Boring music post

Anyone want to lend me about $5,000? I want to buy a 1966 Fender Jazz Bass. This is my dream instrument. Any 60's or 70's Fender Jazz will do. The sound they have is just phenomenal, something to do with the age of the wood. One of the players at Alive had a vintage Fender PJ bass, and I got to chat with him about it. No doubt about it, these are some sweet machines. Jaco Pastorius (self-proclamed "world's greatest bassisit") played a '72 Fender Jazz called "The Bass of Doom". He pulled all the frets out himself, filled in the holes, and covered the neck in marine epoxy to transform it into a fretless. The man was a genius, and his bass was part of that wonderful sound. Once I have the money to drop on an instrument (after I have amplification), this is it. I won't need another bass as long as I live (well, I might get a modern active/passive Fender PJ, but all in the name of tone and versitility).

Now, the basses that I actually own. On the left is Herr Henker (Mr. Executioner/Hangman in German). My main bass, Herr Henker has a wonderful fingerstyle tone that is suprisingly full in drop-D tuning with the tone knob on 5. It took me about 30 seconds of playing this bass in Mid-Michigan Music to know I had to have it. The best $300 I've ever spent, most of the money came from trading in my old used Fender Precision which I got for $100. What a difference that made. I love this bass and wouldn't trade it for the world.

On the right is Orion, my new Arbor Stingray-style bass. Assuming I had the money (I don't) I would have bought a real Music Man Stingray, but for $1,000 I could have just kept saving for my vintage (or some nice amplification). As it stands, this baby's got a humbucker pickup which completely removes all the extra noise from amplification (a minor problem with Herr Henker). The picked and slapped tones on this thing are what I got this bass for, and it performs. I can get some heavy rock and funk sounds out of it and for that sometimes replaces my Jazz bass as the instrument of choice.

Well, story time's over. I guess I know what my first luxury purchase is going to be after I get an engineering job. I figure with $56k as an average starting salary I shouldn't have too long to wait. Then all I need to do is find a gig so I can utilize my sonic weaponry...

Prepare for Bandwidth. Let it ride.