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.