A little overdue bass maintenance

I’ve been playing a bit more bass lately. Much less frustrating for me than guitar. This is a wacky little 1968 SD Curlee short scale. My bass teacher had one of these and I found one on ebay a while ago. Its a neat little thing. Put on the first set of new strings in years. Cleaned up the maple neck and fingerboard with my favorite bees wax and turpentine mix. It works well and I just love the way it smells.
In fact, if the World Turpentine Council ever needs a spokesperson, I’m applying. I have my Billy Mays style infomercial all ready to go…
What if I told you that you that there was a product that could clean wood… and condition it… at the same time! I know what you’re thinking… Dave, there’s no way… But wait, there’s more… After a hard day of wood cleaning and conditioning, there’s no need to shower… this miracle product doubles as a unisex fragrance! Right from work to a night out on the town… there’s no telling what adventures are in store when you smell like this!
Unleash the power of Turpentine!

A bit much???

Guitar Stand

Making a couple quick guitar stands. Using some of the mahogany from my friends porch. Taking the opportunity to practice making blind sliding dovetails.

Double Rainbow

Played a gig on upright last night. It was a party at a house out in the country. Weather was beautiful. It rained for 5 minutes at a set break. So I took a quick pic of a nice double rainbow.
Ran into some old friends. Was also offered to take a bunch of local wood from trees on the property. Including some Osage orange. Sweet.

Quick bridge rebuild and replacement

Here is that wacky, cheap, 24” scale guitar that I rebuilt and replaced the bridge on.  The original bridge had no saddle, so I made the new one and put in a rosewood saddle.  I may replace it with bone. It sounds OK, but its really small for my hands.

I was hoping to glue the bridge on guitar number one today, but the humidity spiked in my shop.  Its cool and wet out so the AC didn’t bring it down.  So I’m on my second dehumidifier now, hopefully it brings the humidity back under 50%.  If so, then I’ll glue the bridge tomorrow.

I made new bridge clamps in the mean time and can still do more prep work, making clamping cauls, etc…

Awesome Charlie Hunter show

Saw Charlie Hunter and Scott Amendola tonight.  Just heard about it yesterday and got tickets. Don’t think it was promoted well by a local jazz festival.  Had great seats in a small venue.  It was fantastic!  Probably one of the most inspired performances I’ve seen in a long time.

Upright bass and such

Quick phone pic to accompany my post. My bass and bows.
Gig went well last night. I keep meeting really cool people lately too. Band was me and my friends Paul on piano and Mark on drums. Joined by Tony a 70 year old sax player for the last hour. He used to play in the Navy band. One of my favorites to play with. He always calls interesting tunes. Thank heavens for the real book on iPad.
So I met a world class drummer last night. He’s friends with my piano player and they were talking while we set up. His name is John Riley and is one of the top jazz drummers in the business. Nice guy, he was on his way out, or he would have sat in. That’s ok, it would have made me really nervous as I certainly am not nearly close to the level of bassists he plays with.
It’s strange. I live in a small town in rural PA but we’ve had two incredible drummers move to the area in the past couple years. I met John last night and the other is Eric Harland. He lives next to my friend but I haven’t met him yet. Guess being a quiet, beautiful place within 2 hours of NYC is why.
Fun stuff.

Packed for a gig

All packed for a gig tonight. Playing upright bass in a jazz trio. Three hour set. I’m really rusty but it should be fun, hand cramps and all.
Playing out two Fridays in a row. I’d love to do that more often.

Fame Studios, Muscle Shoals.

Just got back from a really cool road trip.  Long drive to AL, but did some really interesting things.

Got a private tour of Fame Studios by the founder, Rick Hall.  Spent about two hours with him and my two friends in his office.  Unbelievable the amount of artists that recorded there and how much music came out of the area.  Met several of the Swampers who recorded with Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, the Rolling Stones, among many others.  Really cool, down to earth and humble considering the kind of things they’ve done.

Saw the Muscle Shoals documentary.  Great film.  Great cinematography.  Half the people in the film were seated at tables around me.  Many of them played in a concert afterwards.  Everyone there was so nice too.

Just one of those opportunities that I feel very fortunate to have had.

Road trip…

Don’t know if you’ve heard about this new documentary about the legendary music of Muscle Shoals yet.  It was just shown at Sundance with good reviews. Most of you who read my nonsense know that I rarely post anything but my own pics, but I’ll make an exception, as this is relevant to my next week.

So, a road trip…

Got a call last week from a friend who asked me if I wanted to go to the premier of this documentary, in Muscle Shoals AL, next Wednesday.  Had tickets to the VIP party, movie premier and concert.  Um… Yes!  This is right up my alley.  Just needed to re-arrange my schedule a bit, book a room and load up my iphone for 13 hours of driving music.

Should be fun…

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

Stereo cabinet for the shop

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Made a quick plywood cabinet for my shop to house my stereo. Finished assembling the other morning. Walnut frames and polycarbonate sheeting for the doors. Excited to have my turntable hooked back up. I even disassembled cleaned the pots on … Continue reading →