The Last Bass Outpost

I finally caved and bought one of these beasts. I spotted one in cream and had to try it.

I sold my Rivoli and 4003 last month, but regretted selling the Rivoli almost instantly. I bought the Rivoli as a conciliatory prize of sorts after a personal setback, but over time began to begrudge it slightly as it wasn't letting me move on mentally.. Psychobabble aside, the pickup mounting situation (teetering on the outer limits of repurposed neck bolts) always annoyed me as well. The Rivoli also had a nasty fall. I was able to cosmetically repair it, but it almost seemed like a sign: sell this bass!


The Tele bass sounds good. Almost too good for the premise of it. Burying a hot pickup at the end of the neck tends to limit tonal options. The Fender scale length and maple neck seem to provide some sort of sonic guardrails from it being too much of a hot, foggy-sounding bass. There is an inherent freight train grind to it and the tone control perfectly pivots the tone from freight train to subsonic rumble. I've got back what I lost with the Rivoli, but with a more confident fundamental note below the 5th fret of the E string. Yes, it weighs a bit and has no contours, but I can get passed that! I will finish off the fretwork that Fender started and call it a day. Good bass, and arguably better than the originals? If you study photos of mid-'70s Tele basses you see that the neck pockets could be a bit approximately routed, for example.

Interesting that Fender made a more Gibson-style bass at the same time that Gibson started experimenting with longer scale lengths, maple necks and moving pickups away from the extremes. A bit of cross-pollination.

Just delete the question mark and everything to the right of it.

Unless you're copying something that's part of someone's playlist, it should be the URL that's in the Address Bar.

No brackets necessary.

I think the 'Tragic Band' is overlooked. Beefheart was revered in the UK as the weirdo's weirdo. A wilfully bonkers guy. The Tragic Band is interesting as it seems like his attempt to make a stab at creating commercially successful music. Hire some session musicians with no previous working history and make lightweight country music. It almost worked, but it still seems off kilter.

Beefheart came back to the UK in 1975 with a guy playing a tuba through an octave divider in lieu of a bassist. This pleased the journalists and fans who had him pegged as a weirdo.

Looks to me like someone in design found a leftover box of specially treated sugar cubes from the 60s and has been using them in their coffee.

It's just faux-worldly tat for the deep-pocketed arriviste boomers that Gibson are increasingly trying to wring dollars out of.


You hitchhiked to Marrakech the gap year before you started grinding at Lockheed Martin/JP Morgan? Boy do we have a tastelessly appointed Les Paul Jr for you!

Like David Gilmour's black Strat, you wouldn't give that bass a second glance in a pawnshop if it wasn't priced crazily low.

I think I've seen that bass in London when Pink Floyd had their 'mortal remains' exhibition. There was one heavily used black on black P Bass with a maple neck. It had definitely seen some action.

They love getting those vintage instruments out their cases in a really cramped store room with wooden shelves. Just the place to put a Gibson headstock through its paces!

Melody Cristea from Liliac getting to play with some of her heroes

Everywhere they tour, sales of men's shaggy black wigs goes up 300%. Some dodgy barnets in that band!

My guitarist buddy was having a clear out of his CDs, looking to remove duplicate copies of albums. I've ended up with a 1995 issue of Who's Next. I'm guessing other copies I've owned or borrowed have been remasters, as this is quite a warm, soft-sounding version of the album. I quite like it, as it beds the slightly turgid Lifehouse songs in the middle into the overall soundscape of the album. On remastered versions, Baba O'Riley and Won't get Fooled surge out the speakers, while tracks like Going Mobile seemed a bit toothless. The obvious difference with this older edition of the album is that the drums seem to become a bit of an anonymous blur and clatter in the mix.