Stoner/Doom Bassists Thread, Part 90: Maxed Out

[Kacey Y]

The first dirt pedal I ever bought for bass was an old DOD 250. I still have it, I think it's the only "first" piece of gear I still own, definitely the one I've owned the longest, I think I bought it in 2000 or 2001? I brought my bass and amp I used at the time to a buy/sell/trade shop I frequented and knew the staff, and tried every OD, distortion, and fuzz pedal they had, and the DOD 250 was just the one I kept coming back to. It was $20 before sales tax lol. I had the 1/8" power jack changed to a Boss style over a decade ago, and eventually had the pots and jacks replaced because they crackling and cutting out, but otherwise it's original. I have no clue if it's an 80's version or a 90's reissue, but if it's from the 90's someone beat it to hell within a few years, because it looks the same as when I bought it almost 25 years ago and it was rattling and hanging on by a thread internally then.

 

[Michedelic]

I've mentioned this in another thread recently about gear collections, but I've oscillated between being focused on the activity and collecting aspects of playing music (and other hobbies/interests too, like woodworking, arts and crafts, cooking and baking, etc.) over the decades. I think a lot of people divide up activity and collecting as mutually exclusive, diametrically opposed mindsets within interests and I don't think that's true. There's plenty of hobbies that are by nature collecting focused and can contain an activity aspect that some people really enjoy, like the buy/sell/trade market, grading, cleaning and restoring things, or even just sorting. There's plenty of hobbies that are ostensibly about doing an activity, an many people gravitate towards collecting the tools associated with it, sometimes based purely on rarity or personal aesthetic affinity, and not on how useful they are to actually using them. I see this with friends who have zero experience with music, a friend of mine got into vintage drafting tool collection from a very specific artistic interest and also does things like swatch paints she buys samples of and enjoys just doing that on its own.

My own minimalism is based mostly in pragmatism and not ideology. Right now I'm not in any bands, not gigging, not even doing solo recording, I'm just playing for my own amusement. Where I am financially and in phase of life makes collecting impractical. I'm currently cleaning and organizing my entire house, getting rid of things I never use, consolidating and distilling things down to essentials, because I plan to move cities and into a smaller place this year. There is a part of my brain that does enjoy collecting and wants pretty things and things that excite my brain, I'm not a minimalist aesthetically. Still, I'm also just at a certain era of my life where I'm very into activities and my collections usually either reflect the essential tools I need for them, or the fruits of those activities. My main bass is a product of that, I made the body and assembled all the parts, and ended up liking it and using it more than the very nice looking and feeling custom bass I paid good money for at the time. Lately I like to make pendants and it's a fun activity, but if I don't actually like the pendant I made as an accessory, I give it away or throw it away, because it's not worth much materially and I got my enjoyment out of making it, not having it. Some I really like and wear frequently.

It bugs me when people on this site and elsewhere talk down collecting or minimalism, either can be a source of enjoyment for people and not bad on their own merits. Of course people can make ANYTHING terrible, judgmental, and harmful, some people just have a knack for that.

I don't think of it as 'collecting', but more of cultivating a reserve. I do pedal purges on occasion, but it's more because of redundancy. You know, try 'em all, see what works best, ditch the rest.

 

[kleinenenten]

Great bit. I agree too, it's exactly like someone saying your favorite ice cream flavor is the worst. It's ice cream, I think it's pretty universal that all of it is good, and we all have our subjective reasons we like one more than another, "but that's like your opinion man."

Of the 250's I've tried, the anniversary one and the gremlin machine shop one have been my favs. I think its called the deathstalker: scorpion now. Both have a setting that allowed a lot more low end through. The no clipping on anniversary and the "Bass boost" iirc on the gremlin. I dig the no nonsense volume and gain of the circuit and it is probably my favorite all around od/dist.

I'm racking my brain, as I know I've tried more. I have a reissue that's great, though best w/ a clean blend depending on preferred settings and amount of low end desired. I had an EQD Grey Channel, sounded awesome, was my preferred 250, but I wanted to have more than just 2 flavors of 250 on the board. Which led to the gremlin. The EQD had better low end iirc. I've been meaning to see if RCO would want to make a clone of it, i found a cool silk screen/decal image mimicking the traditional DOD art for one and thought that'd be cool.

Oof - that anniversary is definitely out of my price range! And the Deathstalker: Scorpion is certainly more than I need... Their stuff seems good, but I just want a standalone "250". I remember being very much interested in the Grey Channel, but then they discontinued it. It seemed like the perfect 250 for me - well, unless they wanted to add even more diode options... If you get around to asking RCO, let me know. I'd certainly be interested! From what I recall, there was always a slight bass cut with the Reissues I had, and it was likely user error when I passed the Quantum Mystic along. I've learned plenty since then!

I don't think of it as 'collecting', but more of cultivating a reserve. I do pedal purges on occasion, but it's more because of redundancy. You know, try 'em all, see what works best, ditch the rest.

Now that I think about it, that's basically my take as well. I want to have all the "standard" dirt and other tones covered. There are a few that I really like that I really want to have a lot of different nuances in (i.e. "low gain", Muff, HM-2, and Rat to an extent), but others I just want a single good take on the circuit (i.e. my lone TS - the Way Huge Green Rhino, and my desire for a single DOD 250 that works for me).

 

[Novarocker]

@kleinenenten yeah, I did it more as a collectors bit. But at the same time it was the last DOD pedal Tom said he'd work on. Bit collector, bit sentimental, mostly just to try and flip, lol. Really good though, definitely gonna hang on to it for a bit.

On the more reasonable end, im real curious about the EQD Gary. On side of it is like the Grey Channel. I'll be sure to keep you in the loop when I reach out to him, might be a bit till then though.

I don't think of it as 'collecting', but more of cultivating a reserve. I do pedal purges on occasion, but it's more because of redundancy. You know, try 'em all, see what works best, ditch the rest.

Yeah, that's a great way to put it. I've been really only 100% keeping ones that'll be too hard to replace, i use too often, or on the board. I think once I settle down I'll probably start hunting for all the ones I liked and want to have in the cupboard.

 

[scabpicker]

I played a tribute show for a dear departed old friend this weekend. He was amazing, incredibly transgressive, a legend in the places he worked, and I wouldn't be the man I am today if I had never met him. He had Tourette syndrome, and as one of his eulogizers at the show mentioned, it was probably whipping him in the back most of the time. I kinda feel it's odd mentioning it, but he almost assuredly wouldn't have been exactly him without it. He brought joy to my life.

I was a guitarist (by default: best rhythm guitarist, second best bassist in the band) at the time, so I played guitar for this show, too. This photographer caught my (hitherto unknown) good side.

To be honest, it was a pretty great way to send him off. He wouldn't have really liked anything gloomy, at least unless it truly made you uncomfortable. I only felt like crying a couple of times.

The whole thing was streamed on YT, so I can re-live it into old age. If you want to experience my sludge punk (truly offensive) roots. Duck Duck Annihilation starts around an hour into it. Though, I really recommend the Dutch Treats tribute set (yep, it takes at least two people to do justice to John Freeman's solo act), and the Dooms UK tribute set (a crazy set of talented musicians).

Full disclaimer: If you follow these links, you have absolutely no right to be offended. The songwriter for these songs had Tourette syndrome, but he was almost assuredly more intelligent and clever than you (sure as fsck outclassed me in those departments), so there's often a point to the offensiveness. Though, sometimes there's really none other than "Sweet zombie jeebus, he wrote a song about that?" I had that realization happen to myself a few times when I finally heard the lyrics clearly on stage through a good set of monitors.

Either way, here's the stream:


If you really want to revel in the pure, uncut Freeman (I still do, it's like liquor sometimes), they set up a Bandcamp site up for his recordings they could collect. There's about 36 of them, mostly albums. Sadly, it doesn't seem anyone has a copy of *Cooze: A Rock Opera Loosely Based on the Life of Ernest Borgnine*. He wrote and recorded the whole crazy thing in 16 or so hours, and it filled both sides of a 90 minute tape. It will haunt me until I find another copy or I die.

John Freeman

John Freeman was a songwriter, frontman, and provocateur who left a beautiful stain on the underground art and music scenes of Texas and New York. Emerging in the early ‘90s, his unfiltered performances blurred the lines between punk, performance art, and pure chaos. His impact lingers in the...

sloppyworld.bandcamp.com

If the whole thing gave me hope, it was a bunch of folks covering his songs, some of which had never been in a band with him. John Freeman is dead! LONG LIVE JOHN FREEMAN!

Oh, and for the pedal freaks (you know who you are): I used my OG Super-Fuzz for the recordings back in the day, and my IdiotBox Effects Ol' Switcheroo (a no-knob, just tone switches copy of a Super-Fuzz) for the show.

 

[br1qbat]

Hi everybody. Still alive. Been busy playing. Sadly not been buying gear (boo! boo this man!).

Band's got an album out Friday (4/4). Pretty stoked. Playing some cool shows. Working too hard at my day job. Still trying to be a dad and hubby.

Glad to see y'all keeping the thread flame burning

 

[Kaa]

Re: collecting/accumulating. I'm a frugal person by nature, and a minimalist by intent. I don't have an issue with anyone doing it, live your life, it's just not my bag, man. Lol. If I were a rich man, I might have a few more bits and pieces, who knows?

In other news, I took a big leap (for me), and dropped off one of my basses to a local luthier (rojo412 on TB) to have some mods done to it. we had a really good discussion on what I was hoping to be able to get done, and I'm now in the wait mode. If it turns out as I'm hoping, I shouldn't have any serious GAS for a good long time.

 

[Kaa]

Hi everybody. Still alive. Been busy playing. Sadly not been buying gear (boo! boo this man!).

Band's got an album out Friday (4/4). Pretty stoked. Playing some cool shows. Working too hard at my day job. Still trying to be a dad and hubby.

Glad to see y'all keeping the thread flame burning

Lots of irons in fires, there.

 

[Kacey Y]

Re: collecting/accumulating. I'm a frugal person by nature, and a minimalist by intent. I don't have an issue with anyone doing it, live your life, it's just not my bag, man. Lol. If I were a rich man, I might have a few more bits and pieces, who knows?

In other news, I took a big leap (for me), and dropped off one of my basses to a local luthier (rojo412 on TB) to have some mods done to it. we had a really good discussion on what I was hoping to be able to get done, and I'm now in the wait mode. If it turns out as I'm hoping, I shouldn't have any serious GAS for a good long time.

What's the bass and the mods?

 

[Kaa]

What's the bass and the mods?

Well, here's the story: I have a mutt that was put together by another TB'er (Thudstaff), and I really like the tone of it. Now, it's not heavy (8.2 lbs) and plays nicely, with a solid bass tone. I also have an SX P-clone. Now both of these are short-scales, and when I play the SX, it's like playing a Strat. The neck is narrow across the fret board with tight string spacing (17.5mm), whic I find to be very easy to play. So, my mutt bass was made from an old Yamaha BBG-4 body, which has a nice center piece of alder (allegedly) with a couple of glued on pieces to either side. Since it is a nice 6" wide piece that the neck/pickups/bridge all attach to, we figured trimming off some of the upper section and lower section would work to make it a bit more "sleek" in shape.

So, I asked him to make the body shape more in line with a Tobias/Pedulla Rapture sort of shape. Ideally, he'll be able to shave a bit of weight off the body. We are also having him reshape the neck to try to get it closer to the feel of the SX. It's about 5mm more narrow across the fretboard with tighter string spacing, which I really like. So, we discussed different options, and my budget, and came up with a plan. Right now he's going to trim it on the bandsaw, then, after I OK it, he'll do the round-over on all the flat spots he can. I wanted a full round-over (like on Spectors, where there's no flat edges like on a Fender. (1/8" roundover). So, hopefully that wll take off a bit more weight.

If it all comes together as I'm hoping, it will be the weight and feel of the SX with the tone of the mutt.

 

[Kacey Y]

Sounds like a useful mod and way better to have a pro do it, rather than a hack job. If for no other reason than it'll feel and look better with everything rounded and smoothed expertly. I think "mutt" instruments like that are the perfect use case for reshaping. People get so up in arms about "ruining" instruments, but unless it's a collector's item, some rare piece of history, with amazing resale value, you're increasing its value to YOU by modifying it to be something you'll enjoy using more.

I have this slab body bolt neck LP Jr copy guitar that an old bandmate gave me a long time ago, when I helped him pick out a new guitar at GC. He bought the thing from his older brother for $20 with case. I fixed it up for him probably half a dozen times, because it was falling apart. I decided last year I was going to strip the body and frankenstein it into something fun for psychobilly and garage rock. I'm lagging on it, only have the thick poly paint half stripped, have a bookmark folder with cheap parts for what I want to do with it. All bets are off with that thing, I might reshape the body and the neck, definitely changing it from a hardtail to a tremolo tailpiece.

 

[Kaa]

Sounds like a useful mod and way better to have a pro do it, rather than a hack job. If for no other reason than it'll feel and look better with everything rounded and smoothed expertly. I think "mutt" instruments like that are the perfect use case for reshaping. People get so up in arms about "ruining" instruments, but unless it's a collector's item, some rare piece of history, with amazing resale value, you're increasing its value to YOU by modifying it to be something you'll enjoy using more.

I have this slab body bolt neck LP Jr copy guitar that an old bandmate gave me a long time ago, when I helped him pick out a new guitar at GC. He bought the thing from his older brother for $20 with case. I fixed it up for him probably half a dozen times, because it was falling apart. I decided last year I was going to strip the body and frankenstein it into something fun for psychobilly and garage rock. I'm lagging on it, only have the thick poly paint half stripped, have a bookmark folder with cheap parts for what I want to do with it. All bets are off with that thing, I might reshape the body and the neck, definitely changing it from a hardtail to a tremolo tailpiece.

This is the driving force behind my decision. I am reeeeaaaalllly bad at woodwork.

 

[Kacey Y]

This is the driving force behind my decision. I am reeeeaaaalllly bad at woodwork.

That's a great reason to have a pro do it. I was raised in a woodworking shop and don't really have all the tools and facilities at my disposal to do a professional job anymore, like I did when I built my P bass. I still have enough knowledge to be dangerous and hack up cheap stuff though lol

I hope you post some pics and give us all a report when it's done.

 

[Kaa]

That's a great reason to have a pro do it. I was raised in a woodworking shop and don't really have all the tools and facilities at my disposal to do a professional job anymore, like I did when I built my P bass. I still have enough knowledge to be dangerous and hack up cheap stuff though lol

I hope you post some pics and give us all a report when it's done.

I have some pre-surgery pics, and am hoping for some update pics as it goes along, so, I'll post them when and if I can.

 

[Novarocker]

That's a great reason to have a pro do it. I was raised in a woodworking shop and don't really have all the tools and facilities at my disposal to do a professional job anymore, like I did when I built my P bass. I still have enough knowledge to be dangerous and hack up cheap stuff though lol

I hope you post some pics and give us all a report when it's done.

Same boat here, though not nearly as much experience growing up. Enough to be dangerous though

I played a tribute show for a dear departed old friend this weekend. He was amazing, incredibly transgressive, a legend in the places he worked, and I wouldn't be the man I am today if I had never met him. He had Tourette syndrome, and as one of his eulogizers at the show mentioned, it was probably whipping him in the back most of the time. I kinda feel it's odd mentioning it, but he almost assuredly wouldn't have been exactly him without it. He brought joy to my life.

I was a guitarist (by default: best rhythm guitarist, second best bassist in the band) at the time, so I played guitar for this show, too. This photographer caught my (hitherto unknown) good side.

To be honest, it was a pretty great way to send him off. He wouldn't have really liked anything gloomy, at least unless it truly made you uncomfortable. I only felt like crying a couple of times.

The whole thing was streamed on YT, so I can re-live it into old age. If you want to experience my sludge punk (truly offensive) roots. Duck Duck Annihilation starts around an hour into it. Though, I really recommend the Dutch Treats tribute set (yep, it takes at least two people to do justice to John Freeman's solo act), and the Dooms UK tribute set (a crazy set of talented musicians).

Full disclaimer: If you follow these links, you have absolutely no right to be offended. The songwriter for these songs had Tourette syndrome, but he was almost assuredly more intelligent and clever than you (sure as fsck outclassed me in those departments), so there's often a point to the offensiveness. Though, sometimes there's really none other than "Sweet zombie jeebus, he wrote a song about that?" I had that realization happen to myself a few times when I finally heard the lyrics clearly on stage through a good set of monitors.

Either way, here's the stream:


If you really want to revel in the pure, uncut Freeman (I still do, it's like liquor sometimes), they set up a Bandcamp site up for his recordings they could collect. There's about 36 of them, mostly albums. Sadly, it doesn't seem anyone has a copy of *Cooze: A Rock Opera Loosely Based on the Life of Ernest Borgnine*. He wrote and recorded the whole crazy thing in 16 or so hours, and it filled both sides of a 90 minute tape. It will haunt me until I find another copy or I die.

John Freeman

John Freeman was a songwriter, frontman, and provocateur who left a beautiful stain on the underground art and music scenes of Texas and New York. Emerging in the early ‘90s, his unfiltered performances blurred the lines between punk, performance art, and pure chaos. His impact lingers in the...

sloppyworld.bandcamp.com

If the whole thing gave me hope, it was a bunch of folks covering his songs, some of which had never been in a band with him. John Freeman is dead! LONG LIVE JOHN FREEMAN!

Oh, and for the pedal freaks (you know who you are): I used my OG Super-Fuzz for the recordings back in the day, and my IdiotBox Effects Ol' Switcheroo (a no-knob, just tone switches copy of a Super-Fuzz) for the show.

This is awesome, I mean referring to what you guys did for a friend. Can't think of a better way for a send off. Sounds like one heck of a person to have done all that, definitely lived his life to the fullest.

Sorry for your loss, thanks for bringing his music here though. The little I had a chance to check out has got me real interested to hear it all.

 

[scabpicker]

This is awesome, I mean referring to what you guys did for a friend. Can't think of a better way for a send off. Sounds like one heck of a person to have done all that, definitely lived his life to the fullest.

Sorry for your loss, thanks for bringing his music here though. The little I had a chance to check out has got me real interested to hear it all.

Really, he was amazing. It was like he was maniacally obsessed with making new stuff all the time. He had new artwork and songs to share constantly I bought a book of his comics, artwork and flyers at the show, and I had kind of forgotten how great all that stuff was.

If I can give a few suggestions of my favorites as a starting place (pretty tame tracks for John, but you still might not want to play them at work):
The Dooms UK were the band he started after Duck Duck Annihilation. We were a bunch of barely competent punk rockers, they were a bunch of well-educated and well-trained musicians. They could do everything we could do and far, far more. Both of those records are great, but stylistically they're all over the place, but that's kind of the appeal.

One of the people covering his songs mentioned that you just don't even try to do "The John Voice", you just blow your throat out and sound like Tom Waits for the rest of the night. He does it all over this track.


"Karate" on the same record is pretty great, but "Karate 2000" off of Art Rock Explosion is even better, if you can forgive the record scratching (hey, it was the 90s).


For a taste of how far afield they could go stylistically, and a mild taste of how blue John could work, "Golden Showers" is a good example. They had a gig opening for Tripping Daisy when they had a hit. That was a choice like having Hendrix open for the Monkees, because people were bringing their tween kids to these shows. The Dooms UK would get to this song, and half the crowd would leave with their kids at the, ummm, climax of the song. They were eventually told to stop playing it or they were off the tour. It's about exactly the thing you think it's about. The electric vibraphone solo is pretty exquisite.



The Psychos were straight ahead hard rock about being a murdering psychopath. Pretty great concept band, really. He formed it after he went to Brooklyn, so I was late to the party on this one.



Hehehe (snort), it won't let me link to "Too Many A**holes", probably because of the title in the URL. Listen to that one, too.

But the uncut John Freeman was him all alone as The Dutch Treats (originally billed as The Dooms). Just him and a guitar, or sometimes a synth and a drum machine, too! Sometimes the guitar was un-tuned, sometimes just tuned to open E (my suggestion). Nobody could tell him he couldn't or they wouldn't do a song about that subject. Sadly, I'm not gonna link to "Chewbacca (You're My Lover)" because the only version they have is on a tape that has a *nasty* high pitched line noise on it. It's a truly great song, but if you don't have an EQ to get rid of that frequency it's torture.

And well, I'm not going to link to some of them because they often make "Too Many A**holes" seem like a Hallmark card.

This was one of the songs he did the first time I saw him. It's raw John. No tuning could tame him, anyway. I went up to him after the show and offered to form a band to back him. (no, I didn't know a drummer, I'd figure that out later). Straight from the cover of People Magazine:

But it wasn't all songs about murder, media figures and umm, stuff I'm totally not going to say out loud.
Sometimes it's about Centaurs.




Out of a teensy bit of vanity, this is my favorite DDA song. I wrote the guitar part. Plus, it's almost safe for work.

I won't link to the song that spawned my user name (woah, that third verse), but it's on that record.

And well, a late Freeman work that I didn't know about until later was "Close Your Robe". Damn he still had it. Unless men dancing around in adult disposable underwear in public is OK at your work, don't watch it there. He apparently got in hot water with some of the patrons of this thrift mall until someone vouched for him and they could finish filming.




Thanks for indulging me. He's only a little stoner and doom, but he had that in him. He was generally all about the rock, though, and I figured if anyone would "get" him, it'd be you guys.

 

[Novarocker]

Thanks for this, seriously. I see a bit of my frantic self, and honestly a kind of what could have been if I totally let the lid off and didn't go down the kinda "normal" path.

The being all over the place musically speaks to me too.

I think that reflects a lot of people in this thread. Always seems to be a ton of other really cool, essentially underground, music getting posted here and it suits my heavy handed adhd well. Not to mention I love just about any music.

In bass news, I never thought it'd be something I'd be doing, but now I gotta figure out strings again. I have slinkies on pretty much all of my basses and guitars, one has cobalt flat slinkies, the rest the normal ones. So I gotta sit down and figure out what string and what tuning I want for what.

Strings I've got on hand to try are chromes, half wounds, beefy slinkies, and I'm wanting to try some steel strings. Heh, 1st world problems.

 

[Novarocker]

Oh and more importantly, finally starting to jam with my drummer. He wants to work on some new stuff, I'm totally stoked.

 

[kleinenenten]

In bass news, I never thought it'd be something I'd be doing, but now I gotta figure out strings again. I have slinkies on pretty much all of my basses and guitars, one has cobalt flat slinkies, the rest the normal ones. So I gotta sit down and figure out what string and what tuning I want for what.

Strings I've got on hand to try are chromes, half wounds, beefy slinkies, and I'm wanting to try some steel strings. Heh, 1st world problems.

I had that string dilemma a few months ago when I bought my "final" (and I'm hoping that's an accurate statement) bass to make my bass/guitar collection at 5 each. I rarely change strings, so I ended up making a text document with what I'm currently using for each tuning. Seemed easier and far more reliable than trying to remember what I bought...

In other news, I finally broke my "no buying pedals" streak this week, but it's had an interesting outcome. I bought a used FatMetal Pro for guitar, which has been a "grail" pedal of mine for the past few years, and I had a pretty strict price limit on it to boot. One popped up, met the criteria, and I pulled the trigger. It arrived today, DOA. Only passes the bypassed signal. So I tell the seller, and without any mention of what to do, he refunds me the money, tells me to keep the pedal, and that he's just selling everything as he's having wrist problems and is liquidating his collection. Seeing as this is likely a relatively minor problem, I think I may get one of my "grail" pedals for dirt cheap, as I intend on getting it checked out soon. So that's pretty great! So now, does that count as a pedal purchase since I got it for free? Regardless, I'm cautiously optimistic about it all.

 

[kleinenenten]

I have a strange urge to learn "Godzilla" by BOC. I feel it would be a great bass line with some fuzz... Anybody else have any fun covers in a different style than the original? I've also thought Johnny Cash's "Ghost Riders In The Sky" would be fun with a doom vibe.