The Tale of Franken-bass

Once upon a time…

I was 19 I went shopping for a bass. I wanted something that was more than just an instrument off the wall at the local big brand store.  I found a oddball shop down in Hollywood that all the “cool kids” shopped at and spent the day looking at guitars.  It wasn’t long before I found the instrument that “spoke” to me. I walked out of the shop with a G&L 2000 that ended up following me around for the next 15 years.  Within a month, that G&L became part of my voice. The cheaper instruments I had spent most of my time until then ended up slamming into the drummers symbols and thrown into amplifiers. I had learned to communicate with this instrument, and it had established my sound.  It is surely why it stayed with me all those years, and endured past the various groups I played with, beyond my abandonment of regular practice and performance, and well past my self-inflicted exile from playing (or even listening to) music all together.  That bass followed me through countless moves, relationships, most of a marriage. It lived through three careers, but mostly remained under my bed, only emerging for the occasional trip down memory lane.  It was orange sunburst.  It had a tricky input.  It growled. I loved the feel of its teeth, and for the first few years I had it, we were best friends.

Right around 2005 I gave away most of my remaining musical gear and instruments because I was sick of packing them up and moving them.  I had accumulated a lot of drums, recording equipment, bass guitars, and I had stopped playing music for almost 3 years at that point, and I felt like it was time to face the facts and give these things a better home.  During what I consider ‘The Purge’, only two things survived: My acoustic guitar (because every home needs a 6-string.  It’s almost not an instrument, it’s a piece of furniture), and my G&L 2000.  My bass continued to follow me for another 8 years.

As time went on, there were good times, and bad times, and one time, during a bad time, I needed rent bad enough to make a really bad decision.  I sold that bass, that had given me a voice, that had taught me how to speak, that had showed who I am.  I regretted it instantly. To me, it meant more than just loosing an old part of my past, it meant that I wasn’t a bass player anymore, and it proved to be too much of a hit to my identity for me to take. I needed a bass. 

I remember telling my wife (at the time) that night that maybe I could find a cheap one at a garage sale and restore it.  I thought maybe the Ventura Swap Meet would have something I could pick up.  Perhaps, and I remember saying this specifically, I could find one in a trash can somewhere.  I had done a lot of amateur work on my old guitars as a kid, and I knew how to fix some basic issues, and even how to reset a fingerboard.  I needed a bass.

The next day, in my neighbor’s garbage can, I saw the neck of a bass sticking out. 

This is a true story.  I think coincidences happen.  They do, or we wouldn’t have that word.  However, this was so random and specific that I suspect my neighbors overheard the conversation.  Whatever the cause, the fact remained, my wish had been granted.  I pulled, from the refuse, a broken and battered 1984 Electra-Westone, rusted out hardware, with a fingerboard coming apart from the neck, and no volume knobs.  This beaten bass guitar looked like I felt.  It looked like it would never play again.

But I knew what to do.  I pulled it out from the garbage, I took it inside, and I began to play.  It cried and whimpered, but I knew it would work. It just needed some help. 

I replaced all the hardware and fixed the neck.  I replaced the pick-ups, bought new pots and replaced the knobs with ones that go to 11.  I painted it black and put new strings on it. My ex-wife called it “Franken-bass”, and today, it is still my favorite bass guitar.  I began playing again with Franken-bass in 2014, and I started getting work so quickly that I decided to go back to school and get a degree (or two, or three) in music, and be a musician full time. 

A few years later, in 2019, I was in a pawn shop in Ventura, and saw a white, G&L 2000, for ridiculously cheap.  I played it and felt that old voice all over again.  It made me feel like I had found a ghost from my past or something.  I bought that bass, and I do enjoy it, very much.  It is not the greatest bass in the world, however.  It is just a Tribute.

Here’s a video of me and Franken-bass, making sweet music.

https://youtu.be/wEAnG6zLEzI