Musical interlude of the weekend.

trolling through some of UTOOB distractions this weekend, decided to look up a song that has been with me for TOO DAMNED LONG, but still to this day raises the blood pressure and gets me going in a good mood.

Turn it up, have fun with some of that “horn band” sound and take the message home.  (more after the break)

In that vid, you see Graham Maby to the left of Joe.   Take a reall close look at that bass.   REALLY close look.   Looks funky dunnit?   Yup, gots a funky sound too, but you know its a bass, even it it looks more like a regular guitar.  (note that the lead guitarist has something similar,,, That one is a Steinberger electric, not a yamaha.   That whole headless thing was a late eighties fad that didn’t carry well, but that Yamaha bass was one of the best designed (other than the phone jack location) and cultish basses made.)  

I LOVED THAT BASS.   its a Yamaha BX-1, headless through neck four string on a standard 34” scale.  Double hum-bucker pickups with a coil tap on the blend knob so you could “brighten’ the sound up without changing your tone settings.  The hard case those came in was one of the ONLY bass cases that could be checked as a carry on for flights, and the whole headless design made for a very balanced bass that didn’t try to dive for the floor every-time you let go of the neck.    I’ve owned two.  Let the last one go when Amy and I were going our separate ways and figured I was done with the music,,,

You are NEVER done with the music.  Its rather like my writing muse, its not something you just walk away from, its a part of you so ingrained that to deny it causes issues in the soul.

Maybe I am not good enough to make a decent living at playing, maybe my ears are so far gone that making a living at the sound board is off the table,  maybe,,   Lots of maybes, but you don’t lose something like that by wishing it away.   

Now, I would love to have another BX-1 (or its rarer brother the BX-5,  Drool) with Trace Elliot BLX-80 gig amp again.

 That simple rig was the best set up I ever owned.  Could drive to the gig in your Fiat X/1-9, girlfriend in the passenger seat and still have all your gear fit in the front boot. (Damn!!! that was fun time in my life,,, )

Well, I would love to have those things. but the ’need’ isn’t there.  Still, the music calls,,,, (notice that Music and Muse are so similar, mehbe them Greeks were onto something.)   BUT, there was a project of mine from then that was put the wayside when that chapter came to a close.   Building that hard deck coaming on my current kayak build, seeing the grain of that ash wood ‘come alive’ under the varnish,,,   I dug out some of my notebooks from then.   I have built a couple of bass guitars in the past, one a joke of an effort, even it if did play, and the other just a ‘proof of concept’ thing, that did play, and when I ‘moved on’ sold for $800 to a fellow musician.   Well, those notes hold the design for a “long scale’ fretless bass guitar, through neck (the only way to get the truest sound) with a semi-hollow body.   The design is open to four or five strings, but I wouldn’t push it to six (and don’t really like more than the 5 strings anyways). 

And B has been offering more of that Ash wood,,,, 

I now have the machining and foundry skills to make that truly bad-ass bass bridge (and am tossing the ideas of going headless like the old Yamaha or Steinberger basses).   

No, this is not going to be a short nor easy project, but in some ways, I intend it to be my penultimate tribute to my music days, and something that can be passed on in the world as completely original from tree to first note.   

Won’t be many updates on this project, its going to be a long time running with lots of research and such (like how WIDE do you make a 5 string bridge,,, ).