Has anyone famous ever played your bass?

Not quite "famous" and not a bass, but Athenar from Midnight borrowed my Sunn 2x15 cab one of the times my old band played with them (back before they got big, when they were a local side project).

He gouged his chest open with a broken beer bottle and bled on my cabinet.

That's as close as I've gotten.

 

Absolutely not! No one is allowed to play any of my basses. Except for the folks that built them. And me, of course. But I'm not famous. Not even on Talkbass.

M. M.

 

Not a bass but Bootsy and his brother Catfish played my guitar when I was getting them to autograph it.

 

Bobby Vega played my 1971 Fender Jazz bass during a set break at a NYE gig, December 31, 1989, at a club in Jack London Square, Oakland, CA. Not that remember the details or anything like that...

 

Skeeter Thompson (Skeeter Thompson - Wikipedia) is a friend and borrowed "Richard the Test Bass" (Birdsong Guitars shop R&D bass that serves as my main fretted) for a few tunes a couple of years back. That's famous enough for me.

 

Gerald Veasley and Nathan East both played and signed my Hanewinckel 6-string back in 2002.

Louis Johnson played and signed my Alembic Series II. George also signed it.

 

Not really famous nor even a bassist, a guitarist who won a Grammy with his group last year.
He used to borrow my basses every frickin' time ever since we were young and forget to wipe it. Even broke my string one time and put it back in it's case without telling me (this was just before a school concert mind you). God I hated being his younger brother. lol....

 

I think it was the bassist for Air Supply who was in town and all gaga over my near future '73 P stripped and modded to fretless maple stick. it was still there the next day when I came in to snag my '65 BASS V and came home with fraternal twins. not much from a national perspective but enuf to sell me on it.

 

Yeah I'm pretty sure Geddy played by '98 Squier Jazz on the Moving Pictures album before he dropped it off at the yardsale I bought it from for $30. And JPJ played it on Led Zepp 3, it mostly covering the mandolin parts.

 

Does it count if the famous person played it and I own it? If so, this is one of a kind, the prototype for the "400 Series". It has been around the world with Keith Nelson, while touring with Diana Ross. Back in 1991, Keith had gone into Tobias' Burbank shop, and wanted to have a second Tobias Signature built for his Diana Ross world tour, as a backup. After realizing the build finish date was further ahead than planned, Michael said to Keith " This is the prototype used to produce the import 400 Series, why don't you take it on the road, while I finish yours"
There are a lot of interesting facts about this bass, (for example, it sports a Rosewood fret-board, an a single truss rod)and two of my favorite facts of it's Provenance is that it was played by Keith (Donna Summers, David Foster and friends...) at the 1996 Superbowl Halftime Show and at "The Queen's Jubilee" in England. Later with more

 

Here's my AMB-2 #001 being played by Geddy Lee last fall, here in my shop. With me looking on proudly.



And here it is being held by my friend George Biondo (Steppenwolf) a few weeks ago.



This bass is the prototype of my AMB-2 model line. I built it in 2012, and kept it for myself as my own player and demonstrator. It has a long history. Almost everyone who visits my shop tries it out, and I've loaned it out a few times. It's been used on a couple of albums and movie soundtracks. Plus I've played about 100 gigs with it over the years. It's a keeper.

 

As I understand the story, there's a pretty good chance that Gene Simmons now owns my brother's 1954 Fender Precision, the bass I learned to play on. I hope he plays it.

 

Last year, Chuck Garric (from Alice Cooper's band & Beasto Blanco) played one of my PJ basses when we warmed up for Beast Blanco. Monday we warmed up for a show of Alice Cooper's band members. He joined us again but this time he played his P bass. That was ok since I had my very special NYC Sadowsky.

 

Don’t let him know that. If he did, he’d probably be willing to sell it to you for about 10x it’s true worth.

 

Not my DINGWALL. No one but me has even touched my dingwall since I got it lol.

But Ryan Martinie checked out my thumb nt6. He said something along the lines of “holy crap it’s a tree trunk” lol which I’ve come to expect from a smaller guys when it comes to 6 string basses. He also let me check out his thumb nt5 and noticed he had the neck very shaved down on that one so I get he’s fan of smaller/thinner necks

 

Meh, he can keep it, the neck was going wonky anyway.

 

Not basses, but amps. My '67 Dual Showman was used by Ivan Pongracic of The Space Cossacks, and my hot-rodded '63 Bassman was used by Allen Whitman of The Mermen. (These bands are big deals in instro surf circles.) And I have a Jazzmaster I bought from Tommy Skeoch of Tesla.

 

'Famous' is all relative, of course, but Marty Willson-Piper, then a guitarist in the Australian band The Church(he has since left the band), used my '66 P for his circa 2000 solo album, "Hanging Out In Heaven". If you're a Gilmour/Byrds/Moody Blues fan, you might find it interesting. Here's a few tracks...





My wife played harp on that last track.

I may be stretching the concept of famous, but my connection to the Church is through this following band, who I played bass with for a while. The focal point was Donnette Thayer, formerly of Game Theory; we recorded this track as a band, but the album was left in the can for several years, and she eventually put it out under her name. She played my '71 Jazzmaster on the solo, I played fretless throughout, plus that Ebow guitar stuff at the opening...


Other than that, in the late 80's, Sun Ra's bass player at the time used my amp rig for a show(I was friends with the venue owner).