Shaggy

I thought there had to be some strategy in the apparent craziness. Though not so many years ago he listed a fretless Wal neck with BIN of a mere £350 - albeit with truss rod nut missing so truss rod could have been FUBAR. Sadly, I dithered too long....... Damn, really sorry to hear that tauzero, right before Christmas too

Lol ok, I was a bit strong there...... I got into them just about the time of "Obscure Alternatives", which was rarely off my turntable, but I still often listen to "Quiet Life" and "Polaroids" (plus a compilation with some of their rarer work) - they were unfairly categorised as an inferior Roxy Music at the time. Not so keen on the later Chinese-y stuff. You were very lucky to see them live - Mick Karn must have still been using the Travis Bean then

Jeez, I wish I'd seen that listing - I'm just starting on banjo, a long time ambition Phil's instruments are works of art - I think his missus does the amazing inlay work. Gratuitous pic of my Davidson F5 mandolin attached

Happy to concede that your first sentence is correct, which is why my quoted comment was qualified by an '"if" This thread very unsurprisingly shows that it's all down to opinion, and so entirely subjective. Personally, I prefer the later and more successful lineups of Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, and Fleetwood Mac. Japan were utterly dire before "Quiet Life". I loved The Skids (saw them live), but personally found Big Country rather uninspired and uninspiring. However I respect that your opinion is different.

I'd sneak in original line up Roxy Music with Brian Eno - yes they hit the big time with that line up, but were even bigger later on playing (what was for me) pretty dull AOR without Eno's originality and quirkiness

Definately the mk 1 version before Sting's ego joined the band...... also I think original lineup of Dr Feelgood with Wilko fits the criteria, as they had more commercial success just after he left but most of what had made the band great had gone

I think the OP meant only in terms of band line-up changes? In which case if the The Skids were the mark 1 Big Country, I'd include them main ones that occur to me are; mark 1 Ultravox with John Foxx on vocals / songwriting, and mark 1 Magazine with John McGeogh on guitar (they didn't last too long after he left anyway)

Wal definitely do NOT supply their bespoke parts to any other manufacturer or private buyer A couple of years ago I had the '82 Wal MK 1 Custom from Beedster that had been previously butchered by someone who had fitted Jazz pickups and a generic active circuit fully restored to original spec by Wal. Which they did, being the great guys they are, but took some persuading and only agreed as it was evidently a genuine old Wal bass

If you're a decent harp player you'll always be demand.....

You can only fit so much into a week, which is why I've so far deliberately avoided taking up fishing or golf my "age out" plan is to learn the banjo and annoy the missus

Interesting one. Having gigged from the age of 16, at 55 I'd found myself inadvertently sucked into a Dad-rock band a couple of years back, - the really strange thing to me is that for the first time the weekly practice was the main focus of the band rather than the gigging (though there was the occasional gig) - it was a social thing, . Pleasant enough and lovely guys and gals, but playing live has always been the motivation to me and I've never looked down on playing covers in the Dog & Duck - an audience is an audience, and the crowds in the valleys pubs here are the best I've played to anywhere. Looking though this thread, I think there must be a fair bit of regional variation in finding bands and how busy bands are - on JMB or whatever it's not hard to find a band here n S Wales if you're a bass player, although it's almost all the inevitable classic rock / blues or well known covers - I've done both, and in many venues that what the punters like and fully expect to hear. At 57 I'm now in a gigging disco and funk band which is something I've wanted to do from the very start - drummer is 50-ish and guitarist and female singer are late '20's / early '30's - I realise this is probably my "swan-song" of being in a young gigging band, so making the most of every minute.

I've probably missed out on a few bargains over the years by being annoyed by listings that end in "£...99" or even worse (as here) £...999. Just call it £3K for chrissakes. . This is why the missus compares me to Victor Meldrew of course......

I'd check out (Google) the violin restorers around your way too - bound to be a few. They'd be used to doing highly skilled work on acoustic instruments, and repairs using antique tonewoods / finishes (I'd assume the Martin would either be oil varnished or French polished)

A few more rare-ish ones in my arsenal.... '58 Gibson EB-2 (so pre-baritone switch, with Kluson banjo tuners and single-coil Bakelite pickup) '77 Ovation Magnum 1 fretless (rare, as the only factory fretless one I've ever seen) Early Travis Bean TB2000 '79 CF Martin EB-18 Late '80's Steve Smith (ex-Goodfellow luthier) long scale "EB-2"

I used to have a 1972 MGB Roadster in just that colour - British Leyland called it "Pageant blue" Nice!

'81 Gibson RD Artist CMT

Yes, that was the point - the original circuit might be perfectly acceptable; but if you're going to fit high grade pickups then something like an East circuit is going to complement the pickups to get the very best tone out of them. As there no rush, you'll get boutique bargainaceous gear here on BC for the price of generic new - I had some Barts on here for peanuts that I put into an MB1 Squier P/J that absolutely transformed it into a bass as good as any big-name equivalent.

Upgrading pickups are almost always the single best way of massively improving tone /response of an electric instrument. With the Clipper being a Warwick "clone" I guess EMG's or MECS's would be appropriate, but my choice would be Bartolini's - they just seem to work great in any bass. A decent active circuit upgrade (pretty cheap these days) would then get the best out of the pickups. They look like nice basses, and anything through that Hiwatt is gonna sound huge!

These...... Also bridge saddles that don't fall out when there's no string tension on them when changing strings, and personally I prefer master vol / balance pan for 2 p/up basses rather than vol / vol. Some of these features go way back - loads of '60's instruments were zero-fret, and my mid-60's Vox teardrop (active) had a built-in tuner in the sense that pulling out the treble control produced a E tone that you could tune to

Seriously cool looking old bass, though I can well beleive mgeek that it's almost certainly fairly horrible to play. A few years ago I bought an old six-string semi in a junk shop for 30 quid purely with the intention of ripping out the pickups for a '60's inspired project build, but didn't have the heart to - so re-finned it instead (it had a botched brush varnish re-fin job covered with punk-era graffiti) and upgraded the crude original bridge & tailpiece. Turns out the pickups are Fenton-Weill units (like in the OP) and guitar is probably a"Broadway" - one of Rosetti's budget bitsa brands of the early '60's. Quite tempted by this thread to use those pickups and circuit for a super-streamline build now though!

Fantastic stuff, and I liked the understated and very funky guitar playing too As ever, I'm entirely baffled how bassists who wear their bass so high up the body manage to do it. I'll have to give it a go, and imagine I've got shorter arms.