THE PBJ, or how to build a bass without really trying, Part II: Assembly (the first time)

The first thing you see when you walk into Dan’s shop. Always have the right tool for the job…

…continued from April 21, 2013…

On the February long weekend in 2011, we carted a big box o’parts down to Mr. Thorpe’s to start assembly. He had already managed to scrounge up all the stuff I hadn’t been able to get; the pots, strap pins, jack, knobs and the string retainer for headstock, from his considerable resources. I had neglected to order a neck plate, so he disassembled one of his own guitars to get the necessary part!

Almost on impulse, I also bought a set of flatwound strings on my way down; it was a last-minute decision, but it ultimately served me well; those strings, on that bass, became integral to my sound.

It really is fascinating to see a parts guitar come together; all the things that Leo Fender did, way back when, to make his guitars easy to manufacture now make building an instrument using parts based on his designs relatively painless. Not having Fender’s assembly jigs, you do need to do some careful measuring and alignment (thank the deities for Dan’s expertise, here; he really does know his stuff), but once the neck is aligned and the bridge is positioned, the rest of it is pretty step-by-step.

There were small adjustments, along the way (eg: GFS’ Jazz Bass bodies are routed to

The PBJ Mk I, with my photo assistant in the shot…

Asian spec, and their pickups are American spec, so you have to Dremel out the mounting screw holes to get them to mate up) but, after two days of assembly, coffee, assembly, beer, assembly, lunch, assembly, dinner, we had a great-sounding, great-playing bass.

I actually played a couple of gigs with this setup but, somehow, I just knew we weren’t quite done…

All in the Family

…Just finished helping my dad set up his first blog. It’s an extension of the newspaper column he’s written for years: “A Senior’s Moment”, published first in the Hamilton Spectator, and then in the Burlington Post. You can see the progress here – http://donsseniorsmoments.wordpress.com

The Name Changes…

…but the blog carries on. You’ll note that this is now called “D.J. Crossley’s Home on the Web”.

I just felt that it was a little unfair of me to pin my opinions on the other members of my former band. They’re all still friends, and they most certainly have opinions of their own. It also allowed my to take the WordPress iPhone app for a test drive.

I’m back!!

Who knew? My WordPress blog is still alive and kicking. Now I’m going to have to find some content. Feel free to message me with anything you’d like to see.

I’d like to think that the blogosphere exists as a refuge from the noise of social media. Let’s hope we can make that the case.

The New Band

Yes, Rick and I are playing together again. The new act is called “Rick and the 3d’s”, and is rounded out with Dave Massey (X- Channel 5) on drums and studio whiz Dan Jeffries on guitar.
We’re really happy with the way it’s sounding, and have a bunch of new gigs, so come on out. You can keep up to date on the band’s blog; http://rickandthe3ds.blogspot.ca.

Gigging this weekend…

Mark, in earlier times. Pretty sure he still has the hat…

…with a bunch of old friends…Mark C. Maxted (solo artist, Mark C. Maxted and the Outriders) on guitar and vocals, Pete Murphy (Wet Spots) on drums and, of course, Mr. Thorpe on guitar. We may even be able to convince Dan to sing a song or two.

The occaision is  the Phoenix Place “Steps Towards Freedom” walk-a-thon. We’re doing one set, as is Mark’s daughter, Katrina. Follow the link to register as a walker, or to sponsor someone who is walking….http://www.phoenixplace.ca/walkathon.html

The PBJ Part 1, or how to build a bass without really trying…

I felt I should put up a little blog post about the project bass I’ve been working on for a couple of years now. I’m convinced it’s finished, but hey, that’s what I thought a couple of years ago.

This starts as one of those “I didn’t really mean to” to stories. Around Christmas  of 2010, I got my renewal for my satellite radio account. At almost exactly the same time, I happened to notice that Guitarfetish (GFS), the online parts supplier that Mr. Thorpe uses for his prototype builds, had started to carry bass necks and bodies. I thought, “For what they want for three years of satellite radio, I could buy enough parts to build myself a new bass. Hmmmmm…”

So, I ordered two pickups, a bridge, a maple neck, a Jazz-style body (I’d never owned a J bass before, and it had been 20 years since I’d had a bass with two pickups), a pickguard, and some tuners from GFS. I didn’t want to build a completely stock Fender-style bass; I had some ideas of my own, but more on that in a minute.

I recorded some of my reactions  as I basically took the parts out of the box:

The GFS neck

“I think there’s a real possibility that you could look at the “sealed vintage-style neck” straight out of the box and be disappointed. The finish was rough, the frets were sprouty (a couple of them were really bad – do the guys putting these things together trim the frets off with pliers?) and the overall piece was kind of underwhelming. Now, I realize that these kind of projects never fall together and, like any project, be it finishing a basement or restoring a classic car, you’re going to be in for some fabbing and general elbow grease before you get it anywhere near where you want it.
According to GFS’ website, “This can make…a PERFECT vintage feel satin finish (Just give the neck a good once-over with some 0000 Steel Wool)”, so despite my initial misgivings, I had at it with the ol’ quadruple-ought, and lo and behold, about an hour (or maybe a bit longer) later, the neck actually felt good.
I left the frets to Dan – a few passes with a flat file, then a careful rounding-over with his fret files, and we were in business.
The profile is kinda like a 50’s “baseball bat” neck, but with a flatter, wider fingerboard. Overall, it’s a lot like its owner – chunky and comfortable.
The headstock is….well, it’s a headstock. I’m not thrilled with the shape (sorta 80’s Asian…Mann, maybe, or Hondo?), and there were some discussions about reshaping it, which is why there’s still no decal. However, the one issue that complicates that is…
I used GFS’ Wilkinson tuners, which are really solid and smooth, but BIG. The headstock had to be reamed out somewhat for the bushings, and the backing plate for the “G” tuner had to be rounded off with a grinder in order to not hang over the edge.”

The body and pickguard.

Though the neck had some issues, the body was stellar from the get-go, a beautiful sunburst (which is curiously a three-colour sunburst on the front, but just black and red on the back); I realize that they’re made in China on a CNC machine, but I still don’t know how they manage to keep the retail price at 59.00. Made of paulownia wood (the Asian substitute for ash or alder), it’s really solid, and sounds great.

I’d gladly build another instrument with a GFS body.

The hardware was just as nice; I already mentioned the tuners, but the bridge was another bargain.

That sweet, sweet bridge…

It’s a heavy cast piece à la Hipshot, fully adjustable with an Allen key, and nicely plated for some real sparkle, especially  compared to a stock Fender bridge. Again, I’d use this piece on any project I had going. How do they sell them for 19.95?

Now, I did mention that I didn’t want to build just a stock Jazz-style bass, so one of the things I thought I’d play with is the electronics. I’d heard rave reviews about the Music-Man style pickups that GFS sells, so I ordered one of those. For the treble pickup, I ordered GFS’ “Pro” style Jazz pickup.

I’m not a big “knobs and switches” guy, so my next challenge was “how do I control these pickups so that I can balance the sound, without the bass looking like it was designed by NASA?” In fact, what I really I wanted was something that looked simpler than a stock Jazz bass.

My dad had just bought me the terrific coffee table book “Fender: The Golden Age” for Christmas, and I started to look at the pictures of early Jazz basses, when they only had two controls; a “stacked” volume and tone control for each pickup. “Well”, I thought, “I can certainly use that idea”.

I ordered a 1962 Jazz control plate from the MusicZoo (the only genuine Fender part on the instrument), and got Dan to scrounge up the appropriate electronics: one “stacked” pot to control both the volume for the Jazz pickup, and the overall tone for the whole instrument, and a volume control with a push-pull switch built in, for the Music Man pickup. That allows me to shut off one of the coils  in the MM pickup to get a brighter, more balanced sound. Props to the MusicZoo for optimism, BTW; I ordered one twenty-dollar part from them, and now they email me catalogue shots of ten thousand dollar guitars every week!

Well, I’m at 900 words and I’ve just ordered the parts; I guess the build will be a separate thread.

…and now, back to music…

…I figure this is a (mostly) music blog, so enough about baseball for the time being.

While in high school, there were few bigger influences on me than the Stones and Faces. Imagine my delight when, in late ’73, news came across the pond that the bands’ respective guitar players, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, had teamed up to work on Woody’s first solo album! It seemed almost too good to be true.

The genesis of the project, according to Keith, was that he was out on the town one night and bumped into Ronnie’s first wife, Krissie. She mentioned to Keith that Ronnie was up at their house in Richmond, working on a solo project, and why didn’t he drop by? Keith did, and wound up literally moving in until the album was finished; “I’ve Got My Own Album To Do” quietly became one of the best albums of the mid-70’s.

The title, of course, was a gentle dig at their respective bandmates; Rod Stewart, at the time, was recording his solo effort, “Smiler“, Ronnie Lane had just finished his first solo project, “Anymore for Anymore” , and even Stones’ bassist Bill Wyman had ventured into that territory with “Monkey Grip“. All this gave Keith and Ronnie the necessary time to themselves. Of course, both Rod and Mick Jagger eventually wound up contributing to Ronnie’s album.

In order to create some buzz around the album’s release, the musicians that recorded most of the album (Ronnie & Keith, with Face Ian Maclagan (keys), ex-Sly & the Family Stone Andy Newmark (drums), and veteran session bassist Willie Weeks) played a series of gigs at Kilburn Polytechnic (now part of the College of North West London). This band, though it was only together for the few weeks that the rehearsals and gigs took, is now sometimes referred to as “the First Barbarians” , in reference to Ronnie & Keith’s side project of the 80’s, the New Barbarians.

My impetus for this post is that I remember reading at the time that the gigs were filmed; I wondered if any footage had survived. Youtube, as usual, came through. To whit:

 

A few fun facts about the recording of the album and those shows:

• Keith’s decision to move into Ronnie’s house may have been motivated by considerations other than creativity; Scotland Yard was looking for any excuse to bust him (he’d walked away from some firearms charges when police badly botched the investigation) and had his own London home in Cheyne Walk under 24-hour surveillance.
• The house where the album was recorded, the Wick, is  an English Heritage Grade 1 listed building. Constructed in in 1775, one of the previous occupants was actor John Mills. While there, Keith stayed in daughter Hayley’s former bedroom.
• Before this all took place, Keith and Ronnie were nodding acquaintances. After a few weeks they were bosom buddies, then semi-permanent guest stars in each other’s projects. By 1975, Ronnie had replaced the departing Mick Taylor as the “touring” second guitarist in the Stones and, though other people were auditioned (Wayne Perkins, Ry Cooder) became the last “official” member of the Stones in 1976. Everyone who’s played with them since (Darryl Jones, Chuck Leavell, Ian Mclagan, Blondie Chaplin) has been an employee.
• Like the Pirates’ gigs at Dingwall’s, Woody’s concerts in the fall of 1974 seemed to be one of those touchstone moments for the nascent punk movement in the UK. Nick Kent relates how he was at one of  the concerts with Malcolm McLaren when Steve Jones, Paul Cook, Glen Matlock and first Sex Pistols guitarist Wally Nightingale suddenly appeared out of nowhere; not having the money for tickets, they had used their skills as second-story men and climbed in through a skylight in the roof!

Wilko Johnson

“I already had a gig when they asked me to do Game of Thrones…”

Wilko Johnson has played his last gig, according to a story in the Daily Express. He was hoping to do a series of gigs on his home turf of Canvey Island in Essex, but his failing health wouldn’t allow it.

Dammit, dammit, dammit…

Just saw on Facebook that Dr. Feelgood founding member Wilko Johnson has pancreatic cancer, and has elected not to have treatment. Doctors give him less than a year to live, but in true Road Warrior fashion, he’s off to Japan for a tour, back to England to mix a new album, a short tour of France and then, hopefully a series of farewell gigis in the UK.