The Last Bass Outpost

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfK-UzQ48JE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KZjnFZvCNc&feature=related

 

Dear Fenderistas,

I'm a bit exasperated as I had to bring Edith's wonderful present of a Candy Cola American Standard Jazz back to the shop - barely four months old, the truss rod adjustment hex socket has already become stubborn (or even frozen) to a point where the ball point hex allen wrench gouges the socket (not to mention the dents it leaves on the pickguard where the cavity is as you need so much brute force to turn it). Realizing that it wouldn't be long until the socket screw will break off the rod, I returned it for guaranty work with a heavy heart and asked for what wll most likely be a replacement neck. The shopowner understood and said it wasn't the first time either.

What is it with me and Fenders? I've owned four Fenders in my life, two from the US, one from Japan and one from Mexico. One broke off (US), one froze (US, the one just returned), one is stubborn and pretty much at the end of how far it can go (Mex) and one is just stubborn but at this point still works (J). I admit to being a neck adjustment obsessive and stickler - that a bass has its neck adjusted four times a year (every season basically) is not unheard of with me. Is it that there is no such thing as an easy-to-turn Fender adjustment screw because the necks pull so hard? Do you have to be The Incredible Hulk to turn them? I have no Gibson where you have to fight the wood as much, I have Yamaha basses where the adjustment screw turns so smoothly you can turn it with your hand (and it still adjusts the neck I hasten to add) and on my Musicmans, which have maple necks too, the adjustment wheels turn easily and smoothly as well. With Fender its always "turn-crunch-click-take breath-turn-readjust tool-turn-crunch-click-take breath-readjust tool" etc. Or is the slanted access via a ballpoint hex key not really a serious recommendation and you are still expected to take off the pg with its dozen screws   to get sensible access to the adjustment socket screw (whose shallow depth even then still raises worries)?

From a trussrod adjustment screw, be it wheel, socket, slotted or bell, I expect in 2010/11 that it turns smoothly, without you really needing to exert force/torque, without it creating weird noises, clicking or jumping in intervals, without strings needed to be removed, necks pre-bent manually, pick guards taken off for better access etc.

I take it that this is just simply unobtainable from the world's inventor of the electric bass, ja?, and you guys have simply gotten used to it?  

Freiherr Doktor Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a fetching-looking young man of blue-blooded pedigree was until very recently the German Minister of Defense. He had been a shooting star/rainmaker with an attractive blond wife, sweet kids, a castle in northern Bavaria, the works.







Beloved by soldiers and with regular trips to Afghanistan where - critics murmured - he looked perhaps a little too dashing in his battle fatigues,



especially when he brought his wife, Stephanie (a princess of Bismarck pedigree, no less!), along in combat look too (I hasten to add: she paid the flight ticket herself).



Great things were expected from them, could they be the conservative Obamas of Germany in the future? After all, we haven't had a blue-blooded head of state since Kaiser Wilhelm II's somewhat hurried departure to exile in The Netherlands in 1918.



And the Austrian who followed him some years later was - in hindsight - an unfortunate choice, good to German shepherd dogs as he may have been. He wasn't even blue-blooded either.

For the "fabulous Guttenbergs" as a news magazine called them



"The sky was the limit.", to quote Tom Petty.

It all went pear-shaped three weeks ago when via the internet it came out that Baron and Doktor zu Guttenberg had cut and pasted his doctoral thesis (a comparative law work covering US and European unification from a constitutional angle) - or, even worse, had someone else do it for him - from other works (more than 70%) without citations. In Germany and with Karl-Theodor's education and academic title-conscious conservative constituency that is tantamount to being caught having sex with non-consenting, minor-aged animals you are closely related with. And not paying tax while doing it. He wriggled and writhed, stumbled and fell. First gave up the Doktor title and then as criticism even in conservative quarters did not die down (in his career he had gained some sort of notoriety in doing away with subordinates who had made alleged mistakes that might have hurt his image, "Drown him in ze castle trench, sofort!", old habits die hard) he did the inevitable and stepped down. Who knows what else might have come out, you never know what goes on in the stables in those lonely castles and who belongs genetically to whom.  

Why am I boring you with this? Our former Verteidigungsminister, der Herr Baron, never made a secret that he loved AC/DC, but when he had his honorable dismissal before the troops ("der Große Zapfenstreich") his musical request was even more unexpected, a piece from noted English classical composers Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zij_DYyFrE&tracker=False

You can't argue with the man's taste, conservative or not. Come to think of it, however, and given the unfortunate academic events surrounding his political demise, a song that uses similar notes as Smoke on the Water, albeit performed by Humble Pie would have perhaps been even more apt?



I saw a splendid version of that song performed by an erstwhile lead guitarist of Humble Pie yesterday, but that, children, shall be the topic of another thread.

Let's not ignore the possibly prophetic content of Smoke on the Water though: Smoke has the habit of settling down eventually and water cleanses from guilt, der Freiherr kommt vielleicht zurück?!

Uwe

http://cgi.ebay.com/Gibson-Thunderbird-Bass-1987-Custom-Shop-/260738242009?pt=Guitar&hash=item3cb535d5d9

Still has the jack on the top and the headstock might actually still be a large one, hard to tell from those pics, but it certainly has large open gear tuners. But for a pre-regular series model the price he asks isn't outrageous. Whether this thing sounds better or even different than the regular Reissue Birds that came out later is anybody's guess though. I hadn't been aware that in 1987 they did a Cusrom Shop "test run" before reinstating the TBird as a regular model but it makes sense. Auction over in a few minutes, if no one snipes at it it will no doubt be relisted  ...

Or should I give it a try? 

http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-GIBSON-EB-2-BASS-GUITAR-/220731987828?pt=Guitar&hash=item3364a6d774

It probably sounds great though. 

Chance in a lifetime:

"The legendary vocalist reportedly is the owner of a 1,500-square-foot model train display, set up in his Beverly Hills home."

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/News/rod-stewart-0120-2011/#

And I'll never hear "Hot Legs" quite the same again.

Not an idle boast either:

http://cgi.ebay.com/1993-Gibson-Les-Paul-Sunburst-Bass-No-Reserve-/230575662787?pt=Guitar&hash=item35af6166c3

This topic has been moved to its rightful home. Those Brits are a disorganizsed lot.

http://bassoutpost.com/index.php?topic=5090.0