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Cool 60's basses (OTHER than main-stream brands)

#281
JIO said:
I bought mine in a Woolworths dept store in Omaha Nebraska in '66 (new) for $40. I paid for it with paper-route money. No case or gig-bag. My dad made me a HSC for it of thick plywood - it weighed a TON! I recall mine also having strings way high and like you I just thought that was the way it was supposed to be. How we ever stuck with it playing such! I was pretty clueless then and basically chose the bass over the Teisco guitars hanging on the wall around it because it was bigger and had only four strings! :D I guess I was destined to play bass!

That red violin bass is cool! :thumbsup:
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Weren't Zenons also sold through Woolworths? It was great seeing one with Nina Simone in the Summer of Soul movie.
 
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#283
Dynacord said:
Weren't Zenons also sold through Woolworths? It was great seeing one with Nina Simone in the Summer of Soul movie.
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I wouldn't doubt it, but as a clueless 13yr looking up at a wall of guitars - they were all just electric guitars and I wanted in! :bassist:
 
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#284
JIO said:
Think about the early '60s England (post WWII) and it explains such. The US didn't have war on our shores so we were way ahead in industrial productions. England and much of Europe was still recovering.
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Right! What an interesting angle. I hadn't even thought about that, but certainly prompts some interesting discussion.

Makes me wonder where some of the inner components came from (or repurposed from). Sort of like how old Sovtek Big Muffs were rumoured to be made from recycled Russian tank parts.
 
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#285
And it also is why a lot of British "beat" groups started on second- or third-tier European imports. U. S. product largely was embargoed so the European economies could get back on their feet.

Epiphone seems to have been the exception. They had some arrangement with Selmer of Paris which apparently enabled them to bypass the embargo.
 
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#286
Nerve said:
Right! What an interesting angle. I hadn't even thought about that, but certainly prompts some interesting discussion.

Makes me wonder where some of the inner components came from (or repurposed from). Sort of like how old Sovtek Big Muffs were rumoured to be made from recycled Russian tank parts.
Click to expand...

Exactly - I showed that harness to a friend who is versed in electronics and is old enough to know, and he said those parts were definitely from whatever pre-war stock was available. Plus the UK had/has different threading (on bolts) and jacks different than commonly available in the US. I've never seen one, but I'll assume the newer BoL offerings have modern/common electronics. I took a chance buying my Vista Sonic as it was sold as a "project bass" that the electronic worked - and luckily they did. I replaced the UK jack (StewMac sells them) and switched one wire to turn the "Wild Dog" setting (cool name, but not a good sound-thin & weak) into a basic Fender Jazz sound. (sounds good - N&B pu engaged)

I'm not sure about the Bison, but the Vista Sonic (which became the BoL Jazz Bass) is median scale. (32")
 
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#287
GretschWretch said:
And it also is why a lot of British "beat" groups started on second- or third-tier European imports. U. S. product largely was embargoed so the European economies could get back on their feet.

Epiphone seems to have been the exception. They had some arrangement with Selmer of Paris which apparently enabled them to bypass the embargo.
Click to expand...

Yep Cliff Richards bought the 1st red Strat from the US once the embargo was lifted for Hank Marvin.

What Guitar Did Hank Marvin Play? - Guvna Guitars

This isn't it, but another Fiesta red Strat Hank Marvin bought in the '80s.
 
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#288
Question, and forgive me that I haven't read all the pages here, but is there any way to definitively know the origins of a Cameo-branded bass? We just shot an episode on one and its owner thinks it's a Teisco, but apparently it could also be Kawai or another manufacturer behind the brand. Google-fu only yields speculation, but anybody out there know more definitively?
 
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#289
DDXdesign said:
Question, and forgive me that I haven't read all the pages here, but is there any way to definitively know the origins of a Cameo-branded bass? We just shot an episode on one and its owner thinks it's a Teisco, but apparently it could also be Kawai or another manufacturer behind the brand. Google-fu only yields speculation, but anybody out there know more definitively?
Click to expand...

Cameo was under the Kawai brand. Kawai acquired Teisco in '67. This info is from Frank Meyers great research book - History of Japanese Electric Guitars Centerstream press 2015.
 
#292
JIO said:
the Vista Sonic (which became the BoL Jazz Bass) is median scale. (32")
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31.5" to be exact. Or is it? I think/thought I actually learnt it from one of your past posts. If I do remember that correctly, that's the same scale as the early-Seventies Yamaha SB-35 (as well as the recent/current? BMG Bass by Brian May Guitars, based on Brian's Red Special and, I suppose, others).

Re 32" scale, for a while now I've been wondering about the earliest example thereof. Until your post I'd assumed it was something from late Seventies' Japan but yeah, it might have been European instead. Uhm.
 
#293
HaphAsSard said:
31.5" to be exact. Or is it? I think/thought I actually learnt it from one of your past posts. If I do remember that correctly, that's the same scale as the early-Seventies Yamaha SB-35 (as well as the recent/current? BMG Bass by Brian May Guitars, based on Brian's Red Special and, I suppose, others).

Re 32" scale, for a while now I've been wondering about the earliest example thereof. Until your post I'd assumed it was something from late Seventies' Japan but yeah, it might have been European instead. Uhm.
Click to expand...

Actually no - 32" (from zero fret) medium scale. You probably already know this, but Brian May loaded his custom 'Red Special' guitar with Jim Burn's Nu-Sonic pu's.
 
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#294
JIO said:
Actually no - 32" (from zero fret) medium scale. You probably already know this, but Brian May loaded his custom 'Red Special' guitar with Jim Burn's Nu-Sonic pu's.
Click to expand...
After posting I actually went and tried to search for where I might have read the info, and did dig up some posts of yours:
Project Vista Sonic (rut row, JIO's at it again!)
Project Vista Sonic (rut row, JIO's at it again!)
The Official Medium Scale Bass Club
Have you re-measured it since them, and found out it is in fact smack-dab 16" from zero to 12th?

Oh, yeah, I knew about the Burns pickups (IIRC there's precious little, in that guitar, that was *not* made from scratch by Brian and his dad). The 31.5" scale he chose, way later on, for his bass model would be another, distant Burns of London connection...if it had been an actual scale they used.
 
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#295
JIO said:
Cameo was under the Kawai brand. Kawai acquired Teisco in '67. This info is from Frank Meyers great research book - History of Japanese Electric Guitars Centerstream press 2015.
Click to expand...
How about Kingston, do you know who the parent company for that was, it was my first bass in April ‘68 bought from Allied Electronics for $69.99, long scale, very playable neck not the baseball bats that were also around at that time, went from that to a ‘65 Jazz Bass that I still have.
 
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#296
JIO said:
Exactly - I showed that harness to a friend who is versed in electronics and is old enough to know, and he said those parts were definitely from whatever pre-war stock was available. Plus the UK had/has different threading (on bolts) and jacks different than commonly available in the US. I've never seen one, but I'll assume the newer BoL offerings have modern/common electronics. I took a chance buying my Vista Sonic as it was sold as a "project bass" that the electronic worked - and luckily they did. I replaced the UK jack (StewMac sells them) and switched one wire to turn the "Wild Dog" setting (cool name, but not a good sound-thin & weak) into a basic Fender Jazz sound. (sounds good - N&B pu engaged)

I'm not sure about the Bison, but the Vista Sonic (which became the BoL Jazz Bass) is median scale. (32")
Click to expand...
That’s some incredible history. Really does speak to the large demand and reverence for American instruments when markets opened up.

And I’m well aware that the Vista Sonic is 32”. That’s part of the reason (amongst many other things” that I see it as such a dream bass for me.
 
#297
GretschWretch said:
And it also is why a lot of British "beat" groups started on second- or third-tier European imports. U. S. product largely was embargoed so the European economies could get back on their feet.

Epiphone seems to have been the exception. They had some arrangement with Selmer of Paris which apparently enabled them to bypass the embargo.
Click to expand...

I love this thread! So much great information being shared!
 
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#299
jim nolte said:
How about Kingston, do you know who the parent company for that was, it was my first bass in April ‘68 bought from Allied Electronics for $69.99, long scale, very playable neck not the baseball bats that were also around at that time, went from that to a ‘65 Jazz Bass that I still have.
Click to expand...

Kingston was under Guyatone (Tokyo Sound Co) and Tokyo Sound went into bankruptcy in Aug '69.
 
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