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The
Black Bass Guitar |
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Have any of you noticed how many white and cream coloured vehicles there are on South Africa’s roads – I would hazard a guess that somewhere between a quarter and a half of the vehicles are white or cream. I’m a strange lad – I notice things like that! I’ve also noticed that there are a lot of black instruments in this world of ours. What is it about black instruments – more especially guitars and bass guitars – that is so appealing? How many of you have, at one stage or another, owned a black bass? Some of us have owned several, own one at present and would never part with it. Gito (Aria Pro), Nippy (Fender Precision), Kai (Samick fretless), Judy (custom made bass), Donne (Warwick Streamer), Kerry Hiles (Aria Pro) Chris Hassett (Rickenbacker) and myself are just 8 people among thousands of others that own a black bass. Other, more famous names include Jason Newsted of Metallica who has a Black Alembic bass among quite a few others; John Cook of Reign plays a black Dean bass. Dickie Peterson of Blue Cheer plays a black Precision bass. Bakithi Kumalo, Darryl Jones and Chuck Rainey, all own a black Washburn Acoustic bass. Gene Simmons of KISS is another famous bassist that’s always seen playing a black bass. The late great John Entwistle of The Who played many black basses during his career – the most well known being his black Warwick Buzzard bass. Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath fame has a black Vigier bass, Royston Langdon of Spacehog played a black Rickenbacker. Ralphe Armstrong, one time bassist of the Mahavishnu Orchestra uses a black Gibson Les Paul bass. There’s left hander, Doug Pinnik of Kings X who plays a black 12 string Hamer bass. Bardi Martin of Candlebox played a Black Tobias for many years, Mike Mills of R.E.M. played a Black Precision and Billy Gould of Faith No More played a Black Zon bass. There were a ton of bassists in the eighties including Geddy Lee, Martin Mitchell, Chris Becker and all the rest of them that took to playing the plastic, headless, Steinberger bass that was only ever available in black – Geddy has been seen playing quite a few black basses over the years including a black Rickenbacker and a black Wal bass and our own Martin Mitchell also used a black MusicMan Stingray bass, then there’s probably the most famous black bass of them all – the black Precision bass with the mirror scratch plate that the late Phil Lynott used to great effect in Thin Lizzy – the list goes on and on. The funny thing though is that black instruments have a bit of an embarrassing setback attached to them. Have you ever seen a guitarist or bassist playing up on stage that has neglected to keep his or her black instrument spotlessly clean? You can see every mark and fingerprint from far away. I remember a friend of mine coming down heavily on the bassist of a quite well known South African band as he came off stage – his bass looked like it hadn’t been given a cleaning for years! Black Instruments definitely have a bit of sex appeal – our bookmatched, woodgrained, neck through body versions are truly beautiful but they always have a dated look as time goes by. The lacquer yellows and the construction methods change – just look at the old Alembics and Jay Dee basses built in the seventies and eighties – you can see they were constructed around that time but send them into the spray shop for a coat of paint and they don’t look quite so dated anymore. Make that paint black and you’ve suddenly got a very sexy modern looking instrument on your hands. Black instrument seem to be favored more by rock musicians than jazz and fusioneers for some reason, especially those guys playing Heavy Metal or Death Metal. We all have different reasons for acquiring black instruments and I doubt two people have the same story to tell. I wanted a white Thunderbird like Martin Turner’s bass but when I couldn’t find one I headed for the other end of the colour spectrum and found my black one. I bought my black stained Warwick Streamer because it was the only one in T.O.M.S. that had a lacquered finish – I didn’t want to have to mess around with waxing the wood every six weeks. Donne was given her black stained Warwick Streamer by Johann. Gito, Kerry, Chris, Judy, Nippy and Kai have different stories to tell. The most famous black instrument I know of is the black Strat that Eric Clapton affectionately called “Blackie”. I must admit that I’ve never been so moved as to name any of my instruments but my Black Thunderbird and my black Warwick streamer have a very special place in my heart and I’m sure Gito, Nippy, Kai, Donne, Judy, Kerry and Chris also have a special affection for their brunette instruments. |
