too tight. Then I tried a set of thinner gauge that were not ground so smoothly - if you run your nail along them you can still feel ridges albeit slightly - red silks both ends and far lower tension. Much brighter tone, brass ball ends. I like these a lot - they sounded lush at yesterday's rehearsal. Trouble is I can't for the life of me remember which ones they are. I'd like to fit a set of these to my 5 string but it would be extremely handy to know which they are - are there enough clues in my description? Muchas gracias! Paul

A small bump for next week's gig.

Easy. Gloss black. With a BWB pickguard and a maple neck. Oh, yes, and Precision shaped. I imagine that would be some folks' worst nightmare!

You can see these roller banners being used here:

Or, to do it to death, the blue cafe?

One that took me hours and hours of practice to get right was 'Keep The Faith'. It is an iconic bass line in one of Bon Jovi's iconic songs , I am in a BJ tribute so had to nail it.