1987, MIJ Fender Jazz Bass Special. Great instrument, I still play it in some gigs.
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When did you get your first Bass
- Thread starter Chris cook
- Start date
When I "graduated" from Jr High (in SoCal at the time, we didn't have middle school. Jr High was 7-9.) My grades from 6-8 were VERY bad, but my parents figured they could bribe me into getting better grades since my metal head friends and I had been taking about starting a band. So I got a cheap Kramer Aerostar ZX70 bass that was one of the last instruments out of the factory. Didn't even have the Kramer logo on it. Total B-Stock, but my dad worked with the company as a sale rep. Then I got a Fender Sidekick 50 combo for my birthday a month later.
That was probably 1989.
That was probably 1989.
Awesome bass. I've always wanted to try one since I was a big GNR fan in the 80s.
1968 .
I was 16 and bought a Conrad Beatle bass for $75 from one of my older brothers friends . I had been playing single string tunes on my brothers guitars so I could play a little already . It sounded like a bass to me and I was in a band .
Life was and is good!
I was 16 and bought a Conrad Beatle bass for $75 from one of my older brothers friends . I had been playing single string tunes on my brothers guitars so I could play a little already . It sounded like a bass to me and I was in a band .
Life was and is good!
I started when I was seven, but my dad had a bass I could use for several years (fretless ‘77 Music Man). So I didn’t get my own bass till I was 16 or 17. It was a fretless L-2000. $400 used, but in like new condition. I still have both of these basses. I’m also still playing primarily G&L, though I switched almost entirely to fretted, starting around my 20th year of playing bass. I only play the fretlesses once in a blue moon, just for old time’s sake – but never at gigs.
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Early 72? I believe? I was a guitar player. One of 3 in the band I was in. Bass player was a no show. As usual, I walked in half hour or so before gig time. My best friend and guitar player (and BL) walked up to me and said: "Tom isn't here tonight for some reason, you play bass". Uh, alright but, not happy about it. He said: "you can fake this better than he can play it". It went OK..Tom was fired next day, and I was no longer a guitar player. I played his "P" Bass that night. My purchase was a Jazz 2 days later.
Like many, I was a failed guitarist. I played acoustic throughout college with friends and then around the house, but never got good at it. At 38 my wife and son went to visit the in-laws for a week and I told my wife I was buying a bass. She said something about just another thing to collect dust.
By the time the week was up, I knew I was meant to play bass. Quickly learned enough to jam with friends, played in a cover band for years and now have been part of an original band and recorded 4 albums of original music.
lidauna.com/music
By the time the week was up, I knew I was meant to play bass. Quickly learned enough to jam with friends, played in a cover band for years and now have been part of an original band and recorded 4 albums of original music.
lidauna.com/music
The funny thing is I bought it without knowing that Duff play it. I just bought it at a pawn shop in Greenfield and 8 Mile Rd., it was the cheapest they had.
1983. After beginning on a borrowed fretless Univox “violin” bass, then a borrowed fretless aluminum neck Kramer, I purchased a used 1978 Gibson Grabber for $200. It wasn’t nearly as nice playing or good sounding as the Kramer, but it was lighter and all mine.
Summer of 1996, about 6 months after my 14th birthday. For the record it was a white Peavey Milestone II "international series" and it sucked.
It was when I was 23. No, sorry, it was back in '23. OK, it was March.
I have been a bad guitarist for 45 years, a mediocre mandolinist for 20 years, but when I got a bass "to cut backing tracks", something clicked. I love it. Making up for lost time, up to 3 basses so far. And I'm mighty appreciative of the fine people here!
I have been a bad guitarist for 45 years, a mediocre mandolinist for 20 years, but when I got a bass "to cut backing tracks", something clicked. I love it. Making up for lost time, up to 3 basses so far. And I'm mighty appreciative of the fine people here!
I got a Supro Taurus bass which I still have in 1968 for Christmas
poor thing didn’t have a truss rod so it’s bent like a ski slope but I still have it
poor thing didn’t have a truss rod so it’s bent like a ski slope but I still have it
1969
Unknown maker FSO-POS Japanese bass.
Really terrible. Literally painful to play.
Unknown maker FSO-POS Japanese bass.
Really terrible. Literally painful to play.
In 1973 I was walking by a furniture store downtown and saw Chuck Berry playing on a big black and white TV in one of the display windows (Store was closed, it was probably a Sunday)... that caught my eye, and by sheer coincidence there were a couple of (japanese) "Chuck Berry guitars" on guitar stands in the same window. This was one of them old-timey furniture stores that also sold TVs and a few guitars too - and had a stove-size tube tester set up next to the till...
I oggled those guitar objects closely and immediately decided that I needed to have a "Chuck Berry guitar"! The next Saturday I was in an actual small guitar store (also downtown) looking longingly at japanese SG copies (which were selling for way more money than I had) when an older gentleman came in and tried to sell the owner his new-looking "Chuck Berry guitar". The guy (who as best I can recall, kind of looked like Skunk Baxter) showed us all that he only had two fingers on his fretting hand, and said that it was simply too hard for him. The shop owner ( who had plenty of stock on hand) declined, and the gentleman turned to me and asked "How about you - would you like to buy it?" Forty-five dollars later I was the proud owner of a red/black burst "Toledo" 335 copy (with no case).
Anyway, a few weeks later I had brought the guitar to school for some reason, and one of the guys in band class (I was a trumpet player at school) begged me to sell it to him. So I came home that day with sixty dollars and no guitar, and my older brother (who was a big Beatles fan) immediately insisted that I take that sixty dollars downtown to the 'big' music store. So the next day we rushed down there and he showed me a very nice second-hand no-name japanese Beatle Bass copy - which happened to cost sixty dollars. It's a bit of a blur for the next few decades with dozens of basses passing through in rapid procession (I somehow had as many as seven at a time, usually) - but that original 'beatle bass" stuck around in various incarnations until about the mid-90s...
I oggled those guitar objects closely and immediately decided that I needed to have a "Chuck Berry guitar"! The next Saturday I was in an actual small guitar store (also downtown) looking longingly at japanese SG copies (which were selling for way more money than I had) when an older gentleman came in and tried to sell the owner his new-looking "Chuck Berry guitar". The guy (who as best I can recall, kind of looked like Skunk Baxter) showed us all that he only had two fingers on his fretting hand, and said that it was simply too hard for him. The shop owner ( who had plenty of stock on hand) declined, and the gentleman turned to me and asked "How about you - would you like to buy it?" Forty-five dollars later I was the proud owner of a red/black burst "Toledo" 335 copy (with no case).
Anyway, a few weeks later I had brought the guitar to school for some reason, and one of the guys in band class (I was a trumpet player at school) begged me to sell it to him. So I came home that day with sixty dollars and no guitar, and my older brother (who was a big Beatles fan) immediately insisted that I take that sixty dollars downtown to the 'big' music store. So the next day we rushed down there and he showed me a very nice second-hand no-name japanese Beatle Bass copy - which happened to cost sixty dollars. It's a bit of a blur for the next few decades with dozens of basses passing through in rapid procession (I somehow had as many as seven at a time, usually) - but that original 'beatle bass" stuck around in various incarnations until about the mid-90s...
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My brother bought me a P-Bass copy for $99 when I was about 15.
I had it until I bought a 5-String Warwick in my 20's and sold the P-Bass copy for like $40 to a luthier. Hated playing a 5'er, so I unloaded the Warwick and bought my first Fender P-Bass, which I still have.
I had it until I bought a 5-String Warwick in my 20's and sold the P-Bass copy for like $40 to a luthier. Hated playing a 5'er, so I unloaded the Warwick and bought my first Fender P-Bass, which I still have.
D
That looks like the exact one that I got in 1970! It is a Kimberly bass. I don't remember the cost. I was a freshman in high school and my friends wanted me to play bass because they both played guitars. It had regular slide switches on it! But what I thought was really cool about it was that it had hanger bolts and knurled nuts that held on the bridge cover. That was a really great design because you were never screwing the screws in and out of the wood itself. (Please see photo from Reverb.)
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