The Last Bass Outpost

Sam Ash holds a special place in my heart. I'm sorry that the Huntington, NY store is already gone. It was the best-stocked store in driving distance from the north shore of Long Island where I grew up. As a young geeky aspiring rocker in the 80s, I constantly begged my mom to drive me the hour it took to get there, so I could meekly try to get the staff to let me play various basses.  It was the time period when you might still hear "Stairway" from the guitar area mingling with endless repetitions of "Jump" from the ever-growing keyboard section.

I bought my first instrument there, a terrible Montoya thing that my mom paid $50 for at a used sale, as well as its replacement, the Ibanez Blazer that I still have. Got my first amp and pedals there too.

I hope they don't shut down all the locations. I'll have to go check out the remaining Manhattan store and see what's there.

One of the greats, RIP.

John Entwistle - a rocker at heart trapped in a mod band - supposedly credited Eddy's deep twangy guitar tones as his inspiration for playing bass with a lot of treble. I'm sure he's not the only bassist inspired by Eddy.

I was impressed with the shorter heels!

Tom, a man of great prudence, has decided to banish all undue excitement from his life. 

He only found his voice and place in the mix within DP with the Ric.

Curiously, when Glenn (a committed Fender player with Trapeze) recorded Burn at the recommendation of Ritchie (who liked Roger's Ric and played it frequently for fun) that didn't work at all. For lack of significant mids, Glenn's bass playing on Burn is sonically hard to catch (and no remix could correct that so far), it has sub-lows (more than Roger actually) and zingy presence, but no mids to speak of and less overdrive (though Glenn by nature digs in harder when playing than Roger and these days even prefers a very overdriven to already distorted sound). People always lament "Burn needs more bass in the mix!", but, no, it doesn't, it needs more mids in the bass signal.

It might have something to do with Glenn playing Hiwatts while Roger played Marshall guitar amps (and Martin Birch's engineering methods were to Glenn as new as Glenn's bass playing was to Martin, + the bass probably sounded great and mighty over the studio monitors of the Rolling Stones Mobile Unit too).The Ric didn't last long with Glenn, already halfway on the Burn tour he started playing Fender P again and both Stormbringer and Come Taste The Band are devoid of Rickenbacker playing. So is Made In Europe (the pics on the cover are from previous tours before he ditched the 4001).

For a while, Roger would dig out his 4001 in the Morse era of DP for encores or when playing "dun-dun-duuuhhhn", but he stopped doing that as well a while ago. He still has it though (after re-purchase).

But that Ric sound Roger had on Machine Head, Made In Japan and Who Do We Think We Are was indeed great  and the reason why I prefer these albums sonically over In Rock (Fender P) and Fireball (Fender Mustang).

Indeed!