Mine was, in 1977, a sunburst Jazz Bass Ho (with a minibucker in the bridge position, don't remember what was in the neck position, but it wasn't anything remotely Fender looking or single-coilish) from notable Korean maker "Johnny Guitar" - this was long before Korean instruments became good guitars. Within half a year the bridge pup had dropped out, one of the tuners no longer worked and the fifth fret (hey, we did half our songs in A and the other half in E!) was worn down to basically fretless. When it worked it didn't sound horrible, but to a hard rock kid the JB look was very unalluring (but I couldn't afford anything else, it was the cheapest model they had) and to this day I believe that this first bass experience shaped my "Un-Fender" taste in basses (I bought my first Fender only in my 12th year of bass playing). I moved on to a bolt-on Ibanez Ric then, that was already a real instrument and it looked suitably Deep Purple-ish. Later on, I tore out the frets of the Johnny Guitar JB (yes, I know, Jaco ...
), filled the fret slots, finished the fretboard, but never the project, it became derelict in our cellar and my dad eventually threw it away after I had long moved out. ("Do you still know where my old bass is, dad?" "Oh, that thing, I threw it away long ago ..."
)
I guess if I saw one today on ebay I would buy it just for the memory aspect. So do keep a lookout for a sunburst (ashtrays and all) Johnny Guitar JB Ho, will you?
Uwe
