Shaggy

Really beautiful, and so nice to see some of the older 'bics in recent posts. Mine's likewise a '76 series 1, long-scale with birdseye maple facings, marked as an export model. A couple of gratuitous pics, which I've no doubt posted previously..

It’s your bass of course, and I can fully understand why you’d do it, but to me that would be like putting a brassiere on the Venus de Milo......😢

Watching final.........😎 Utter shite so far apart from Lithuania. Presenters have to be most embarrassingly bad ever.

Bought something non-bass from Brian; smooth easy deal with great communication; item sent off pronto and superbly packed.🙂 Definitely one of BC’s good guys - deal with in complete confidence. 👍

I’d never heard about the Hofner connection either Only seen them in sunburst or natural before, always with really nicely flamed maple backs.

Bought my Ibanez MC900 new in Hesseys of Liverpool, Oct 1979 - £200 with a non-Ibanez hard case.

If you can stretch to the Spoiler I’d say go for it, as ‘bics really do have that special “extra” quality, and you’d pay the same as that these days for a ‘70’s Fender or MM Stingray. Or if not, to be honest I’d be looking for a nice old Jaydee - boutique hand-built, very ‘Alembic-ish”, and can still be sometimes had for not too much moolah Edit: sticking with vintage Japanese; the Kawai F2B was effectively an Alembic series 1 copy - I’ve no experience of them but owners seem to love them, and they generally go for around the same as an Ibanez MC900

Bolan was an unfulfilled genius; unfortunately the image-making rather took over from the music, but had he lived who knows what he would have gone onto create. I’ll always respect him also as an early supporter of punk / new wave. I really love some of his more offbeat stuff, eg:

No experience of Aria SB’s, but they seemed to be the more ubiquitous of the two in mainstream music in the early ‘80’s. The Ibanez Musician MC900 is the only bass out of a crazy number owned that I ever bought brand new. Beautifully constructed, really nice to play, but I didn’t bond with it for whatever reason; I think I just found the tone a bit bland and characterless. Probably if I’d tried it with other amps and strings I’d have found the combination that suits (being only 18 at the time I was pretty clueless....) - I know it’s one of the favourite basses of Dave Swift (Jools Holland’s band), think he has a few of them. When I finally was able to acquire an Alembic S1 I realised it was everything I’d wanted the Ibanez to be, but I know that’s raising the stakes to a whole new level!

I think Mick Karn was still using his until the end (the recordings with Japan were mainly with a Travis Bean of course), though in general I’d agree with you re early Wal players moving onto other basses. I’ve only seen pics of Severin with the black headstock Wal - I’m sure the provenance for the OP bass is lost in the mists of time.....

I use Tannoy Mercury M1’s for my hi-fi, which are just ridiculously good for the size.......👍

I only have one, but it exists in 17 different dimensions simultaneously, so to the untrained eye it superficially appears to be 17 different basses. I did try explaining this to Mrs Shaggy.......🤔

Just as a heads up; Sky Arts channel is showing “A saucer full of secrets” (Nick Masons side project) doing a gig at the Roundhouse, this Thursday 11:30pm. Nick, Guy Pratt, Gary Kemp, and someone else. I’ll give it a go as I love the early Floyd stuff.... Haven't heard the song in the OP yet, (will do now) but Wright and Waters were always the guts of the band to me after Syd left,

The Skids - What a band; saw them live in Liverpool Uni circa 1979. Have to say I wasn’t quite such a fan of BC, although a really unique sound, and what a golden era of Scottish music that was: Simple Minds, The Associates (with the fabulous and equally tragic Billy McKenzie), Orange Juice, Altered Images, the Blue Nile, etc etc The good die young ☹️ Listen and enjoy: