binky_bass

Now that this has all been cleared up, does anyone dare share an offensive joke? 😂

The world wouldn't turn if everything was neutral. It would also be exceptionally boring. Neutrality is a different point entirely to treating everyone with respect. The latter I absolutely agree with, but neutrality is not something I agree with. Some like beige, some like radical bold colours. There's nothing wrong with either. Some are career driven and seek to earn as much as they can, some are more than content in life without having career goals. There's nothing wrong either either.

I'll be openly honest here and say that I generally find offensive humour much funnier that PG humour. I suspect everyone is probably not in a dissimilar boat, whether they choose to admit it or not! What people will say out loud, and the opinions they voice in public are seldom the same as the true person that they are.

Balls to 'this day and age'. That I find offensive! To submit to the current culture of everything must be neutral and even is an utterly impossible goal. Life is not even, equal or neutral, to try and insist it should be is setting yourself up to fail as life will never be this peachy walk through the park where everyone is exactly equal to the next person. I long for an age were the thought of race, gender, personal preferences etc. aren't even a consideration anymore, where you could be trans, straight, black, male, blue, unspecified and be looked upon in the same light as the next person, with no judgement. BUT I do not long for the day where everything is forced neutrality. I have my interest, they may not be your interests, but I have the right to be able to access content that appeals to my interest. We are not all the same, we like different things, life is a beautiful tie-dye of different appetites, just because someone chooses to be trans doesn't mean we can't still read a book where the love interest is male/female. Nor does it mean that I (as a man in a male/female relationship) should de-value another book written where the relationship portrayed is based on a different paradigm. To grey everything out would be a crying shame and totally the wrong way to celebrate our differences.

My wife (or should I say my non-specific gender life partner) just doesn't care any more! There's 28 'keeper' guitars/basses in the house at the moment and frequently there's another few being worked on for re-sale... To quote her directly "Just buy me something pretty and I'll forget about the 'new' guitar". Ours is a partnership of compromise! 😁 We are folk of different strokes, differences should be celebrated and shared, not chastised and forced into neutral pigeon holes for fear of offence. I get offended on a daily basis by many things, we all do, thats life! If I live a life with never experiencing offence, I wouldn't be who I am today. Embrace offence!!!

But that's not the guys life... He's writing from his experience so it's contextually correct. That's akin to saying that all romance novels written thus forth must be gender neutral for fear of offending someone, the result would be no-one would ever buy a romance novel again as no one, bar a very small (but no less important!) slice of society, would identity with the content. Tailoring everything to neutrality is not the right way to go in my opinion.

Just to throw my 2 cents in... I don't disagree with @Silvia Bluejay, but, at the same time free speech comes with the price of sometimes not liking what is said. Humour is also hugely subjective... and in the current climate not a soul here would admit to finding blackface funny, yet I absolutely guarantee that most of you have laughed at it in the past (League Of Gentlemen, Always Aunny, Mighty Boosh to name a few). I feel that we are sinking ever closer to a society that will be permanently walking on eggshells. Anyone is free to be offended, but to live in a world where no one is ever offended would be absolutely terrible as it would literally mean no one could do anything as with 7,000,000,000 people out there, you can guarantee that someone will alwaya be able to find offence in what you do and say!

@Silvia Bluejay It has wood on it... it counts! Looks fantastic!

Love that etched look, very striking! @Silvia Bluejay, can you share a picture of the whole instrument.

Got myself into a photography mood... Here are a few more I've just taken of some of the flock.

This guy:

It's clearly a longhaired caveman with his back to you looking at a sunset.

To be fair, if that was on canvas and hung in a corner of the Tate no one would think it out of place!

I've been musing over some of my basses and thought that a thread dedicated to a photo of your favourite bit of wood on your favourite bass would be quite cool! A few minor ground rules: The photo must be a bass or a guitar you own. It must be a photo taken by you. It must show ONLY WOOD! No hardware, pickups etc. Just wood! Minor light editing allowed, no major photoshopping! Name your instrument and the wood (if you can!) Keen to see what crazy examples show themselves! Here is my submission: 'Space Worm'. It is a Reiver Kompakt T7 (built by Alan of ACG) with a dyed Maple Burl top.

just remembered to use protection!

And just for fun, all 3 together!

So, FINALLY, I've taken delivery of this astonishing beast... A 2019 built Kompakt T7 from Reiver Guitars (built by Alan of ACG). Purchased second hand from Reverb and after 12 days in transit it arrived! It's ridiculous. The build quality surpasses everything. I have a PRS Custom 22 and that feels like a Squire in comparison. The top wood (Dyed and Acrylic Impregnated Maple Burl) is, for lack of a better word, savage. There's even a cheeky little worm guy hiding in the grain! The Hipshot tremolo is fantastic, keeps excellent tune and very easy to use. The proprietary Reiver Igneous II pickups are a treat and with the East Active Tone Boost you can achieve some fantastically usage tones. This thing is simply beyond good. Flame Sycamore fretboard, Wenge/maple neck, luminlay side and top dots, the action is incredibly low. I am not one to rant on about something unless it is deserving of a rant, and good god this is deserving! @skelf, you sir are some kind of magician. The Worm (as I am now calling this beast) will live along side the 30.5 6er you built me and the 9 string ACG indefinitely.

Less arrogance makes better music! 😂 I jest, I jest!

@visog, as someone who plays only 6+ string basses, I must ask you - why even ask this question? What concern is it of yours to assume there's no merit in having any more strings just because you don't play anything past 4 strings? That's akin to saying 'I don't understand why you don't like mustard, I like mustard therefore surely everyone else must like it too'. People are different, choice is a beautiful thing. I enjoy playing 6+ string basses because a 4 string simply can't do what I enjoy playing. Extended chords and tap style is far more conducive to a 6 than it is to a 4. And yes, I'm sure there's plenty of 'tappers' who make do with 4 strings, there's also some cyclists that prefer a unicycle. At the end of the day, you might no be able to see past 4 strings, that doesn't mean we all have to be so closed minded! This is always an utterly moot arguement whenever someone has raised it. Do your own thing, I'll do mine, and let's be happy that we're both happy with our choices!