Rich

You and I both. When I first saw the Modern V, my very first thought was not "oh look, a contemporary take on the classic Flying V" so much as "oh look, a completely unimaginative and no doubt stratospherically priced ripoff of the Roswell Rhoads". I suspect this may not be the reaction Gibson were hoping for.

Oh good choice sir. One of my favourite songs ever. My personal choice would be Once Around The World with the original It Bites lineup. Or perhaps Milliontown with Frost*.

The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing

This, I like... This, not so much.

Wrong wrong wrong. It's correctly pronounced 'Eee-piff-wun', as any fule kno.

If there is a 1x12 shootout, I have a trusty old SWR Bass Monitor 12 I could bring along. Would be interesting to see how it measured up to the (much) younger upstarts!

And that's my second favourite song in our set

Recently joined a ska band and am loving it. Ska is the sound of my youth but I've never played it before and it's a real blast, especially Horace's work with the Specials. We also do a couple of reggae tunes, and one in particular -- Bob Marley's 'Is This Love?' -- is really floating my boat. It's the highlight of the set for me. Family Man's bassline is just beautiful, there's so much space in it that every note really means something. I hesitate to say 'less is more' because it's such a cliché, but... yeah 😄 Any love for reggae and ska bass out there?

Yes. The rest of my band say they have no problem with my zimmer frame, but I've seen the glances. They've got it in for me. Is it time for my nap yet?

Quite true. Which is why I said "If age really is the only reason he's been binned..."

Used Yamaha basses can be had for peanuts, and to my mind represent almost unbeatable VFM.

I saw my doctor about my TE a few years back... he said that in his 30 years in general.practice, he had never had a single TE case that was actually caused by tennis. I must say, your symptoms don't read like classic TE at all, certainly not as it was explained to me. Still, I'm glad yours is feeling better -- onward and upward! Good news.

If age really is the only reason he's been binned, then I really feel for him. I mean, it's only a function band FFS, it's not like they need to foster a youthful image to draw a following or impress a label. There might be more than meets the eye, 2 sides to every story and all that, but if age is the sole issue then I don't blame him for feeling bitter.

Second gig with the ska band last night. Longer set this time. Went really well and i got lots of compliments on my sound, the band in particular loved it (all i did was roll off the passive tone on my Sire V7 fiver about 60% of the way to take the bright snap out of the tone, and boost the active bass a bit). I had a total mare in a couple of songs, Ghost Town in particular was a real car crash. Which is annoying because it was fine at the last gig -- more personal practice needed and less complacence. I'm having a ball playing this stuff. The venue fed us too, absolutely belting pizza.

There are only a few features I dislike really: 1. Pointy or overly large headstocks 2. Neck-dive (more ergonomic than aesthetic, admittedly) 3. Bongo. What were they thinking? 4. Buckeye burl 5. Literally everything about this monstrosity:

First off, I would wholeheartedly agree with everyone who has said "buy secondhand". Your money will go a long way and would easily get you that Warwick if you found one. You'd definitely be in Shuker/ACG/etc territory. As far as the Sire V7 is concerned, I will gladly try to persuade you. I adore mine, and as you say the VFM is unbelievable. I have tried a lot of 5 string Jazz basses and the only one I've played that was better than the Sire was a £3000 Celinder. The Fender Marcus Miller sig 5-string costs nearly 2 grand and was blown into the weeds by the Sire. And please don't be intimidated by the controls, it's really not much more complex than the EQ on the SR655. The only differences are a} a sweepable mid (without the sweep a mid control is a bit pointless IMHO), b} an active/passive EQ bypass switch and c} passive tone control. It's tremendously flexible and dead easy once you get past the initial OMG-there's-so-many-knobs shock

Fixed

Nope, I wrote that on an Android. Also, I wrote 'that' on an android...

What is a bugger notice?

The post I've just hidden was political in nature.

No politics please.

Oi!

One does not simply 'move along' from a marmalade sandwich.

Delete 'get upset' and replace it with 'find it tiresome' and you're about right. I mean come on. "You're a snowflake, ner ner ni ner ner *pokes tongue out*". It's straight out of a primary school playground.