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Speaking of bass guitars...I've owned some sweethearts. I had to abandon one when I left Africa, a wonderful Rickenbacker... Here's that story, excerpt from "African Days, Hollywood Nights:"

The Rickenbacker bass.

I'd completed First Phase (boot camp) and had money in my pocket. And free time!

Next day I played the tourist, it had been all soldier stuff up until then so I took my time and enjoyed a lengthy stroll through downtown Salisbury / Harare. I looked at this and that, bought a book, and cheerfully greeted all I encountered.

It was a charming and well maintained city, not as modern as US cities but without looking retro. I liked it a lot. I enjoyed the architecture, sort of trendy small town in the city, always tasteful.

Surprisingly, given the war, I found Salisbury to be a lot safer than Los Angeles. Folks tended to be polite for the most part; black or white, those people impressed the heck out of me.

Thanks to misguided UN sanctions you never really knew what you might find in a store, a restaurant or a chemist’s. The Rhodesians were inventive and commerce driven in a focused but good natured sort of way. It sometimes reminded me of a first world country with an undercurrent of the flea markets or gun shows back home in Georgia.

For some reason I poked my nose inside an auto parts store.

A loud voice greeted me in a vaguely Scottish sort of way, “Come on in laddie, I can tell you have just what I need, which is money. Just as I can tell that I have exactly what you need, which is, what by the way? If you don’t mind me askin’?”

I wasn’t paying him any mind, I was totally focused on the beautiful Rickenbacker bass guitar in the corner. The one with the 120.00 price tag, which was roughly 160.00 US. It was like buying a Cadillac for a hundred bucks.

It had a perfect scarlet finish and that long wonderful Rickenbacker neck. I couldn’t breathe…and for once in my life, I had money, and I was sober. Admittedly it was money I had been planing to save for emergencies or something…but this seemed very much like an emergency to me.

The scoundrel nodded wisely and said, “I knew you had a head for value when you walked in…”

I didn’t get to play very often in Rhodesia but when I did, I played one the finest bass guitars I’ve ever owned. The one I bought in an auto parts store.

cheers
Talbot

Talbot ... what a truly wonderful storie. I am going to send it to the Bassist in my last Band ... Purple. I know that you two would hit it off if only for exchanging really wonderful stories about Bass guitars. Is it not funny how things happen at times which burn themselves into your memory and in retrospect somehow seem to grow in significance ? I put it all down to Life and living. You know you are living when this kind of thing happens ... if it never happens then you should know that you are not in fact living. MEMORIES girls, guitars and other "Art Inspirations".

Hell, I LOVE life. Especially when people like you share things that are unfathomable to many. By the way ... off the subject ... but Confederates had by far the best uniforms ... much like the Nazis did. My Uncle always played the Horst Wessel song and Lili Lee Marlene. Ah yes MEMORIES. WE MAKE THEM OFTEN WITHOUT EVEN REALIZING IT.

Drifting inside
Sated and spent
Savouring the moment
That first objective of Conquest
Like snow melting in the hot Sun
Like being sucked by soft innocent lips
Eager to please and excited
Like the tonal quality being there and ...
Far exceeding what you have ever touched before.
The action just right, not sloppy
Precise and hitting the Marshals with power
Drifting in the sustain
feeling it as it retards into sweet oblivion

So what happened to it? I assume it was 'hot' when you got it, so maybe not safe to return to the states with it?

GuitarMikeB wrote:So what happened to it? I assume it was 'hot' when you got it, so maybe not safe to return to the states with it?

why would you assume that?

It could have been that cheap for a million other reasons. My first guess is that it was a trade for emergency auto parts


You still have it, Michael?

I had a 4003 stereo Rick but it was burglared when I lived on Silver Star Rd. Orlando.. lesson learned: always put a broom stick in your sliding glass door channel .. Broken Toy as a band went to Mobile to purchase it. it lasted about 9 years before stolen

yod wrote:

GuitarMikeB wrote:So what happened to it? I assume it was 'hot' when you got it, so maybe not safe to return to the states with it?

why would you assume that?

It could have been that cheap for a million other reasons. My first guess is that it was a trade for emergency auto parts


You still have it, Michael?

Because it was going for 1/10 of its value. Why would someone trade it so cheap (even in an emergency) or sell it so cheap, knowing its value? 50%, maybe, but not 10%.

GMike

This was not the USA but a country embargoed by the UN, how do you think a bass ended up in an Auto Parts store? And the guitar was certainly not 'hot,' I would never buy a hot instrument at whatever the price.

Sadly, I had to abandon it and other stuff as well, when that dreadful communist Mugabe took over.

Talbot

How would you know unless the guy had an original bill of sale?

All of that may be true George most places, but in Africa? Really?

schmedidiah wrote:All of that may be true George most places, but in Africa? Really?

My guess is that it was a missionary, or someone with a church, who didn't actually pay for it and had an emergency. Maybe he had to pay a warlord to get out?? Or maybe they inherited it and didn't know the value? Maybe he needed a radiator and didn't know what he owned? It could be that the bass players wife pawned it to buy baby diapers. It could be a heroin addict who needed a fix and was out of their mind.

Hot is the last thing I'd guess, but it's certainly possible

I have often thought what those blacks got for my Rick when sold on the black market

charming and lovely, with no dirt on the sidewalks.. George, are you sure the non-sequitur jungle ___ is appropriate?