There’s something about old gear that sneaks up on you. You don’t think about it for years, then one day you’re standing there wondering what’s the oldest bit of musical kit I still own?
For me, it turns out to be this bass. It’s a 1980s Japanese bass guitar, nothing fancy, nothing rare. In fact, it was cheap when I first got it and it’s still cheap now. If it was in pristine condition (which it definitely isn’t) you might get a couple of hundred bucks for it. Maybe. But that’s not really the point, is it?
This was one of my first proper instruments. I played it constantly back in the early ’90s—recording, gigging, dragging it around to wherever we were playing at the time. It was just part of life. Then, like these things do, it slowly got retired. Other gear came along, newer, growlier… after all, when you’re passionate about bass you accumulate a few in your lifetime. And this one ended up sitting quietly, doing absolutely nothing for a very long time. Until recently…
I picked it up the other day and thought, right, let’s see if you’ve still got anything left in you. Plugged it in… and well, it made an absolute racket. Not a good racket. The kind of racket that suggests the electrics have well and truly had enough. But buried in there, somewhere under the crackle and protest, there was still sound trying to get out.
I wouldn’t say I played well. But this thing didn’t make it easy. The strings have to be about 30 years old at this point. They feel tight, slow, like they’ve got no interest in cooperating. You press down and they sort of reluctantly agree.
But the funny thing is, as soon as I started messing around on it, all the memories came back.
I actually snapped the headstock on this bass during a gig in a tiny pub in England in the ’90s. Properly snapped it right near the end. Mid-gig, chaos, no idea how it even kept going. But it did. I glued it back together afterwards and somehow, against all odds, it’s still holding. Still stays in tune. Still technically playable, even if it sounds like it’s arguing with itself.
The electrics are shot, no question. It would need a proper clean-up, maybe more than that, and realistically it’s not worth the money or effort to restore it. Not in any practical sense.
But that’s the thing with instruments like this. The value isn’t in what you’d get for it. It’s in everything it’s been part of.
I’ve been toying with the idea of turning it into a fretless—pulling the frets out, filling the gaps, giving it a second life of sorts. No idea why, really. I don’t even like fretless basses. Never have. Don’t love the sound, don’t love the feel.
Which probably makes it the perfect project.
We’ll see what happens.
