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Life Before Al Gore Invented the Internets......

R Briere

R Briere

Jul 31, 2003
999
1,456
Massachusetts
#1
Life was so much simpler then.....back in the Sixties. There was only ONE Catalog that Truly Mattered to the Budding Bassist.....the SEARS Catalog!!! I Remember sitting in my room and looking at these incredible deals and high quality Instruments for HOURS at a time. Life Was Simple. Life was Good. Chicks LOVED Bass Players!!!

If you were REALLY Lucky there was a Sears Store right Downtown and you could tie a Drool Bucket under your Chin and just Walk Right in......There was the STUFF!!!! Holy Moosepoops!!! If the Salesman "LIKED" you (not a button or an app, an Emotion often resulting in Smiles and Kindness) he might let you TOUCH the bass or rub your hand across the Amp with the built in PRE-AMP! And 5 TUBES!!! You could plug a bass, a guitar, an accordion AND a Mic into the Same Amp!!! It Said so Right on the Amp!!! Are You Kidding Me!!??

Now THIS was life! THIS Was Living!!! :)

PS: I couldn't find a pic with the bass so I had to hang my head in shame and post the GUITAR in the Case......but I DID plug my Bass into an Amp in a Case.....and it was Wayyyyyyyy Cool!
 

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#2
I had an amp just like the one pictured back in 1966.
In 1971 I moved to a log cabin up in the Sierra's. The ultimate "woodshed" situation.
Played music all day every day. No TV, newspapers, telephone or radio.
I had a guitar, a bass, an amp, a turntable and a few hundred LP's.
Everyone that I knew played an instrument.
Every bar and honky tonk road house had live music. Gigs were super easy to get.
Lucky to make $10 a night but it was always enough to live on.
I had an old beat to crap truck that used as much oil as gas.
Absolutely loved every minute.
 
#3
My big brother had the amp on the left, except with the grey tolex with black speckling. He had a red Silvertone to go with it. He was very kind and let me monkey with it any time.

...and, **sigh** the amp-in-case Silvertone Danelectro with "mother-of-toilet-seat" side binding... I bought and sold two of them: A black single-pickup w/amp-in-case, and Red two-pickup with the deluxe amp-in-case with a slightly larger speaker and tremlo. I still know where the red one is. Good times.
 
#4
I bought my first bass, a $79 Kent P-Bass clone, in an electronics store in 1964. I picked it because it was the only bass in the store. I believe they only had one guitar as well.

My best fiend was our guitarist and his first amp was a Silvertone with a 2x10 cab. It was pretty cool for what it cost.
 
#6
Silvertone Bass Amp purchased 1968. My first "bass" amp.

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...and this bass (but in silver instead of sunburst).

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...and I learned songs by using a similar "phonograph" to that which Ric5 posted. Except mine was a 4 speed. 33-1/3 rpm's. 45 rpm's, 78rpm's and 16 rpm's like this...

$T2eC16J,!)wFIZEnRurZBSPJTf(ZwQ~~60_1.jpg
 
#8
The one thing i always remember was the smell, my first amp was a WEM Bass Dominator MK1combo.....and i still remember the smell it had. It had a dusty stale smell, and after it had been running a while changed to a burning smell similar to when a candle is blown out.....LOL....Maybe you had to be there? :)
 
#10
I remember that when I first started looking at amps and instruments, I thought the Sears stuff looked too cheesy to consider.

It wasn't until I got much older that came to appreciate the surprising quality of the Silvertone / Dano instruments...and valco amps are cool too.
 
#14
Oh my.. I remember Silvertone amps very well.

In those days ('63) I was a g*tar player, and my 4x6L6 amp quit for some reason.
My Dad had it apart on the bench and was diagnosing the problem.
When I asked where the schematic was, he just smiled and tapped his head...

The lesson taught that day was a 6L6 was an honest 15w tube, and four would light a 60w light bulb.

National Geographic was great for sex ed...
 
#16
Itzayana said:
I had an amp just like the one pictured back in 1966.
In 1971 I moved to a log cabin up in the Sierra's. The ultimate "woodshed" situation.
Played music all day every day. No TV, newspapers, telephone or radio.
I had a guitar, a bass, an amp, a turntable and a few hundred LP's.
Everyone that I knew played an instrument.
Every bar and honky tonk road house had live music. Gigs were super easy to get.
Lucky to make $10 a night but it was always enough to live on.
I had an old beat to crap truck that used as much oil as gas.
Absolutely loved every minute.
Click to expand...


Now that would be my dream,man wish I could have done that now thinking back,I was only 15 years old in 1971,I tried to run off in the summer of 69 with a friend
to woodstock @13 years old ...well we did not make it and when our parents got done ...we could not sit down for a while....LOL
But today,we could have sent our parents to jail for child abuse and then run off to see a concert...LOL.
,, Those were the days tho....
Eno
 
#19
Funny, not the '60s but rather in the mid '80s I was at the Sears surplus store and there it was!
My first bass, a no name, short scale, Kramer copy. I had to borrow the money from my mom. I played that thing for 2 years. Looking back it was a decent bass ( MIJ ) and for my birthday following its purchase my dad bought me a set of Seymour Duncan active P bass pups. Man I was on cloud 9!! Lol. So the pups were more than the bass. Still have them ( they have 3 bars in the pick up to control the preamp I believe) I need to try them in a project bass one of these days. I'd like to really see if they are all that, like I thought back in '88. The bass..... I lent it out to a friend and after a few years I got it and thought I was cool playing like nirvana and smashed it into many pieces. The pups remain. Hmm... Young, dumb, and full of .......

Ok, just thought I'd share. Life before the internet. Mom n pop shops. Mail order catalogs, used to drool over the Cavin catalogue. At best locally we could find peavey.
Not that's a bad thing. It's just all there was, unless you found a small shop that carried BC Rich or Kramer. Even then, the prices were out of reach for a 14 year old!

Thanks for the memory refresh, and reading my post about sears. Albeit fast forward.

WG.
 
#20
I used to drool over the musical instrument section of the Sears catalog. When that got boring I would go look at the other section of the catalog that would fascinate teenage boys. You older guys know what section I'm talking about. The first electric guitar I ever played around with was the Silvertone model that came with an amp built into the case.
 

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