Your number one musical instrument, the love of your life.

[Blazer]

I was gonna post this in the Bass zone but seeing how my love of my life isn't a bass I figured that the Outpost cafe would be the best place to post this thread.

My love of my life is a 1989 Squier Stratocaster in Dakota Red, lovingly nicknamed "The Veteran"



I bought it new in 1991 at my fifteenth birthday to replace a Cheap telecaster knock-off and almost from the get-go began using it as my main guitar. I played it live during junior high and High school performances of my very first band. The first of those performances was filmed, capturing the very first time I used "The Veteran" live.


Throughout the years I kept on modifying "The veteran"replacing the neck a couple of times and experimenting with different pickups and double locking bridges.

This picture was taken at the final gig I played with a punkband called "the Worst" and shows the guitar with a single Dimarzio DLX humbucker and a Kahler Spyder trem.

Soon afterwards I decided to restore the guitar to Strat-hood and pulled out the humbucker in favor of the normal three single coils set up of a strat and the Kahler was replaced by a Wilkinson vibrato bridge which improved the overal sound greatly.

Our bassplayer sold me the neck of a similar Squier he had and that one has been on it ever since. As evident by the pictures, I put another Humbucker in that's because we need that sound with my current band Slavantas where my use of "The Veteran" inspired our second guitarist Andy, to look for a similar eighties Squier and by working together with me, found one.


Andy's Squier, same year as "the Veteran" it's a re-finished arctic white one, we call it "The Rookie"

"The Veteran" has served me well in all those years and I could never live without it. When I die, bury me with "the Veteran" in my arms so I can play it through all eternity.

[ilan]

Mine is a beat up '75 P (sunburst/maple) that was my first really good bass. I had two decent Fender P's before it - a fretless '80 and a fretted '81 - but that '75 is truly a stunning bass, it's the one that feels like home, and for many years I used nothing else. And I got it for $325...

[Chris P.]

Gun pointed I would part with any bass I have, except for the '76 Bird.

It's beaten up, but it's mine and I love it. When I bought it it had several holes in the body, a piece of wood was nailed (!) on as a finger rest, it was previously used in a robin Hood movie as bow (I suppose) but it was brought to life by a local luthier.

I did all my recordings with it, Uwe provided me kindly with a beaten up but working case, and people always love it when I play her. My drummer likes this bass most and so does my singer/guitar player. And I always have an awful lot of nice reactions of the audience afterwards. Even kids coming close to the stage too see if it's a real Gibson.

ow, and she sounds amazing, of course:)

I love her!

Some pics:

























Well, that's more than enough, I guess;0

[Dave W]

This really is about gear and will be mostly about basses so I'm going to move it.

I have a favorite bass and guitar but nothing I would call a "love of my life" instrument. Something else could always come along and make me happier. 

[drbassman]

This really is about gear and will be mostly about basses so I'm going to move it.

I have a favorite bass and guitar but nothing I would call a "love of my life" instrument. Something else could always come along and make me happier. 

I'm afraid I resemble this remark too!  Although, I have to say that I'm in love with most of my basses.  Just some more than others.  Top of the heap right now are the Thunder Jet, the NR rehab, and the LP Signature.

[hieronymous]

I would have to say my '76 4001. For several years in the early '90s, I was trying to live the dream with music in a Massachusetts band called Jiggle the Handle. We never made any money, though, so the entire time my workhorse was a Fender Japan '62 Jazz Bass reissue.

I quit the band and pretty much quit playing music in 1995 to pursue a new dream - I moved to Berkeley, CA to go to grad school at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, and I spent the next eight years studying to become a Buddhist minister. But when both my parents passed away, I moved back to Mass. to take care of my affairs, and also hooked up with my old band-mates. At around the same time, on a routine stop to Cambridge Music, I saw this in the window:


I fell in love - I always wanted a Rickenbacker, having been hugely influenced by Roger Glover, Geddy Lee, Chris Squire, and Lemmy Kilmister, so I snagged it for around $800 (unthinkable now?!!) I used it a lot in the studio and onstage a lot that summer:


It's actually not the first instrument I bought during my musical resurgence - that would be the Alembic Exploiter:

But I just sold the Exploiter this past week - I've done some recordings with it that I love, but I don't have the emotional attachment with the Exploiter that I do with the 4001. Also, my future wife was with me the day I found the Ric, maybe that has something to do with it. Even though it has its problems, I don't see myself parting with it. I don't play it all the time either, but between the appearance, sound, playability, and the fact that it is an instrument that I aspired to my whole musical life but never though I would ever actually hold in my hands, I periodically go back to it for musical inspiration, so this is the one instrument I have that could qualify as the "love of my life" instrument.

[rockinrayduke]

I'm too much of a whore to have just one. 

[drbassman]

I'm too much of a whore to have just one. 

Ditto.

[ramone57]

that's a beautiful Ric!

[gweimer]

I had one for almost 20 years that I swore I'd have forever.   Life and age caught up with me.  I found that playing it was killing me, no matter how much I loved the sound.  I had to give it up.  I put it in a closet for a year.  Money problems came, and I made the decision to sell.  It wasn't easy, but it was the right thing to do.  It wasn't being played, which I thought was wrong, so I found a good home for it, and it was heard in public again.  Since then, I've found other basses that spoke to me.  You learn to move on.  There's a lot of very cool instruments out there.  At this point, the Holy Crap bass (my experiment gone horribly right) and the Bettie Page have filled the void with no regrets on my part. 

[Dave W]

You must be talking about the Embassy.

[gweimer]

You would be correct.  Everyone here probably knows it, but it was one of Tom Petersson's.  It also belonged to Jon Brandt at one point.  When I bought it, there were 4 Embassies hanging on the wall.  Only one spoke to me.  It took me over 3 years to get that bass.  The lesson is - when the time comes, let it go.  It's not the Holy Grail.

[rockinrayduke]

It's not the Holy Grail.

This is so true. It's wood and metal and plastic. There's always another bass that will fill the hole left behind.

[drbassman]

For sure!  The only bass I wish I still had, and just for the memories it evokes, is my 62 (or 63, can't remember now!)  jazz bass.  Oh to be 16 again!  I sold it in 75 when I got married.  How stupid was that!

[godofthunder]

For sure!  The only bass I wish I still had, and just for the memories it evokes, is my 62 (or 63, can't remember now!)  jazz bass.  Oh to be 16 again!  I sold it in 75 when I got married.  How stupid was that!

Tsk tsk Bill, sold it when you got married a sad precedent has been set, must have taken years to undo.  I Love 'em all but I'd grab my '69 NR Thunderbird if the house was burning. My main bass since '78