Dingus

Geezer with one of his Martin Birch basses: And his striped custom JayDee: Geezer with BC Rich Eagle and Liverpool F.C -style perm and moustache, CIRCA 1980:

[quote name='noelk27' timestamp='1392318686' post='2367374'] Quite possibly. Before unlined touchboards came in as a standard model with the R variants, special order fretless models would be prepared by the FujiGen custom shop. [/quote] I deleted the original post because, after some You Tube research , I think he was playing a fretted Aria SB and an unlined fretless Spector bass. I'm getting to be the age where my memory is starting to play tricks on me!

I'm all Geezered out! Too much trivia!

[quote name='JPJ' timestamp='1392297400' post='2366904'] Didn't he at one time use a certain brand of american bass that isn't mentioned on here which he swapped a precision for with Glen Hughes of Deep Purple or did I dream that (I have strange dreams) [/quote] Yes, although he says that the night that Never Say Die concert video was recorded was the only time he ever used that Rickenbacker, and he only did so that night because he had forgotten to bring his own bass , which was a custom black and white striped JayDee by that time ( 1978). .

[quote name='Skybone' timestamp='1392289163' post='2366763'] IIRC, in the original vinyl version of Vol 4, with the booklet inside, Geezer's pictured using a plexi Dan Armstrong. In the Live in Paris video's (circa '70) he's using a Precision, whereas in the Never Say Die video 9circa '79), he's using a Fireglo 4001. He's used a lot of different basses over the years. In numerous interviews, he's always said that his "old faithful" go to bass was a Precision, until he started using the Lakland's. [/quote] Geezer bought the Dan Armstrong the day that his Precision was smashed in Canada because it was the only decent bass in the first shop they went to to find a replacement , and he needed something to do the gig with that night. He decided he like the Dan Armstrong, and used it until he got his custom Martin Birch bass for the Sabbath Bloody Sabbath -era stuff. He was certainly playing a white Martin Birch by the 1973 tour.

[quote name='Cosmo Valdemar' timestamp='1392295789' post='2366867'] The first three Sabbath albums are the masterclass in Geezer-style. It helps that he's right up in the mix too. MoR is still the Precision, we're just not used to hearing P basses with flats being drop tuned to C#, so no wonder it sounds odd! From Vol 4 onwards his tone changes to something warmer and more indistinct - probably due to the ever more complex productions and multi-tracked guitar parts. That said, my favourite Sabbath album of all is Sabotage. [/quote] I read an interview with Geezer where he said that he hates the bass sound on Volume 4 in particular. He said they were taking so much coke that he lost the plot a bit , and that their dodgy manager was having a hand in producing and mixing the record , despite the fact that he didn't have a clue about what he was doing , and the bass sound suffered as a result. I personally think that Geezer's sound was all wrong after the Paranoid album, and didn't come back on song until Heaven And Hell. He seemed to spend most of the 1970's experimenting with one woolly and indistinct tone after another. Still a monumentally great player, nevertheless.

[quote name='White Cloud' timestamp='1392287001' post='2366731'] Wow! Those basses really inspired me in a big way at the time. I'd have loved to have played that bass. [/quote] Yes, I was pretty awed just by seeing that bass in the flesh and thinking that it was the one that Geezer played so brilliantly on those couple of albums . I think it will have been sometime around 1990 and the Bass Centre wanted about £600 for it ! I remember only too well what a special band Sabbath were to me and my friends when we were young, and the first Sabbath concerts I ever went to were on the Heaven and Hell tour when Geezer was playing that bass. I remember my friends and I waiting outside Black Sabbath's hotel on the afternoon of the concert to try and get their autograph and what must have been Geezer Butlers bass tech getting out of a car with a pair of Zero Haliburton aluminium flight cases which must have had those BC Rich bases in them and walking into the hotel reception . Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet Geezer that day, and still haven't met him yet, despite my hotline to him via his cleaner, but did have a memorable encounter with Tony Iommi who turned out to be a lovely bloke . Basses like that BC Rich were completely beyond the reach of mere mortals back in the day, for all kinds of reasons. Yes, they were very expensive ( I seem to remember that a BC Rich bass would have cost around the £1000 in the late 1970's , and that was a huge amount of money for a bass in those days) , but also the world was not the global marketplace it is now. Today, you could look on the internet, email people, or pick up the phone and call a builder or retailer anywhere in the world and order any bass that took your fancy and not think twice about it, providing you have the money . There is so much more information readily available about whatever bass you want to buy, and about how you can go about buying it. Buying consumer goods directly from overseas was practically unheard of for most people in those days. You only need to look on Basschat to see that there are lots of people in the U.K that have got some very nice basses from the top end of the market. Back in the late Seventies, that was not the case, and esoteric basses like BC Rich or Alembic were very much the prerogative of successful professional players who bought them in the States. For the most part such instruments were just not available to ordinary players in Britain. I seem to remember that you could get BC Rich guitars and basses to special order from one of the shops on Denmark Street / Shaftsbury Avenue , but they were not for the likes of folks like us. Probably the only ones in the country belonged to people like Geezer, Suzi Quatro and Neil Murray.

[quote name='Gust0o' timestamp='1392236821' post='2366393'] They've got a Precision-a-like neck. Shame, brilliant basses - but horses for courses. One man's gravy is another man's jus, ad nauseum. [/quote] It's worth mentioning that this bass that had belonged to Geezer had been very well -used ( absolutely hammered, in fact), so wasn't in the best overall fettle . I suppose that is what heavy touring does. I have played other Eagles in the past that were much better and much more easy to play than Geezers. There were a pair I saw for sale in Atlanta a couple of years ago that were phenomenal, one from 1979 and the other from 1980. The quality and craftsmanship on those basses is of the very highest order, and they have help up very well. I have played a few "celebrity" owned basses over the years , and it was very noticeable that, by most ordinary people's standards, they had all been trashed mercilessly. Ex- big name players instruments really are the bass guitar equivalent of an ex-hire car.

[quote name='basshead56' timestamp='1392236107' post='2366380'] Surely it's Mop Rules?! I'll get me coat... [/quote] Again, poor, but I like it!

[quote name='Gust0o' timestamp='1392236821' post='2366393'] They've got a Precision-a-like neck. Shame, brilliant basses - but horses for courses. One man's gravy is another man's jus, ad nauseum. [/quote] They were ( and still are) iconic basses as far as I am concerned. Geezer's BC Rich bases were custom-made for him by Bernie Rico personally after Geezer visited the factory in L.A, so it is quite probable that this bass had a custom extra- chunky neck profile at Geezer's request , and was not typical of all Eagle basses.

[quote name='Graham' timestamp='1392233738' post='2366332'] Thanks for that comprehensive reply Dingus :-) Interesting he played Precisions for the first three albums, I'd have guessed Master Of Reality was something else, particularly as I really dislike his tone on that record. [/quote] He was definitely using his Precision up to about 1971/ early 72, when his main bass got smashed at Toronto International airport and he bought Dan Armstrong as a hasty replacement . . I've played one of his old BC Rich Eagle basses when it was for sale in a shop , and it was awful, with a neck like a tree trunk.

[quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1392231469' post='2366288'] Did she use and iron man? [/quote] Poor, but great at the same time.

[quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1392230615' post='2366272'] Less rather than more ... D'Addario make strings to order for other people ... they don't merely give away the strings they already make. [/quote] +1 Most American-made string brands are indeed manufactured by either D'Addario, La Bella or, more often than not, GHS. Those manufacturers usually do , however, collaborate with individual brands like Fender or whoever to create a product for them which is distinct, with its' own character.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1392229788' post='2366261'] Thanks for the two quid, mate. Is there anything else you have for sale that you'd like me to start a thread about? [/quote] It's the least I could do. I just hope you spend that money on food and not another bottle of cheap cider . This weather is way too wet and cold to be sitting in the park . As it happens ( unfortunate term of phrase nowadays post- Jimmy Saville) I actually have a load of Ernie Ball Super Slinkies that I have realised I am never likely to use. If you could start a similar thread proclaiming the joys of Ernie Ball strings around the beginning of next week I would be very grateful , and may even see my way clear to lending you some more items from my collection of Bonnie Langford-orientated memorabilia by way of a reward. Don't worry though , I will get the O.K from your warden at the hostel and the Probation Service before I actually post anything out to you,especially after what happened last time.

I used to know Geezer Butler's cleaning lady. She didn't know anything about basses, though.

Geezer started out playing a Precision on the first three albums, but by Vol 4 I think he was using a Dan Armstrong plexiglass bass. Later in the mid 1970's Geezer started using custom Martin Birch and JayDee basses, then switched to BC Rich Eagle basses at the very end of that decade for the Heaven and Hell/ Mob Rules era stuff . By the late 1980's he was rocking Spector NS2 basses, then used Vigier Excess and Passion basses throughout the 1990's, before discovering the Lakland basses in the early 2000's Bob Glaub PJ and, Joe Osborn) he uses as his touring basses up to the present day. Lakland have just released the new Geezer Butler signature model, essentially a Precision -style ( or optional PJ) bass featuring Geezer's own signature EMG pickups . Geezer often records with a selection of his vintage Fenders.

If what you mean is why have the side dots on a lined fretless in the same position as a fretted bass, i.e in the middle of the fret , then the answer is to make the experience of playing a lined fretless as akin as possible to playing a fretted bass . On my fretless the fret lines have been specially done with some acrylic and can be seen clearly quite deep at the side of the fingerboard. If the side dots were also above their respective fret lines then I think that would make looking at the neck a lot more alien and be disconcerting, given that I am far more used to playing a fretted bass.

[quote name='GreeneKing' timestamp='1392220748' post='2366117'] Go on then, an you pm me with the details. Peter [/quote] Result! Thank you for ending my ordeal before I sacrificed whatever is left of my dignity and[i] really [/i] started begging people to buy them.

Can we please keep this thread going until someone forks out the pittance I am asking for my Fender 8250's? I really cannot believe my luck at this spontaneous outpouring of pro- Fender string propaganda. I don't really need £9, but I have to find a buyer now just to save face.

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1392216954' post='2366056'] They will all go that way. [/quote] Yes, and sooner rather than later.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1392201754' post='2365818'] It's a sop to say 'tested in (insert western country )' ..... it almost implies that we are aware of perceived issues and we have safeguarded against them. It says to me that the decision was made purely to maximise financial gains and nothing to do with a QC decision. It devalues a brand, IMO... and I am not saying that the Pacific rim can't make decent enough gear but everyone knows no one is paying a premium for that sort of gear, but companies try and maintain that pricepoint.. Everyone buys Chinese fridges as they are cheap....and you throw one away and buy another.... If companies go down that route then they should cut the price accordingly... I still don't go for that approach myself as I believe the western worker needs to earn his wage so I'll pay a premium for that reason alone for musical gear... I object to paying for Far east gear at Western prices simply because the labour costs are so much cheaper...and not remotely comparable in other regards... Be straight about it all..... and then cut your costs. If not, it is a crock and nobody should be fooled otherwise.... IMO [/quote] Yes, that it it exactly. You have put it in a nutshell, JT. It is quite conceivable that the move to Far Eastern manufacturing was part of Markbass's long-term business plan from the outset , i.e establishing a prestige product and then making a low cost, higher profit version of those same products somewhere in the Developing World and exploiting their own brand name . What you are in effect now buying is a copy of the original made in Italy products.

Bloody students.

Apparently, if you are interested , Fender sell more sunburst basses than any other finish , by a big margin. Someone from Fender once told me it was about 9 to 1 ratio on the U.S-made basses.

[quote name='Big_Stu' timestamp='1392163216' post='2365630'] Blimey, I've only ever had a shaver that could do that! [/quote] Mrs Dingus uses plug adaptors and plugs in American voltage stuff in the U.K and U.K voltage appliances in the U.S.A , and just trusts to chance the results! Her philosophy is if it blows up, it blows up , and if not it's a bonus. She seems to have a very cavalier attitude towards the damage that can be done by shrapnel, but since her hair caught fire in a hotel in Indianapolis she has been a bit more cautious.

For the amount of money you would be saving, you would be crazy to ship this amp from the States. You could very easily end up with loads of hidden costs and unwanted hassle that made it a very sour deal overall, and , as others have already pointed out, the likelihood is that the U.K importer won't help you if and when you need warranty support.