Recent content by markbvt

Here’s one for any Fender history nerds who may be reading. Back in 1990 or so, I bought my first good bass, a Fender American Standard Jazz (aka the Boner Bass). I remember that at the time, the salesman mentioned that it was a special limited edition Olympic White “like they used to use in...

My initial response was going to be that a P-bass is ideal for that style of music... but the real issue getting a tone that really works for that kind of band is not going to be your bass (as others have pointed out, the Music Man will do nicely), but your amplification. Trade in the Bassman...

I'll take the black Bass VI please. drool The '59 P is nice too, but it sucks they modernized the fretboard radius. I'd rather have one of the '59 P reissues from a while back when they were making them painstakingly accurate. --mark

Clearly what you really need is an AVRI '62 or '63 P bass to put those TIs on. --mark

I once built a bass with a Warmoth body and USA Custom Guitars neck because a friend who worked at a music store offered me a Seymour Duncan single-coil P pickup at a discounted price due to its having sat there in inventory for a long time. It was cheap, so of course I had to buy it... and as...

Ah, you’re right. I was reading something the other day that was talking about the Jazz Bass in 1959, but it must have been referring to its development, not when it hit the market. But either way, the 60th anniversary is coming up soon. —mark

I've got a 2001 AVRI '62 P-bass, and I think it's considerably nicer than an American Standard. Part of that is subjective because I like the feel of the vintage neck and nitro finish better. But from an objective standpoint, fit/finish are superb, it was nicely set up out of the box, and it's...

So it seems an interesting thing has turned up at NAMM but Fender's been very quiet about it. The AVRI series may have been discontinued as a regular product lineup, but it's not completely gone. There's a 60th Anniversary 1958 Jazzmaster reissue now popping up on some of the online retail...

MIA, apparently. I forget now where I saw it, but prices are reportedly $1999 for each version. All are limited editions, being released on a monthly basis starting in April. --mark

Awesome report! But man, there are some fugly basses out there...! --mark

Yeah, I saw that XTC documentary last week. Good stuff. Interesting to hear that Andy Partridge's anti-touring stance was brought on by Valium withdrawal. I had always heard that he just suffered from nasty stagefright, but never heard a cause. --mark

Ned’s Atomic Dustbin is the band that immediately springs to mind. But there are also plenty of songs by The Cure that feature Simon Gallup on regular 4-string bass and Robert Smith or one of the other band members playing a Fender Bass VI (and in the case of “Primary,” just two P-basses, no...

7.25” for me. It just feels way more comfortable than a flatter fretboard. —mark

17 years ago, I wandered into Southworth Guitars in Bethesda, MD (a fantastic vintage guitar shop specializing in old Fenders and Gibsons) and fell in love with a '64 P-bass they had, black with matching headstock. It looked great and played beautifully. Way out of my price range though. I...

I've generally never been a fan of short-scale basses, but I pulled one of these off the wall at Guitar Center a few weeks ago just out of curiosity and was actually really surprised by it. It was a lot nicer than I expected, and had a fuller tone than I expected. If you like it, go for it. --mark