leftybassman392

It wouldn't be the first time they've sold off assets for others to take up... Heritage

Nice to see so many pontiffs gathered together. Minor retraction: not too many actual pontiffs, but with due respect to the OP it's a shop. Short of willfully damaging the merchandise, assaulting the staff or defecating in the corner I would have thought there's very little one shouldn't do. (Morris dancing is probably not a good idea...) The vast majority of the people crossing the threshold will be there to buy, play or admire the merchandise, all of which is good for the people running the place I would have thought. As to the offence caused to staff, well they're there mainly to help separate customers from their money. Their opinion on what goes down in the shop (short of the aforementioned damage, assault and defecation of course) is of little consequence. You're paid to be there dude: deal with it. Unless there's some sort of super secret bass player's taste etiquette at work of course...

The Tele is a simple, no frills workhorse of a guitar. I love them to bits, and have had a few over the years. My favourite was probably a Japanese-made black '72 reissue that I used as my main working guitar for years. Can't think why I ever sold it TBH. I don't know much about Harley Bentons, but they are pretty popular around this parish. Don't bother with the Paisley finish though (you're paying extra for it). If you're looking at a good amp on a tight budget you might want to consider secondhand. Might be a bit of a stretch, but you could do worse than an old Laney LC15. Valves inside, and a lot louder than the wattage might lead you to believe. ETA: You should be aware that all Fender electrics (and most of the clones) have thin, wirey frets, and all guitars have thin, weedy strings: this is normal.

Care to expand on this?

I've occasionally wondered about that. The standard pronounciation comes across as Americanised to my ears - you know, for people who can only pronounce words the way they're spelt. As in Joan Benoit for example.

Badum tish! Ithangyoo. You have no idea how long I've been waiting to do that to somebody.

Come to think of it, why do we call it a bass a base? For example: Seibass is pronounced 'Saybase'. I reckon it should be 'Seabass'. Call me a stickleback, but it looks a bit fishy to me.

Naive question I'm sure, but... Any clues about likely asking price? Ballpark would do.

It's already been said on another thread not a million miles from here, but... Is he sure he needs 100W? Valve amps are generally a lot louder than solid state amps of equal wattage. In particular, a 100W Marshall valve amp will go loud enough to make your ears bleed, and permanent hearing damage will be along quite soon afterwards. The reason this is relevant is that valve amps tend to give of their best when the output side is being driven a bit, with Marshalls being a good case in point. It sounds fabulous, but with a 100W you'll never be able to access it in a live situation, especially with a 4x12. Looks dead cool on stage, but what's the point if you can't actually use it for it's intended purpose? If nothing else will do then fine, knock yourself out; your (or rather, his) money and all that, but given the kind of gigs you seem to be doing this smacks of fairly serious overkill. Just so he knows, I earned my daily bread as a guitarist for around 20 years, and as far as big valve amps go I've been there done that got the hearing damage and the bad back. My advice? Tell your guitarist to save his bank balance, his (and your) ears and his back and get something smaller. Even 50W would need to be used with care; 30 or 40 will probably be plenty. Edit To Add: if he's after the Marshall character, turning it down and using pedals would be a solution, but then again he'd lose a big chunk of that character that he'll have paid quite a lot for...

This. It depends on a number of factors so there's no 'one size fits all' (yeah yeah, I know...) solution. Lots of people make the mistake of thinking either: 1. What they would be happy to use - it's not for you dude, it's for your child; 2. Buying something too big so that they can 'grow into' it. More understandable this one, and does have some (albeit limited) merit. In general it's better for the instrument to be just a tad big for now, but not so big that the poor little bugger can't get their fingers around it or reach the nut. Sounds obvious I know, but you'd be surprised...

Bit of a namedrop, but I used to know Horace back in the day. Lovely bloke and a great player. Before they broke through they used to gig fairly regularly at Warwick uni school of education (or that's how I remember it at least...). They had a sizeable and very loyal following even then. Always been a fan of the music although I don't get the chance to listen much these days. +1 for Aston Barrett as well - very understated but a key element in the Wailers' sound. (Bit of trivia; although the 'Family Man' moniker wasn't about his domestic status at the time it was coined, he has apparently fathered 41 children since ).

Here's the perfect song for it: Obvious really...

Nice! I've never been fortunate enough to own one but used to lust after them back in the day.

Fixed for you. Oh, and I agree.

No worries. 9's on a Les Paul feel a bit weedy IME is all.

I have this picture of somebody hacking Bellamy's guitar during a live gig and making it sound like a series of farts...

Probably a bit late now, but... I'd also recommend trying him out with 10's. As has been said they'll feel like 9's would on a Fender because of the shorter scale length (243/4" v. 251/2"), and the extra mass in the strings should give a slightly fuller tone. Marginal, but worth a go at some point before he gets too used to the 9's.

There's a few nice amps in the marketplace here. As it happens one of them is my Cornford Hurricane, but if you're after that Marshall sound it may be a shade dark. Nothing like trying stuff out for yourself though; get on down to your local emporium and get playing.

I agree that it's a very interesting case. One the one hand it's tempting to see her as a bit of a Mumsnet agitator (although calling her a chancer is a bit strong IMHO); but on the other hand it's a mother who wants to engage with her daughter's musical tastes (and when all's said & done she didn't choose to be deaf). Unless I've missed something here the issue is to do with the level of provision and support provided for the show. I'd say that both sides have a case. The promoters certainly seem to have made some effort to accommodate the mother (and while I'm on the subject, I thought the free ticket for the mother was quite a nice gesture that they didn't need to make: if an automatic free carer's ticket for every child at one of these gigs becomes a requirement then that really will open the floodgates); but on the other hand the band's music is specifically targeted at a very young audience. If people with hearing difficulties want to attend the show (be they children or adults) then the law seems to require that the organisers do as much as they reasonably can to give them as full an experience as possible. It's not enough to say 'well they're deaf; what do they expect?' I'll be interested to see whether a court decides there is a difference in law between a main act with support and a festival format - there's a pecking order even at festivals so I don't think it's as much of a foregone conclusion as some here seem to be thinking.

I had a look around for stuff on Bootsy, but didn't find anything of that nature. Maybe I've just led a quiet life...

Chuck Berry springs to mind, but I'll bet there's still plenty of bands playing 'Johnny B. Goode'. I'd certainly agree that we tend to be selective in who we seek to eviscerate. While I'm here, somebody spoke to the historical dimension earlier in the thread; and yes, it's a bit too easy to assume that the way we do things now is the only (or even the best) way to do it. It's not that many generations ago that the age of consent in the UK was 12.