My Very First Bass

My First Bass: A Story of Nostalgia, Newspapers and a Ploughmans Sandwich

So, here is a picture of 12 year old me taken shortly after I received my very first bass guitar and began learning to play. This guitar carries a lot of sentiment for me and I like to think all musicians have a certain kind of attachment to their first instrument. Unless they sold it, in which case they're not a bad person, but the word 'heartless' does spring to mind. I kept this red beauty through the years and she (it's always a she) still hangs unashamedly on the wall at my parents house today. The significance of this bass to me is that without it I wouldn't have joined my first band, studied music at GCSE, then A Level, then degree level and then ended up writing this blog which you wouldn't be reading right now, just imagine! So let's begin at the beginning, how did I acquire my first bass?

12 Years old and rockin' Dad's cycling glasses - Eat your heart out Bono!

It's 2005 and my best mate Dan and I share a newspaper delivery route in our small village in Bedfordshire - an English county known for little more than Luton Airport *shudder*. Dan had one of those sunburst Cruiser by Crafter Stratocaster electric guitars from an Argos catalogue (Rock and Roll!) and he could play Smells Like Teen Spirit as good as any 12 year old bedroom guitar hero. One evening delivering papers we began a deep discussion on what we were going to spend all that dolla on. We agreed there and then that I would buy a guitar and together we would live the dream and form a band. Future scenes from "Before They Were Stars" flashed through my mind, and me being the little hipster git I was decided that I would be 'different' and get a bass guitar. I would play the 4 string electric bass. I spent that night being a Wikipedia warrior, reading up on just what the hell a bass was and how it worked and who played it (Spoiler alert - Flea. Flea everywhere.).

And so I spent the next 10 weeks saving up £5 a week to afford the cheapest, newest bass I could find on eBay, which happened to be from a company called Lindo Guitars. It was love at first pluck - I was hooked from what I believe was a mixture of natural love for the instrument, and having spent so much time and work to afford it that there was no way I was going to pack it up and give in. As I recall, the first song I learnt on this puppy was The Trooper by Iron Maiden, followed shortly by Whistle For The Choir by The Fratellis. Juxtaposition O'clock right? A quick google job shows that Lindo are still producing budget guitars. Shouts out to Lindo guitars! (www.lindoguitars.com). 

Simply red.

I must've had this as my bass of choice until I was 14, when a guy in my music class sold me a Warwick Corvette knock-off called the Warrior II by Tanglewood. I excitedly told my guitarist friend I was getting a corvette, to which he replied "Why, has the MOT failed?".

Laughs all round.

At this time I was stoked to be getting a hot new piece of bass, but the thing is - when I got my hands on it, the same connection just wasn't there. I think a large part of it is down to the fact that I bought it second hand; or maybe I expected too much from an instrument called "The Warrior". It had some downsides that I tried to fix up with a power drill and a lot of duct tape, but that's a story for another day.

While I'm visiting my parents I decide to have a play with ol' Lindo. I'm sure my current 'axe' won't mind if I have a quick fiddle (NB: I've always hated the word 'axe' to mean guitar, but by this point my mental thesaurus is running dry). I take the bass off the wall and the first thing I notice is that it has a fairly grotty set of strings on, undoubtedly from the sweaty pubescent hands of my former self during my brief stint in alternative rock band "Parad0x". I'm pretty sure our last performance was the school talent show, where our guitarist declared to the crowd that "we're not playing until everyone has their hands in the air". I'm smiling as I remember someone replying by throwing a sandwich at him. We still carried on. Not even a ploughmans can stop that Rock and Roll. Much to my delight, I recently dug up a few pictures from when I used to jam with the guy below around the same time, and who I'm actually still in a band with! (Shameless plug time - www.facebook.com/blisseyesband).

Ladiieeesss....

String gunk aside, the bass plays in solid condition and has a mellow, transient timbre like an upright. These days I usually change strings a few times a year to keep my slap sound phresh, though I am aware some players (in the past and present) swear by never replacing, claiming this keeps 'The Funk' in. I like to change when I see an ecosystem developing, but hey - if it's good enough for James Jamerson then it's good enough for me! Sadly the bass handles like a shopping trolley, the gap from the strings to the frets is so big I reckon I could use it as a bow.

In an interview regarding For Emma; Forever Ago, Bon Iver says that you never truly get over your first love, so here's to you unnamed Lindo bass, and to you Dan (though I don't love you, sorry man).


Cheers!