Cliff Edge

I have seen Robert Plant and Allison Krause live in smaller venues and it’s a really exceptional show. Yesterday the musicianship was amazing but the vocal levels were way too low. You can never rely on the BBC to get live sound right. Apart from a a few minutes of Eilish I have yet to watch anything else.

If she dropped the rather silly and not very attractive backing singers and just concentrated on singing instead of trying to be sexy I might have paid more attention. But I switched her off when she finally realised she’d forgotten to plug her guitar in. All that bumping and grinding on stage is getting rather tiresome and outdated. If you want to watch dancing watch Strictly.

Your guess is as good as mine, probably better. What would that signify anyway? I have never been able to decipher anything else on there. All the original pots and wiring were junked years ago when they became unreliable. There’s nothing else on it beyond the name stamps of the guys who put it together. All were working at Fender in the late 60’s early 70’s.

Ooo shiny. I was always drawn to those aluminium necks.

Ok how do you get that because I could never make out any thing beyond the figure 72. The serial on the neck plate is 375337 and I have always assumed 72.

I bought this pre owned from a music shop in North London in 1981. As you can see it has been well used and is no longer completely original. Bits have been replaced due to them breaking, wearing out or simply ceasing to work. All the wood is original as is the bridge. It still plays and sounds amazing. See what you can make of the neck stamp:-)

Yes. Probably the best solution.

No but it’s good to know it’s on before you start the song.

Playing outside gigs in the sunshine is great. But if you’ve got pedals at your feet it’s often impossible to see the power lights. So any creative ideas to overcome this or do we just have to stand on one foot and use the other to try and shade the pedal to see if its on?

One fairly new to me 32” scale Aria TSB650 from 1979 next to my ‘72 Jazz. Both strung with TI jazz flats but the Aria thumps and growls like no Jazz bass ever has. Those pickups are amazing. It’s a dream to play and is my current gigging machine.

I bought a new Fender P bass around 1972 which had the same alignment problem. It went back for a replacement. The shop confirmed it wasn’t the only one they’d had. Pleased to say my 72 Jazz bought some 10 years later is still in fine shape. Except for all the bits that I’ve had to replace over the years when they failed due to being used.

Jools Holland and band last night in Hastings. God knows what the booking fee is for that lot. 18 plus people on stage at one point, plus the crew and transport. Worth the reasonable price of admission, great show but I would have turned the vocal mikes up a bit. That band is loud.

Jools Holland and band in Hastings on Friday.

Not so much the vinyl more the turntable speed. 33 and a third rpm isn’t the best for high definition reproduction.

I’ll watch the show on iPlayer as I was out last night in the company of Sandi Toksvig. No, she doesn’t know me, I was just an audience member.

I once turned up to a gig 24 hours early due to a calendar malfunction.

ZS 10’s get thumbs up from me as well. Astonishing sound for the money.

My 72 Natural finish Jazz has these marks. It also has a large red stamp NATURAL in the neck pocket. Natural custom colour code was 151 according to Fender price lists in 1973 and added $18 to the price.

Thanks, I’ll look for them.

Very interesting. 🙂

I keep meaning to revisit his books.

Absolutely none. ( Er, well, see below) When I started out the only bass player I was aware of was Jet Harris. He played a precision but I couldn’t afford one and I had no idea how good or bad they were anyway. My first was a Framus Star Bass my father bought me. It was much later that I realised some bloke in the Rolling Stones was also using one. Since then I’ve mostly used Fenders with the odd flirtation with other brands solely out of curiosity, not aware if anyone remotely famous used any of them. Confession. A couple of years ago I became aware that Carol Kaye is now using an Ibanez instead of the Precision, so I went investigating them. I bought an SR900, ok it’s not the same model but that’s not the point. It’s very nice, so thank you Carol. But I’m not selling my old Jazz.

A shout out to WD Music. A set of Gotoh replacements ordered yesterday afternoon delivered by the postman this morning. Excellent service and free delivery too.

Yes, not sure what Squire were up to with yours. Whatever it is it ain’t a good copy of the original. You should definitely not have to do what you have to make it playable. If it were mine I would have taken it back to wherever it came from.

This is the same measurement at the 19th fret on my 1973 Jazz. Any other measurements I could give are irrelevant considering the obvious difference.