Bootsy Collins bass solo

guitarz.blogspot.com:

...just because I enjoyed watching it!

Look out for the guitarist wearing a baby's nappy! (Garry Shider, apparently.) I'm not sure what that's all about.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Music Man Bongo Bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Music Man, Leo Fender's first post-Fender guitar company, are known for their guitar and basses (some would say especially the basses) which are usually quite conservative in styling. But here we see that with the Music Man Bongo Bass they decided to break the mold and go for quite an almost space-age design.

It was the result of a partnership with DesignworksUSA, a design consultancy known for its work with BMW, and features a 24-fret rosewood fingerboard and 4-band active EQ powered by an 18V supply. This lefthanded model, currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of £1,200, features a pair of Music Man humbuckers, although other pickup combinations were also available. It is also custom fitted with Orange front-face magnifying Sims LEDs whereas stock models would have had moon-shaped inlays.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1960s Decca Bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I don't always get around to blogging about guitars I'm watching on eBay before the auction ends. I try my best to feature guitars while the auction is still active just in case some of you guys want to place a bid or hit that Buy It Now, but I'm usually watching so many at any one time and it's not possible to feature everything at once.

Sorry, that's a long-winded way of me saying this auction has already finished. This Decca-branded bass had a starting price of 99c and sold for $261.79. It's a Japanese-made instrument, and the seller claims that:

It is clearly an early product of the Matsumoko (whose Guyatone bass guitars had these pickups as well) and the pre-Kawai owned Teisco guitar factories as it has recognizable parts from each of those plants.

Well, the neck definitely looks Teisco with those inlays along the bass side of the fingerboard. The metal control plate is an interesting shape and incorporates an angled outward output jack (NOT "input jack" - sorry, pet hate of mine) which calls to mind a Strat style output socket mounted upside down and inside out.

The seller believes that the brand ties in with the Decca records label and that this brand of instruments was primarily produced for sale to small record shops. All of which sound highly feasible, but is conjecture.

Does anyone out there remember the Decca brand or know any more about this?

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Norma bass from the 1960s

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Norma solidbodies with their distinctive N-shaped fingerboard inlays were built by the Tombo Instrument company in Japan and imported into the US by Strum & Drum of Chicago. We've previously looked at two guitar models (here and here), but pictured above we see the bass variant, currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $399.99.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Mosrite Celebrity Bass, ultra-short-scale

guitarz.blogspot.com:

As you can see in this photo with two Fender Starcasters behind it, this Mosrite Celebrity Bass from 1967 isn't just a short-scale bass, it's an ultra-short-scale. In fact with a scale length of 24.5" it's a shorter scale than many guitars. You can just imagine how it sounds!

Personally I'd quite like to have an instrument like this and set it up and string it for DGBE tuning, i.e. an octave lower than the TOP four strings of a guitar rather than the bottom four... or octave baritone ukulele tuning if you prefer. That's an instrument I can imagine having a real use for.

Anyway, concerning this particular instrument, the seller tells us that:

According to the orange Mosrite label inside the f-hole this is style #221, the Celebrity CE III Mark X, which was offered from 1966-69. It is 1 7/8" deep at the rims and has a single-bound top and back. The serial number, Z 0362, is written on the label and stamped at the end of the rosewood fingerboard between the 21st and 22nd frets. Other features include bound f-holes, metal zero-fret, Mosrite logo-embossed machines with metal tuner buttons, adjustable bridge with non-roller string saddles, raised white plastic pickguard, short trapeze tailpiece, bridge cover/hand rest, dual pickups, and white plastic control plate with mounted jack and selector switch.

If I was in a position to be buying guitars right now, I'd be so tempted to snap this one up. It has a Buy It Now price of $795, which is about £488 to people like me. Sometimes it's hard compiling a guitar blog with all this temptation on daily basis!

Thanks to Jeremiah Cornelius for bringing this bass to my attention.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

AEB-2 scroll bass - Ampeg tribute by Bruce Johnson

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's an email from Jeremiah:

I finally saw something on eBay that breaks my heart not to have, and thought might be shared with the blog. eBay has a Bruce Johnston AEB-2 - new and direct from Bruce, himself. The serial is 073, and build date is this last Feb, 2011.

Johnston's scroll bass is a direct continuation of the classic Ampeg scroll bass, and was initially produced under a license. Bruce has steadily improved and modernised his builds, while remaining true to the original appeal and characteristics of the vintage Ampeg models.

Fantastic stuff. Thanks for sharing!

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Fender Mustang bass and guitar in Competition burgundy

guitarz.blogspot.com:

With a Buy It Now price of $3,190 each, it seems a shame that this Fender Mustang guitar and bass pair are being sold in separate eBay auctions. It seems only right, somehow, that they should be kept together and it would be a pity if they went to separate buyers. They both have the Competition stripe and are finished in burgundy which has faded over the years into a glorious blue/mauve burst.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1960s Vox Clubman bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I think in the early days Vox must have been rather slapdash about the names they applied to their guitars, as I had previously thought that the above-pictured bass was the Vox Bassmaster and not the Vox Clubman Bass which is the name that appears on the headstock on this example currently for sale on eBay. To confuse things even more, the name Vox Bassmaster also appeared on a completely different design of bass.

These early Voxes, made in Dartford, Kent, in the UK, were essentially student model guitars with a very thin plywood body. It looks as if the original finish (most likely red) was removed from this example a long time ago. Note also the jack socket, which would have been added later. Early Voxes such as this had a TV-like co-axial socket, as did the Vox Clubman II guitar I used to own (before I upgraded it).

Despite their student status, these basses are known for their distinctive sound and playability. Personally, because of their cheap construction, I wouldn't have thought they were eminently gig-worthy but perhaps to get that certain sound in the studio they would be desireable.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Guild B-301 Bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's a classic bass design that you don't see too often these days. Regarded as a reliable workhorse of a bass, the Guild B-301 was in production from 1977 through to 1980. It features a mahogany body with a set 3-piece mahogany neck. Pickups and controls were all mounted to the pickguard, meaning that the body only needed routing on the front side. This was an economical exercise in order to speed up and simplify mass production.

The B-301 was the single pickup model and the two pickup model was named - wait for it - the B-302. This example, with "B-301" on its truss rod cover, has two pickups - but one of these has been added by a previous owner.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Charvel Surfcaster Bass - ex Grog from Feline/Ultraviolet/Die So Fluid

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here we have a Charvel Surfcaster bass up for grabs on eBay. This particular example was previously owned by singer and bassist Grog and used in her bands Feline and Ultraviolet, before evolving into the darker, heavier  three-piece Die So Fluid (I believe she favours G&L basses these days). It's a thinline bass with a hint of Rickenbacker in its design. Unlike many guitars and basses we feature here on Guitarz, I can personally confirm that this bass plays and sounds fantastic having witnessed it in action on quite a few occasions and also on having tried it out. Grog actually had two of these basses - this red one and another in black (who knows where that one ended up). At one gig I went to, she ended up throwing both of them on the floor. They were obviously built to be able to withstand a lot of abuse and hard gigging.

First manufactured in 1991, the Surfcaster guitar and bass were something of a departure for Charvel, who up until then had mainly been concentrating on the pointy-headstocked superstrat market. As the name implies, they were aiming for more of a surf vibe, and the guitar was also being marketed to the country market, the Chandler lipstick pickups being suited to this sound.

However, they were also capable of a heavier sound, as evidenced in this video of Ultraviolet (below). Watch out for Grog's Surfcaster bass - the actual one for sale on eBay right now.

One last comment - don't confuse these Charvel Surfcasters with the later inferior "Made in India" Jackson models. Those awful guitars sully the Surfcaster name.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Jack Daniels bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Well, there's not much that can be said about this Jack Daniels bass - obviously inspired by the one used by Michael Anthony - other than that it'd be perfect for your Van Halen tribute band! It's a fun piece, a bit of a rock'n'roll cliché perhaps, but it's been very nicely executed. However, the Buy It Now price of $1,900 does seem a little steep for a nameless piece such as this (handmade in the UK, apparently - by who we are not told) and way out of the price range of most people working in covers bands.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1960s Yamaha SB2A bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This is an orginal Yamaha SBV bass from the late 1960s, although I'm not entirely sure of the exact model designation of this single-pickup version. (Edit: Big Red X tells me that it's an SB2A). Back in May of last year we looked at Kevin's pair of Yamaha SBV basses, which were re-issues from circa 2000. Other than pickup layout, the main difference between these and the 1960s example pictured above is scale length - this is apparent from the position of the bridge. Speaking of the bridge, there is no way that Precision-style unit is original to the 1960s SBV (and a quick Google image search will confirm this). The string spacing is a fraction too wide: look at how close the G and E strings come to the edge of the fingerboard up at the top end of the neck as it gets closer to the body.

Currently being offered for sale on eBay with a starting price of £449.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Rosetti Bass 7 by Egmond

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Rosetti was, and still is, a distributor of musical instruments in the United Kingdom. This 1960s Rosetti Bass 7 bears their name, but was in fact made by Egmond in The Netherlands and is quite typical for that brand. Note how it features a pickguard with integrated pickups and controls screwed to the top of the body, like something you would find on some archtop hollowbodies - only the body here is just a slab with no routing - all the electrics are in the pickguard. It's a crudely constructed instrument, but then these weren't high-end instruments, despite being the guitars and basses that many players started out on.

Really, today's up and coming players have it so very easy with good quality, affordable and playable instruments!

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Fender HMT Bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Guitarz reader Ryan Coons saw this on Craigslist and commented, "I've seen my share of Fender basses, but nothing quite like this one."

It's a Made in Japan Fender HMT Bass circa 1989/90, has an F-hole in a Thinline-inspired P-Bass body, an active TBX tone control and a piezo pickup in the fixed acoustic-style bridge. Very unusually for a Fender, it doesn't sport their trademark headstock shape or familiar logo. The name "HMT" and the headstock shape would imply "Heavy Metal", but the f-fole and acoustic pickup/bridge do not quite fit in with this image.

I remember around this period at a music show in London seeing a similar Fender bass, but fretless and with the more usual P-Bass headstock and in natural finish. I guess that was a Japanese-built sibling of the bass we see here. That one I could understand. This one seems to have identity issues.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Memories of a 1959 Gibson EB0 Bass

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Gary writes:

I just discovered your blog site about this Gibson bass tonight. My first bass I ever bought, Jan 1967, 44 years ago yesterday as I write this, was a 1959 EBO. I had no idea of the history of the EBO, I just bought it because it was $75 and the bass player of the Nomads, the hot band at my high school in Kansas City, Mo. had traded it in on an EB-2, I was just starting to play bass, and it was available. Had I had any idea of the history of the EBO I would still own it. Naturally, not knowing I traded it in for an EB-2 in 1972.

I loved that old EBO in spite of the fact that playing it was like driving a big truck without power steering. It was the only bass I'd ever really played at that time so I didn't know any better. I did fine with it but other players had a hell of a time with it. At a battle of the bands one night in 1971 the band that was up after us broke a string on his bass. True to the times he didn't carry spare strings so he asked to borrow my bass. In the end, our band won...his didn't. He was really angry with me because he said my bass was so hard to play he couldn't play well & that cost them the battle. Like I said I was used to it so it played fine for me.

I don't really know how it sounded. There weren't the bass amps availavble then that are around now. I had a 23 watt Silvertone head with a home made cabinet with 2-15" cheap speakers...who knew about good speakers. I would love to hear it thru my SWR SM-400 & Goliath cabinet I have today. Oh well.

I wish I hadn't gotten rid of it, it would have been a real collectors item. I have only ever seen one other one & that was back in the early 70's. Seeing the pictures on your blog brought on the pang in the heart that seeing an old girlfriend years later would bring.

Thanks for the blog page on it. It brought back a lot of memories I'm surprised I can still muster up.

Gary Snow

Hey Gary, thanks for writing to us with your reminiscences. As much as we love our guitars and basses here at Guitarz, a lot of what we write is gleaned via the internet rather than from personal experience. Unfortunately, it's not possible to try everything out! It's good to hear how some of these vintage instruments handled back in the day from someone who actually played them.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Mick Karn, RIP

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This is sad news. The world has lost one of the most innovative musicians ever, a guy who couldn't read music, claimed to know nothing of musical theory, and yet his playing was fluid and innovative.

Mick Karn, most famously was bassist with 1980s glam/art rock band Japan, lost his battle against cancer yesterday (4 January 2011). His fretless bass playing was so unique in style, so very distinctive that you couldn't mistake it for anyone else.

My favourite of his recordings was "The Waking Hour" by Dalis Car (Mick Karn with vocalist Peter Murphy from Bauhaus and drummer Paul Vincent Lawford) which contains some stunning compositions from Karn plus some phenomenal fretless bass. However, the clip I am showing below is taken from BBC 2's "Old Grey Whistle Test" from when there was a Musician's Union strike (which is a disasterous situation for a music show) and no live music was allowed. Bending the rules slightly, the programme had Angie Bowie reading one of her poems accompanied by Karn improvising on fretless bass (a section of his bassline here would later be used in one of his Dalis Car compositions).

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

10-string Santucci TrebleBass

guitarz.blogspot.com

OK, time to reactivate the too-many-strings war, with this 10-string Santucci TrebleBass that adds 4 bass strings in E A D G to 6 guitars strings in E A D G B E A - the standard bass and guitar tunings but with a gap between them (though I heard that some people tune it in C# F# B E A D G B E A) - all on one wide neck and with one scale (dunno how they do that). The TrebleBass can be played as a tapping guitar but also in regular style.

This is the kind of instrument that can easily be considered as a pure show-off tool, since it requires obviously the kind of virtuosity that often puts aside creativity and feelings - but for a few geniuses... One can wonder what kind of music you can play on this, so I add this video and the music is unsurprisingly some competitive muzak. But I still think that put in the right hands, this TrebleBass can be a terrific instrument and open new horizons - what would Frank Zappa have done with it? There are several instruments out there that didn't find their users yet, but after all, who was betting on the saxophone 150 years ago...

This reminds me of an anecdote: a few months ago I was at a colloquium about contemporary music, and there was this Italian composer making extremely complex computer music, and complaining that nowadays music (that means her music) was way ahead of human perception, implying than genetic manipulation should accelerate human evolution to allow us to perceive nanotonal variations... That was scary and reminded me how historical fascisms were rooted in aesthetic radicalism! Anyway the next composer presented a beautiful piece based of the transcription for a string orchestra of the effects of layered ring modulations, that was stunning and reconciled me right away with brainy experimental music.

Bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Happy New Year and a vintage Dano Doubleneck!

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Happy New Year to all our readers! And congratulations to ourselves for with this post we enter our 10th year of blogging! For this occasion I am showing you this vintage Danelectro doubleneck guitar and bass in copperburst finish, and the necks of which conveniently form a figurative 11 - very handy for the occasion!

Seeing as Danelectros were produced as strictly budget instruments using the cheapest of materials (with bodies of hardboard on a pine frame), the idea of a doubleneck instument does seem slightly incongruous. Note how both the guitar and bass necks are the same length. However, this is still a short-scale bass rather than ultra-short. Most short scale basses have the bridge mounted further into the body; here it is as far back as it will go. It's the neck that is shorter than usual.

This particular instrument was owned and played by George Worthmore who has regularly used it for the last 30 years with such artists as Rick Derringer and the Jack Cassidy Band.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Vox Teardrop bass for southpaws

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's another treat for our left-handed friends: what appears to be a 1960s Vox Teardrop bass. However, it is a bit of an oddity. It's not a true vintage instrument, as it has been assembled from New Old Stock (NOS) Vox and Eko-made parts.

It certainly looks the business but - I'm trying to think - was there ever a solidbody teardrop-shaped bass issued by Vox back in the day? I'm aware of the Bill Wyman model but that was a semi-hollowbody. Given that this looks to be a short-scale bass, maybe the lefty body used was originally intended for the Vox Mark VI 6-string guitar.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Vintage 1960s Klira German hollowbody bass guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:


A similar shape to the 60s Kent violin bass shown back in 2009. One of the oddities of this Klira bass guitar is its "I'm a violin shape - no I'm not" lower cutaway. Can you call it a cutaway if it's more than the rest of the guitar? More of an add-on really. More than that, it's as if someone took a violin shape and regular guitar shape, cut them in half down the centre and glued two of the halves together (I wonder what happened to the other two halves). The other weird thing is the three plates screwed to front of the body. At least one has "custom" on it so justifying its existence. What the other two plates are for is up for debate. I think we'd all agree - nice sofa!

David in Barcelona
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!