My band shared a bill with another band whose bassist was playing a Shergold Marathon. From memory it was a natural, maple finish with big cracks in the lacquer. I guess it was an early poly finish experiment. He was playing through some sort of cheap multi-effects pedal so his bass sounded like a distant rumble with some chorus mixed in. The only interesting thing was that he played the bass at all the times I wouldn't, and didn't play the bass all the time I would, during any given song. It was like meeting my musical opposite.
Alongside HH amplifiers there is something of a cool, brutally ugly 'Brave New World' aesthetic to the Hayman/Shergold stuff. Long, square metal control plates, aluminium stereo knobs, smoked acrylic plastic covers... exactly what the future looked like in 1975. They are interesting as a link in the chain of British guitar production. You start at Fenton Weill, enter the wonderful world of Burns, then end up at Hayman, then Shergold. By the time WAL and Status came along we could actually make top quality gear! Shergold gear always looks a bit less agriculturally built than, say, John Birch.
