The Last Bass Outpost

On the subject of Gibson QC, I was looking at a pair of new NR Thunderbirds today. One was sparkling burgundy. Looking at it in sunlight, from an oblique angle, there was an odd 'washboarding' to the front of the bass. Long vertical ripples running the length of the body. Clearly a thin glossy nitro finish over a not very flat piece of wood, which seems a bit odd? Anybody else noticed this?

Here's the story in more detail. I copied/saved it from his website 22 years ago, it was since removed.

The Rickenbacker was the only bass I used on Machine Head, strung with Rotosound strings, I seem to remember. The bass has a bit of a history; I bought it in New York and in an effort to save customs duty, about £25 or so, I had a receipt saying it cost less than it did, which wasn't a lot anyway, $400 or thereabouts. Ian Hansford, our roadie at the time, brought the guitar back through British customs a day ahead of me ­ for some reason I stayed an extra 24 hours in NY. Anyway, they smelled a rat, arrested and charged Ian and impounded the bass.

When Ian called and told me what had happened, I was armed with what seemed like a plausible story when I came through the next day. "Ah, Mr. Glover, would you open all your bags please?" Putting on my best innocent face I waited while they went through everything, even the pages of my address book. At last I asked if I could help and the officer showed me the false receipt, asking if I recognized it. I replied that it certainly looked like a receipt for a bass, but added that it couldn't be mine because the amount was wrong (for this was my story, that the store had given me a false receipt without my, or Ian's, knowledge). I was ushered into a private room where they grilled me for about two hours. I stuck to the story but my halo was beginning to tarnish as successively tougher people came into the room to work on me. I finally cracked when they bluffed about telephone records (when asked, I had told them that Ian Hansford hadn't called me in New York to warn me that the customs had my guitar ­ which of course he had!).

The end came when a senior office came into the room, sat on the desk looking down at me and said, "OK, Glover, what's this ********?" When I admitted at last that yes, I was trying to save $25 (even after Fireball I didn't have much money ­ all that I earned went to pay back earlier advances) and owned up saying, "it's a fair cop guv, Ill go quietly," and things like that. Strangely enough, after that they were as nice as pie as they read me my rights and formally charged me with evading customs and excise duties.

The real catch was that they had the guitar and explained that I wouldn't be able to get it back until after the court case, if there was one. I told them I couldn't wait that long, I was due to go to Switzerland in less than two weeks to make a record and I needed the guitar. The only option, they said, was to plead guilty, pay the fines for both Ian Hansford and myself, and also pay an enormous sum to get the guitar back. In all, I paid more than double the price for that guitar. It is only fitting then, that soon afterwards I went to Montreux with DP and recorded our biggest selling album ever with that guitar.

RG

Congrats on the blinged out new bass. That'd go great on stage with a blue sparkle tuck and roll Kustom amp.

   The pg fits fine though two holes don't line up. They are the two at the waist of the body right where you set the bass on your thigh when playing sitting down. All the other ones line up.  I've no idea why Fender did this.   I'm still trying to decide if I should just drill two holes in the body and be done with it or make/buy a pg with the right hole pattern.  For now it functions just fine.

It always exasperrated Steve Morse who didn't become a real touring musician until he was in his forties (and joined DP, his first band that really toured internationally), but Purple have always been a touring engine. Even in the 70ies they played way more gigs than Led Zep (Zep just played to larger crowds, but less often). It's the only life they know since adolescence. At this point they have resigned themselves to the realization that one of them dying on stage or not waking up in a hotel room one morning is well a realistic possibility. But if that is how you wanna go, then that is how you should.

Touring life did in the end become both too much for Ritchie Blackmore (who only does mini tours with Blackmore's Night) and Jon Lord (who stopped touring with DP after the millenium because travel ate too much of his remaining time) as well as for Steve Morse (who had his wife to attend to, but had been moaning about the length and the density of DP's worldwide trecking for many years, he has a hay farm to take care of in Florida), but Paice, Gillan, Glover and Airey are cut from a different, more resilient gypsy cloth. And for McBride, who's in his mid-40ies, it's still a new and exciting thing.