General Music Chat

hey mike...i know you used to have a honey of an Ampeg bass that you still pine for.

i came across this wanna be lookalike from Eastwood. i didn't know that they were making these. i don't have much exp w Eastwood other than playing their elec solidbody mandolin and mandola... both pretty impressive for their price point.

https://reverb.com/item/2343272-eastwood-eeb-1-2016-black?_aid=criteo-ads

Mark

I just saw this and checked out the bass. Pretty nice actually. Only problem was the head - the original had a violin looking head much like the EB1.

I'll have to check around and see where I can find one to play and then go panhandling.

Talbot

Hey bro, how is your health doing today?

Looking for good head sounds more like a back page .com type post.

I can appreciate the work that goes into making a scroll headstock but i've never been a fan and for my tastes it comes off a little goofy. but that Ampeg replica just doesn't look "right" w/o it either.

My buddy Bill who plays bass in Planet Jazz and Mere Mortals built his bass and it is a gorgeous and well playing instrument. He did a scroll headstock on it and he did a really nice job.

see/hear it in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZCiN3cJT7A

He's got the neck and body glued up for a six string bass that he's building me...no scroll, thank you very much!

image upload

hats off to Bill, I look at scrolls on violins and always say to myself, you would have to be a pretty good woodcarver to do that..

There is a picture of me playing the old girl on my Bandmix site. I truly was a honey. Here is the follow up story on the bass which I don't think I included originally:
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We were playing an outdoor concert at some college in North Virginia. It was a moment in time, I think this was where Gary got his song “Virginia on a Sunday.”

A guy saw me tuning up and came over claiming my beloved Ampeg Violin bass was stolen. This was before I got it refinished. He was able to convince me his claim was gen.

I told him sadly I didn't want stolen gear but I needed an axe - he handed me a very souped up Jazz Bass. I was sad but felt I'd done the right thing.

An hour later we played the last formal show of the two day concert. It was a dream gig - we sounded good and the crowd loved us. Just before I went back on stage for an all bands jam that cat came back and handed me the Ampeg. Said the Jazz Bass had sounded good and I'd been straight with him - he wanted me to have the Ampeg. Pretty cool guy.

The funny thing as it turned out, I ended up jamming with a band called Howdy Doody for the last set playing their Ampeg Plexiglas bass like Bill Wyman's. And did I feel cool playing that thing! Unlike the Howdy Doody boys I wasn’t naked though, I never did like cool aid!

Talbot

Jook, you bet! Thing weighed a ton and I wouldn't want it for my everyday bass but damn, it was cool and sounded great. You don't see them now so they must not have held up well. The sliding pickups always struck me as place where things could go wrong and they seemed to get scratched.

I got to play my Tele through a couple bandmasters later on that evening and had a cute brunette on my arm. A guy asked me, "Why aren't you a lead guitar player?" I replied, "Because I'm a bass player."

I know you all have memories of very special gigs. We are very lucky to have experienced such things and hopefully more of them.

Talbot