Hey Talkbass,
Nearing the end of my University life its time to decide what I want to do with my life. I have a vision and since you are the people who give the best advice when it comes to bass related issues I came here first.
All of us on here are aware of the work that JPJ does with blueberry hill basses and its one of the slickest and nicest ways of ordering a bass from high class builders such as roscoe, nordies, Lull's etc etc.
My vision is to have something similar but a UK basses online company (which would be run under the name of ZenGuitars, ZenBasses or ZenMusic). Where bass players from the UK can have access to high end basses but UK built. I am a great believer in the UK luthiers and we have a quite a few now,
GB
Shuker
Overwater
Sei
Status
Wal .... to name but a few
My vision is to put bass players intouch with these fantastic basses and offer a similar service to that of JPJ.. having reserved building spot, giving advice on woods, finishes and generally helping people to achieve their dreams. Also to sell basses from small independant builders from Europe, being Marleaux, Esh, JP Basses and others like it. I am frsutrated as a bass player to not have the option of getting hold of these hand made basses since most guitar shops in the UK are aimed towards the mass market basses (fender, warwick, yam's etc etc) of course the bass centre, bass gallery and others like it are an exception.
Is this something that UK bass player would like to have?...My aim would be to obviously order certain basses in and have it run as a home business to start with but allow anyone to come round when placing and order if the wanted to to try out say a marleuax or a GB before ordering.
I am already very friendly with Bernie from GB, John Shuker from shuker guitars, Martin from Sei and the guys up at overwater and I wish to build upon my relationship with them. Get back down to basics and build upon my knowledge of basses and get involved with the building side, keep asking questions and getting to know how and why they do things?..
If you have any thoughts please just reply to this post and it will all be read and greatly apprecited
. It may never happen but I thought it would be worth posting any way to get peoples reactions.
Many Thanks
Ben Howard
