So I'm a little ambivalent about selling this bass, but I really don’t play it and maybe there is someone out there who will put it to better use.
First, the story. In the mid-80s, inspired by Tommy Stinson of the Replacements, I decided I wanted a ’51 p-bass. They weren’t really fashionable back then, and if there were reissues around I was not aware of them. I certainly was not able to find or afford a real one back then. I did, however, eventually find this bass at Subway Guitars in Berkeley, CA. Subway was a place run by this character named Fatdog who put together all kinds of crazy parts guitars and sold them cheap. It was a Berkeley institution.
Fatdog told me that he found the body of this bass at a dump. It had multiple major gouges, scratches, finish cracks, even a crack in the wood itself that was glued back together (totally strong repair – no issues in over 20 years that I’ve had the bass). I have no idea who originally made this body – maybe someone on here can provide some info based on the pics. I doubt it’s an original Fender body, but I suppose anything is possible.
When I got the bass, it had a Schecter neck, some non-correct-looking tuning machines and knobs, a badly-cut pickguard, a pickup of indeterminate origin, and a standard P-bass bridge. I played the bass for a number of years, mainly in a local Berkeley punk band that I was in called The Mr. T Experience (“MTX” for short). MTX was one of the original Berkeley pop punk bands in the scene that later gave rise to Green Day, Rancid, etc. We were, for what it's worth, one of the bigger bands in that scene before the whole thing blew up huge (needless to say, MTX was not among the bands that got huge, although the main guy in MTX, Frank Portman, is now a somewhat famous author of young adult novels).
At one show on UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza around 1986 or maybe it was early ‘87 (incidentally, there is a picture taken at this same show on the back cover of the MTX album "Making Things With Light"), Billy and Mike from Green Day were in the audience, along with their then-drummer John (a/k/a Al Sobrante). This was not long after they had changed the name of their band from Sweet Children to Green Day. I think they might have had that first Lookout 7” then, but I’m pretty sure it was before "39 Smooth" had come out. Anyway, they were pretty young at the time – still in high school. After we played, they came up and were chatting with us, and Mike was very interested in this bass. He had not really seen a ’51 p-bass before, and he kept telling me how cool he thought it was. So is this bass here the original inspiration for the Mike Dirnt signature bass? I leave that for you to decide!
Anyway, I eventually got other basses and stopped playing this one as much. Then a couple years ago, I pulled this bass out of the closet and saw that the Schecter neck had warped and was beyond repair. So I got a brand new Warmoth neck in birdseye maple, with the vintage tint finish. I also got a BadAss bridge, new Fender tuners and knobs, a new pickguard, and a Seymour Duncan quarter pound pickup. I then had the whole thing professionally assembled and set up with La Bella 760FLs by Geoff Luttrell at SF Guitarworks.
The result is a really cool bass with a ton of mojo, but I just don’t find myself playing it that much. The Warmoth neck is very nice, but it has that baseball bat feel that some love, but I don’t. The bass is also somewhat on the heavy side – a bit over 10lbs.
So anyway, I figure I have over $600 into this bass just for the recent upgrades and assembly, not counting whatever value the original body has. I’m thinking if someone wanted to give me $500 for it (plus shipping), I’d let it go. Actually, after typing all of this, I’m having second thoughts, but I’m gonna post it anyway and see what happens. Lemme know if you are interested.
Here are the pics:
