Saturday night my wife JoAnn and I went to Denver fo dinner and to take the family and (Liz) oldest daughter's significant boyfriend (Morgan) to Dick Dale. He was introduced to him last year and Dale blew him away - he's a big fan now.
At any rate, I happened to find out that my wife had taken along one of my gig bags; she explained that Liz had bought Morgan a surprise electric guitar because he'd been making noises about trying guitar. She wanted to borrow the gig bag to keep the guitar nice in case it didn't work out and they needed to return ot exchange it. No problem, I don't use them much anyway. I even packed up a Fender Champ amp with a cable and basic guitar strap so he'd have he basics to make noise with.
So we went to Liz and Morgan's, and at the agreed upon moment, Liz went to the closet and brought out....
A Gretsch 2202 bass, TOTALLY custom finished with WSU graphics, artwork and photos. It was a setup to blow my mind with a gift to ME from the family and Morgan! This is simply incredible - I've never seen anything like this, and it's a one-of-a-kind done by a friend of theirs who lives in Florida and does an occasional custom like this as a hobby. The gig bag was part of the setup to make sure I'd have a safe way to get it back home. BTW, they also had the Gretsch chrome humbuckers replaced with TV Jones ThunderTrons. The guy who did the work is a musician and understands this stuff.
I had no words, other than multiple Thank Yous and that this was the neatest and most unexpected thing that ever happened to me!
This unique bass sounds great and is a giant GO, COUGS! to the world!
Photos are at:
http://s83.photobucket.com/user/apowell1/library/Electric%20Basses/Cougar%20Bass%20-%20Gretsch%202202?sort=4&page=1Here are a bunch of them. You can't believe how thoroughly covered this bass it - there isn't two square inches anywhere on it without graphics, other than the back of the neck.
My photo (with headset) was Photoshopped next to a photo of a Coach Mike Leach bobblehead...
