From Susan Wickersham's history of the company:
"1976: We developed with Geoff Gould, founder of Modulous Graphite Instruments, the first graphite neck through body necks. The first two basses made in this fashion were sold to Stanley Clarke and John McVie of Fleetwood Mac in June of 1976. This is the same year that we made a custom bass for John McVie that had a stainless steel fingerboard with no frets. Rather than call it a fretless bass, I preferred the term 'continuously fretted' bass."