My first bass was an crude contraption that I constructed myself. It could best be described as an electric washtub bass...without the washtub. I started with a mop handle. I attached a small transistor radio speaker on to one end, so that the magnet faced the stick and the speaker cone faced outward. I attached a long piece of phone wire to a nail in the end of the broomstick, ran it through the speaker cone and over the center diaphragm. Then I attached the string to the other end of the stick, tightening it as much as possible so that when I plucked it, it produced a note. I ran a shielded wire from the speaker to the phono input on my parents stereo. The speaker acted as a pickup and reproduced the tone made by plucking the string. Since the action was very low on this bass I could change pitch by pressing the string to the mop handle, thereby shortening it and raising the pitch.

It didn't take long to tire of this bass so I bugged my mom into letting me take bass lessons. And of course since I needed an instrument to practice on, she also rented a bass from the guitar store where I took the lessons. It was a Sears Silvertone that vaguely resembled a Fender Precision. It had a neck like a log and weighed about 50 pounds. Along with it came a small Univox amp that was good for...not much.

I played this combination for a while until I traded the Silvertone in on a Univox High Flyer bass. The High Flyer's neck was about as wide as a pencil and was a lot easier to play than the Silvertone. I also upgraded my amp to a Fender Bassman with two 12" speakers.

After high school I got rid of the High Flyer and bought a beautiful rose colored Univox Rickenbacher copy. This Uni was almost identical to the real Rickenbacher (so I was told). It had a one piece neck, stereo outputs and looked exactly like the Rick. That's all that mattered to me. By the way, my favorite bass player at the time was Chris Squire. Coincidence?

In 1979 I traded in my Fender Bassman for a brand new Acoustic 126 combo amp. This amp was state-of-the-art at the time. It featured solid state circuitry, a five band graphic EQ, 15" speaker and a folded horn. That amp was a workhorse. I still use it today as the low end of my bi-amped system. Unfortunately the amp section stopped working in 2003, after only 24 years. The funny thing is, it had a 25 year warranty! Acoustic went out of business long ago though. They just recently started making amps again.

I played the Univox for several years until I upgraded to a Guild B-302 fretless (I had discovered Jaco by then) bass. The folks at Guild made it especially for me. I wanted a fretless neck with lines but Guild didn't make them that way. The owner of my local guitar store called them and said that I was a great player and local phenomenon. This was total bullshit of course but it did the trick. They literally picked the bass up off the assembly line just before the fretting machine and put it back down just after it. The Guild had a big, woody sound which went well with the fretless neck. I played this bass for quite a few years until I started playing more funk tunes. When it comes to slapping, a fretless bass just doesn't have the punch and sharp attack of a fretted one.

I sold the Guild and bought a Westone. This was a very cool instrument. It was jet black and came with interchangeable necks, fretless (no lines) and fretted. You simply unbolted one and replaced it with the other. It also had active dual coil humbucker pickups that could be split and phase inverted. To top it off, it had huge amounts of tone control. It was great for me since I couldn't afford two basses.

A few years later I met a guy who had a white '72 Jazz with a '68 fretted Precision neck (both American made) and EMG pickups. After trying out each other's basses we decided to simply trade them. That Jazz played beautifully. I asked my friend Rick, who is a very talented artist and musician, if he would paint the bass. He agreed to and did an incredible job. Before I left for a one month vacation the bass was white. When I returned it was Rickified! Later I started getting itchy about playing fretless again so I did a Jaco and ripped the frets out, then polyurethaned the neck.

After a couple years plucking the jazz I bought a Ken Smith Burner Deluxe 6-string fretted bass and sold the Fender. That Ken Smith was nothing less than awesome. It was very easy to play and sounded fantastic. It was far and away the best bass I had ever played (and probably ever will).

Unfortunately I never really adapted well to a six-string bass so I sold it and bought a fretted Jazz bass, which I am still playing today, believe it or not.

I also bought a fretless Jazz with no lines on the fretboard. This is a Japanese bass, the only (cheap) one factory-made without lines. I prefer the un-lined fingerboard because I tend to play more between the notes than I did with a lined fingerboard. It seems more musical.

When my faithful Acoustic 126 amp bit the dust in 2003 after 24 years I replaced it with a Carvin RC210 combo amp. It has 2 10" speakers and a horn, packs 600 watts (bridged mono) and can be bi-amped. For rock gigs I use the bi-amp setup with my Acoustic amp (the speaker works fine). I send the highs to the Carvin and the lows to the Acoustic. It sounds great! For jazz gigs I use the Carvin by itself.

In 2005 I purchased a Dean Playmate EAB acoustic bass. This bass is an unbelievable bargain. It has a two-octave neck, built-in pickup, a huge lower bough and it costs only $150 new! It's comparable in size to a Taylor acoustic bass (the Rolls Royce of acoustic basses) and the big lower bough gives it a lot of volume. It doesn't sound as good as a Taylor but it costs about $2000 less. Here are a couple samples of each. You be the judge.

Taylor acoustic bass Play Stop

Dean acoustic bass Play Stop