London Road Trip

[LouisF]

I was in London and Paris last week for (non-bass) business, but found time to stop in and meet Tony Hrouska at the Contrabass Shoppe south of London. Tony was very gracious and knowledgeable with his time, taking seveal basses out for me to play, including his Gracino, a Briggs English bass, a Hawkes Panormo, and a Swedish bass that I swear could pass as Italian. (all of these are detailed on his website)

The probelm, of course, is the weakness of the dollar v. pound. A £50K bass is $100,000 US now-a-days, and that does give one pause, even for investment grade instruments. Still, it's worth seeing what he has on hand, and the care that he (and Martin Bailey in London who I take it does the bulk of the restorations) have done with some pretty amazing basses.

In the small world department, Tony now has Ted Moniak (who used to be at David Gage) working for him. Ted, who had a bass shop in the Rockies several years ago, saw my performance in Patrick Suskind's one-man play, THE DOUBLE BASS, when I did it in Colorado. Fortunately he liked it!

Finally, I also met (separately) with Godfrey Sheppard - whose name came up on the cornerless/pear-shaped bass thread. Godfrey is a very nice man who makes a very decent bass for UKL6000 (about $12,000). I didn't get to play his cornerless bass, but the Italian model he showed me was very solidly made, with a very clear, strong tone.
Again, the dollar v. pound does work against him, but bassists in the UK or EU (where the Euro is currently strong against the pound) would do well to look at both.

Louis

[bassist14]

hi louis

interesting info, thank you


edit: i´ve been in england last year and visited some bass-dealers, so this kind of info is very useful for me

[bernobass]

Hi Guys
Interesting to hear your views from across the pond. I have a Sheppard bass that i bought a few years ago and on a recent trip to London Greg Cohen used it for his gigs with Ornette Coleman. There are some good makers here but lets be sensible, because of touring commitments 95% of my playing is done on a czechease bass from David Gage.........thats the way the world is going!

[LouisF]

Still, I think what you say is an endorsement of the quality of Godfrey's work, who is a totally unknown maker here.

Louis