The Last Bass Outpost

I am interested in seeing how they market things now that Best Buy is moving stuff for them.  I think on the FDP the Tele guys were talking about how you could not find one variant of the Telecasters at any GC, but Best Buy had plenty.  I suspect they are happy to not have all their eggs in one basket, but I am curious if they will put most of their white eggs in one and brown in the other.  It seems to me that GC moves the vintage series stuff, but really moves more Squire and Mexican Standards than regular American Standard stuff.

They have eliminated the Monkey bass and the Tbird Studio stuff?  I am shocked!  I can't believe it.  They were so unique, the GOW finishes were so rare, and demand was so high you never saw them popping up on ebay every 45 minutes.  That is it right - those two?  Or did they quit making something else?

I think the reality is the SG reissue was a bigger success than they thought it would be.  The TBird will always sell due to its classic status.  They are unable to develop newer models, and they are incapable of doing accurate reissues (like the NR birds or even the pickups).  They also seem to only want to make a direct competitor for a Fender.  The company is run by people who have no interest or respect for the stuff they made in the past.  That means they make what they can sell and always get something wrong, and they pull the plug on what doesn't sell.  Which is how we all find Q80s and G3s at pawn shops.

Dig the standard inlays on the bass neck.  Fancy pants.

My addiction has crested and subsided.  I originally wanted a Rivoli as I dug the blubbery mess of Paul Samwell Smith on the Rave Up album.  I always thought the ES looked fairly rock n roll cool, and complimented my greaser ethic already in place with my Tele-bass.  So I did some asking around, got laughed and jeered at, and found that the EB2 was more common.  I bought my first - a minty cherry red stock 68 with the original case - for $150.  At the time a boat anchor used 70s P would run $300 to 400, so this was amazing. Over the years I have owned and abused so many that I am not sure anymore, but I have solid memories of 3 1958 EB2s, a 60, a 64, a 68, a 59 EB0, a 61 EB0 LPjr, a 61 EB0 SG, a 65 EB0, a 69 EB0, a 69 EB3, a 56 eb, one of those things with plastic pups and a metal control plate (450?), and probably somethings I am forgetting.  I also turned one of the 58 EB2s into an Explorer bass using an 80s Korina Explorer.  Oddly enough I never did get an Epi Rivoli. I now only have two.  With the exception of the Explorer recreation, I never paid more than $250 for a Gibson bass, and the number of old EBs, Tbirds, LP sigs and recording, Ripper/grabber/g3 and Epis that I passed on because they were more than that but less than $350, is staggering today.  I am happy living vicariously through the rest of you.  All is back to normal.   

If there was sacrilege involved, they wouldn't un-screw.  Put a fretless on there, fix the trussrod, keep it in a box for later.

If I were to find a bag of million dollar bills, my Fender collection would be very large.  I still need a Coronado and a Mustang.    And a Bass V.

The 80s Fiesta red looks kind of like Campbell's Tomato soup.  That what you have there. 

Oh, none of us are in the wrong bracket.  I have the biggest problem with the parents.  I agree in that someone can have psycho-sexual urges and never act on them.  But I base my calling him what I call him on the civil suit brought against him in 1993, where the child gave a lengthy sworn statement outlining the sexual acts that ol' Jacko did with the child.  Jackson settled the following year for a figure generally agreed to be in excess of $15m.  After he bought off the parents he went on tv and said that the charges were all fabricated and he was being targeted by greedy swindlers.  After that the child's father launched another suit based on Jacko breaking the terms of the original settlement - basically Jackson paid them to say nothing and not cooperate with the DA about criminal charges, and Jackson would say nothing about them as well.  Jacko had to break the bank yet again to make that one go away, and all told he seems to have paid out somewhere between 20 and 40 mil.

That is a lot of dough.  But if it were my kid, I would never take a penny.  But then again I wouldn't let my kid go visit MJ.  I would let him watch the Thriller video though, and hope he looked at the girlfriend.  She was easy to look at.

 

Beat It and Billie Jean were huge.  Considering how long he went between Dancing Machine and those, really remarkable.  But he was also a product of payola and hype, so he has fallen a lot further than anyone could have fathomed at that time.  That HIStory period was just icing on the kook cake.

I can't agree on the witch-hunt tag though.  He wasn't sleeping with teenagers.  He was bedding down with pre-teens, and the charges against him haven't been baseless either.  He settled with the first parents - if someone who would accept money to pull their child's statements about their rape could be called a parent - so the case could not go to trial.  The second family seemed to be selected specifically for their vulnerability and criminal background.  Not unheard of in child abuse circles.  Which seems to have been his real story, and pedophile abuse is the gift that really keeps on giving.  Money does fix a lot.  The stories of what he was exposed to, and what his sister suggested happened to them are horrible.  I do have pity for victims of that, but I also do not believe that behavior is something that can be "cured" or controlled, and some people - the police thankfully - can't always be bought off from keeping an eye on that.

I believe he may actually reside in Oman, but he appears to be somewhat nomadic.  Working on his Thriller remaster with Paul McC's vocals wiped off.  Can't wait for that.

Looks like that is going through an old B-15.  A nice combination, I think.  Even with arthritis.

My doctor pronounces mine as Arthur Itis.  Good stage name.