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First Bass… does anyone remember going there?

#41
Thebiggestjerk said:
It was on S. Broadway in Denver Colorado. Boutique bass shop…

or did you all think I meant something else?View attachment 4454320
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I liked the shop.

I bought a Gallien Krueger MB150E … Mike had to special order it for me.

I still own it and love that little amp.
908E83F9-4308-460F-944D-75C56E3D7C2B.jpeg


He had some really cool stuff.

Those were the days where you could try out some high quality basses.

A friend bought a nice Alembic from him.

Wish he was able to keep it open.
 
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#43
I had been playing Trumpet since 3rd grade...in 9th grade I was in the store to buy my first (not rented) trumpet... Saw a bass for the same price ($300 at the time)and being the Rush fan I was I got the used Ric instead for the same price. Played the rented trumpet a couple more years.
 
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#44
It was sometime around 1983, a guitar shop in Portsmouth NH. I think it was Gary’s Guitars or it would eventually become that. She was a black Fender Musicmaster with a bad case of buckle rash. I think it was under $300 at the time. I had no idea she was a short scale.
 
#45
It was a June day in 1984 when I got my Hondo Fame 830 at Matthew Music in Toosevelt Firld shopping mall.

I had been saving money all year weeding for neighbors and plowing snow.

I thought the bass was $129 plus tax and that’s what I had saved. I also had money for the $40 Multivox amp. Imagine my surprise when I learned that the long scale bass was actually $149 and the amp was a guitar amp so the lowest entry point bass amp was $100 for a severely underpowered Multivox 112 combo.

So I was about 80 light plus tax. My parents were great and decided to make up the difference at the store and I was off to the races.
 
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#48
Iridescentone said:
Are you talking about Second Bass, at 2nd ave near Alameda? If so I remember that place from when I lived at Dakota and Clay st. First time I went there he had a koa Travis Bean for $450, and an early Fender AVRI Precision in Surf Green (!) for $700. That was ~ '96. In retrospect I should have snagged both. Not long afterwards he was gone.

A couple doors north on Broadway was the infamous "Lord Valve"....guru of the tube amp world. Walking into his shop was like a trip to the Twilight Zone....a bit weird and off-putting, tbh.

Any of that ring a bell? Or did you mean Guitar X, further south on Broadway?
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It was 1stBass on Broadway, but it was near Alameda. 2nd & Alameda run parallel.

GuitarX came later, other side of I-25 on Broadway. But for some reason I think it was the same owner.
 
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#49
Ahhh, yes.

I started playing French horn in school band at the age of 10 and quickly became familiar with my local shop. But one day I went in, and there was the COOLEST looking cherry sunburst Ibanez SR400 up on the wall of the local shop that I would play any time I was back. I knew I had to have it. So I saved, and saved, and knew I absolutely needed to have THAT bass. $400 is a fortune for someone too young for a real job though, so I ended up selling my keyboard and buying an old Squier P bass with a 65w Laney for $200 off some guy on a Facebook group since it was a decent deal on a full setup.

H A T E D that bass. I'd been playing my churches Ibanez BTB which downright spoiled me, the black paint had faded to a sort of :poop: color, and the thing weighed half as much as I did at the time. I mowed lawns for a full summer and finally got that dang Soundgear at age 14 or 15 and never looked back. Although it doesn't get as much play time as some of my other axes these days, I'll never sell it.

Other shop I sold my P bass to went under a few years later, so I have no idea what ever happened to it, but good riddance. I guess I'm one of few who doesn't regret selling their first bass o_O


EDIT: Nice to see I'm not the only one who knee-jerk replied to the thread without reading the initial post thoroughly :smug:
 
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#50
My first bass was a red Ibanez Destroyer. I bought it new in 1985 at Lightning Music & Sound in Austin. Had it about 5 years, sold it just before college and then saw it hanging on the wall at Musicmakers Austin as a used bass. I didn't like it quite enough to buy it twice.

As for the other - this I can say here because she'll never see it. I'm connected to that person on Facebook and she is, let's say, three times the lady she used to be.
 
#51
Altitude said:
It was 1stBass on Broadway, but it was near Alameda. 2nd & Alameda run parallel.

GuitarX came later, other side of I-25 on Broadway. But for some reason I think it was the same owner.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's right, "1st bass". Located on Broadway near either 1st or 2nd (prob 1st, hence the ironic store name). Broadway is 300 South, my house was at Dakota, 400 South. The dude that ran Guitar X was Gary something, the guy I talked to at 1st bass was someone else, though I don't know if he owned the joint. Guitar X had all nice stuff when I lived there. Warrior guitars and basses, Sadowsky, Glockenklang amps, booteek pedals, etc. Tbh, I doubt the area could support a store with expensive inventory like he had, probably why he folded?
 
#53
Iridescentone said:
Tbh, I doubt the area could support a store with expensive inventory like he had, probably why he folded?
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I'm sure you're right. Gary at GuitarX folded the brick & mortar in around 2010 IIRC and continued a while longer as an internet outfit. Which I think was a good plan but it still didn't work out. In the store he was a little worried about his inventory turning into NOS - he'd let you play a bass but he'd put sticky notes all on it to keep your hand from actually touching it. I understood, but it was offputting and made me think he wasn't turning his inventory as fast as he needed to.

We had one other boutique shop a bit later up near Boulder. I forget the name - that guy became ill and may have passed, but I can't imagine his shop was going to make it. Denver isn't small, there are 4 million of us watching the same TV channels now - but only so much demand for $5000 basses.
 
#54
I played guitar in my jazz band, and my senior year my director congratulated me on being given the bass chair. I said I wasn’t interested in bass, and he told me to stop being an f’n idiot, he was offering me the best spot in the rhythm section, now go get a gd bass.

So I did. Drome Sound in Schenectady NY. Got a Japanese fender MB-5 that I still have, pic in my avatar. It was pink and cost $330, don’t think anyone wanted it so I got a good price.

My director played sax with Neil Hefti in his big band until it went bust. Man knew his jazz. Heart of gold when you did well, terrifying when you messed with his jazz band by making a mistake. I miss him!
 
#57
I'd played around with it in a local music store a few times, and eventually decided I wanted to learn to play
image8.jpeg
bass.
Went in, bought the bass and a little practice amp, and the rest is history. Still got it, too :) :

Rockbass Corvette 4. Great instrument until I destroyed the truss nut lol. Had to replace the neck, completely, and it hasn't been the same, since. I keep it around for sentimental reasons. Pick it up from time to time, but almost immediately put it down for one of my other three.
 
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#59
I find an interesting subtext in this thread, which is what generations considered what to be their "finally made it" bass. For Boomers and early Xers I suspect it would be Fender/Gibson, for later Xers Fender or Peavey, and for later generations Ibanez or who knows what? I don't keep up with such things, so I certainly have no idea.
 

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