Shaggy

I think Hugh Cornwell said that the Stranglers had their roots in late '60's English psychedelia. Like Dr Feelgood and The Jam they'd started before Punk with inspiration directly from the '60's, but got fuelled by the energy and musical freedom of Punk like so many other bands at the time. I've a particular soft spot for the Stranglers, as it was a gig at Cambridge Corn Exchange in 1977 that switched this particular spotty 16-year old from violin to bass guitar - I was gigging within a month. And "Rattus...." has to be one of the best debut albums of all time; "Hanging around" still makes the hairs stand up..... (No longer dyed green, alas)

Great advice I'm in a job where I often have to give people pre-interview advice or post-interview feedback, and one thing I always tell them is that being nervous is good - it gives you an edge. A bit of adrenaline gets you thinking faster, muscles working better, etc. Being a total nervous wreck is not good however, hence the sage advice above about preparedness Also - nothing worse than watching a bored band just "going through the motions" I bet all the true stars who have been doing it for decades still get nerves, because they care about the performance Personlly, I think bass is the best position in a band there is - you can hide at the back and just look cool, or act like a total loon and do a "Flea" or a "Sid Vicious" - up to you! . I wouldn't want to be front-man - that would make me nervous.....

Partly marketing, and partly we (the public) do love our labels - "The King", "The Boss", "The Fab Four" etc.... To me Aretha was the Queen, simply because she exuded Soul even though there may have been technically better singers around, and I doubt we will ever see the like of those icons of the '60's again (Stones included, whatever label describes them) because the world and the route to stardom are now so very different. To me - very unoriginally - Soul reached its absolute apex with "What's going on" in 1971. I even like a lot of what Aretha (and Marvin) did in the '80's, unlike some of their contemporaries

I entirely disagree with the first part of that, whilst agreeing that a great deal of mumbo-jumbo IS "perpetuated by those with a vested interest." All solid electric instruments have a acoustic tone, which you can hear by holding your ear against the body whilst playing (how I used to tune-up pre-gig before electric tuners!), and that acoustic tone underpins the amplified tone - in my experience a solid bass that sounds dead acoustically will sound lacklustre amplified, whatever its construction happens to be. Most of my basses are Gibson, and leaving aside the major variations due to pickups and active / passive EQ etc; a mahogany-bodied solid bass will tend to sound warm and harmonically rich whereas a maple body will sound more "brittle" with less harmonics. However, no reason at all why resonant woods regarded as "cheap" like basswood and Carolina can't sound as good as or even better than expensive boutique hardwoods, and I'm sure the crap tone on my old Columbus was far more to do with the pickups that had the magnetic strength equivalent to the arm-wrestling strength of a gnat than the ply body.

Even expensive top end acoustic guitars are frequently constructed with laminated woods (ie ply) and semi-acoustics almost invariably are - eg the Gibson ES-335 which most players wouldn't regard as cheap. For flat thin sections ply is stiffer and more stable than wood, stronger in most dimensions (though wood is stronger in compression along the grain), and also formable into convex shapes. As said above there's ply and there's ply - I'm sure the body constrruction of that Ritter is tonally superior to anything other than a slab of really premium tone wood. The ply in 'a 70's Columbus Jazz bass copy is cheap nasty crumbly stuff, as I found out when replacing the neck pickup on mine with a Gibson mudbucker in around 1978 - of all the basses I've had it's the only one I found nothing endearing about whatsoever, other than it being my first long scale bass. I swapped it for a bike. Hopefully the OP's is a good one - one of my favourite basses was my old Kalamazoo KB-1 which had an MDF body made by a manufacturer of toilet seats.....

Just awesome....... "Carry on screaming" was of course the stand-out of the series, and as I recall FF briefly distracted my teenage lusts away from Purdey of the "New Avengers" before there was Nina Hagen and Siouxsie there was Fenella - the original Goth queen....

I know Iggy Pop did it first, but pretty sure DB wrote it Been avoiding Brown Eyed Girl like the plague for years, so my heart sank when current band recently wNted to to do the Reel Big Fish version - but have to say - it's a crowd-pleaser..... Jealous Guy?

Keep an eye on this then: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Allparts-Lic-by-Fender-Fretless-Jazz-or-Precision-bass-neck-with-ebony-board/163210742923?hash=item26001e4c8b:g:8EoAAOSwMwRbeb5R actually the relatively cheap Mighty Mite necks with fretless ebonol boards aren't half bad - the ebonol board on my Kramer 450B fretless is still going strong after 40+ years Sounds a good project; one of the nicest fretlesses I had was Bassbod's old '72 P with ebony board and P/J mods - I think the pickups were a matched pair of SD Antiquities, don't know how they compare to the Tony Franklin

Absolutely agree......I think it was the "Mad Wold" cover that started that particular malarkey off, which by itself wasn't too bad a cover Hayseed Dixie are the absolute business, seen them a couple of times. Edit: Reminded me that Craig Charles played a full-on funk version of "Ace of Spades" on R2 yesterday - great version, but really only the lyrics in common with the original My favourite ever cover -

I'm a late convert to Warwicks (though could be said my very first guitar was one; being an early '60's Framus Grand Star.....), mainly as I always thought they were a bit fugly TBH. But recently wanted something Stingray-esque and not too much dosh for a funk band project, and bought a '98 German (wenge neck) Corvette FNA off this forum. Have to say it ticks all the boxes, especially in terms of playing ergonomics, and the 3 band Seymour Duncan circuit is one of the nicest I've used. Patrick Lassens Custom Shop Dolphin is just one of the most fabulous looking and sounding basses of any type anywhere though -

Have to say, I quite miss the ads on dog-eared bits of paper or card pinned up in local music shops........ And the classified ads in back of Melody Maker etc (where many a big name band was formed) I once got phoned up to join a band through selling my Trace Elliot combo in the local paper (so identified as a bass player) you'd think it would be easier in this digital age, but maybe like the dating scene (not that I'd know) it's actually harder? Last recent 2 of mine through JMB, but long term one before that through one of those dog-eared bits of paper ads just before local music shop closed

1. Hercules guitar / bass stands. I had to get one out of necessity during a phase of gigging my Thunderbird and an old Explorer bass, but just so much more secure than conventional stands, and fold down compact too 2. TI flats. Tried flats and discarded in disgust at various times over the years until I found these. 3. A really decent quality lead. Audible improvement in sound, and no more re-soldering crappy cheap jack plugs. 4. Leffe Brune

Yup, Kramer were doing this a while ago........ https://reverb.com/uk/item/3560547-kramer-dmz-4000-bass-guitar-metal-neck-half-fretted-half-fretless-from-1979-added-photos edit: oops sorry Happy Jack, mis-read strings as frets.......

I'd personally regard the setup you've outlined above as more "mid" than "low" most passive basses have pretty pronounced midrange bias - in terms of aggression think Lemmy (Ric through Marshall valve head with mid EQ on max and treble & bass on min.) For active basses; Warwicks are known for midrange growl, but of course an active bass and any modern amp will do pretty much any range you want

The neck's a bit too shiny for me......

Bought a D-tuner off Mick - top BC-er, easy deal, and sent it off well packed straight away -thanks fella!

I think that's a MK IV not a Phantom, but it's a tempting project.....

Mesa Walkabout Not everyone likes them, but way better than I expected and IMHO the best mini sized amp there is