RhysP

[quote name='lowdowner' timestamp='1358594838' post='1941835'] ....we all rave about Wooten and The Meters..... [/quote] No we don't. I don't even have the first idea who "The Meters" are to be honest.

Brilliant stuff indeed.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1358343920' post='1937311'] Gosh - who would be selling that then, Rhys..? [/quote] You can't blame a guy for trying........

For slightly more you can buy a lovely secondhand Glockenklang 400 watt head (£380) that's not too far away from you in Cardiff......

I used a purple Levinson B4 as my main bass for 20 years - fantastic instrument. Only stopped because i started to find the jazz neck profile too thin for my tastes.

I know one thing, they're bloody difficult to get a pram down.

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1358165527' post='1933965'] Wichita Lineman is one of my all time favourite songs and lyrics. Should be a good doc this. Thanks for the nod. [/quote] Definitely one of the greatest songs ever written. I was very drunk & singing Wichita Lineman in the early hours of last Saturday morning in a remote farmhouse in the Scottish highlands with (amongst many other wonderful & talented people) Boo Hewerdine & (Del Amitri/Manics/Breeders/etc. producer) Mark Freegard. One of the most wonderful moments of my life.

[quote name='Sean' timestamp='1357336529' post='1921424'] Has anyone said Stewart Copeland and Sting yet? One of my fave rhythm sections, pushing, pulling, always close to falling apart but not quite; magic stuff. [/quote] How the hell did I forget them? Magic stuff indeed

Another vote for George Murray & Dennis Davis from me. Also: Bill Bruford/Anyone. David Francolini/Laurence O'Keefe. Phil Collins/Mike Rutherford. Lemmy/Simon King. Dave Mattacks/Dave Pegg. Barry Adamson/John Doyle. Ian Paice/Roger Glover. Gavin Harrison/Colin Edwin.

[quote name='bobbass4k' timestamp='1357279660' post='1920235'] I look at it and see a lot of things, a mountain range, a guy trapped under a sheet (reassuring seen as that's what it is), and any number of sci-fi/horror films where something bursts forth from a membrane. [/quote] First thing I thought was "Tights Fetishist".

[quote name='MacDaddy' timestamp='1357300733' post='1920542'] i'm guessing the rock/metal market for guitars is the biggest and therefore the most lucrative? [/quote] The thing is though is that the Rock/Metal market covers a lot of sub genres, and and the Gibson style Hamers are used a hell of a lot by what get termed "Classic Rock" bands, people like Styx, Molly Hatchet, Judas Priest and many others. The reason they stopped making "Super Strat" type guitars is that pretty much every other maker did too as the market for them completely dried up as people went back to using Les Pauls & stuff like that. Jol Dantzig wouldn't have been stupid enough to stop making them if there was still a market for them. [quote name='12stringbassist' timestamp='1357324376' post='1921152'] I think Hamer's desirability suffered when they brought out the budget non-USA guitars. [/quote] Now THIS I do agree with. It harmed Hamer in the same way it harmed BC Rich & Dean, who were also making superb hand built guitars in the late 70's and 80's. There are a whole generation of people out there who have no idea just how superb these guitar makers were & just associate them with funny shaped cheap crap, which is such a shame. As much as I love Hamers the very best guitar I have ever played was an early 80's blueburst Dean Cadillac - absolute perfection. [quote name='12stringbassist' timestamp='1357324376' post='1921152'] These two are not for sale! [/quote] That red 12ver is a stunner! I used to have a Chapparal 12ver just like that one, should never have sold it, but the money did go towards funding a 1995 Hamer USA Standard which was just awesome!

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1357254216' post='1920063'] The thing about calling you a hipster was just because it's something a hipster would say- "I don't like Fender.... Too mainstream. I like Ritter, they're so underground they live in China." [/quote] So your definition of "Hipster" is anyone who doesn't like the same things as you? I happen to think that the Fender Jazz is one of the ugliest basses I've ever seen; I'm not a "hipster", I just have a different idea about what is aesthetically pleasing to you.

[quote name='Johngh' timestamp='1357247475' post='1919935'] You can have a 10K Fodera round your neck and a punter with think that only Fenders or Gibson's are any good, and the Fodera is crap. [/quote] What do you mean punters? 90% of bloody bass players would think that too. Not long after I got my Jaydee somebody said to me "couldn't you afford a Fender?" I was once (a LONG time ago, late 70's) talking to a non-playing friend of mine about different basses as we were walking along the street. He asked me if all basses had four strings & I said most of them have four strings, but you could get basses with 8 & 12 strings, and mentioned Tom Peterson from Cheap Trick as an example of somebody who used a 12ver. A bloke walking in front of us overheard me saying this & actually turned round & told me not to be so bloody stupid & that I obviously didn't know what the hell I was talking about!

[quote name='MacDaddy' timestamp='1357240748' post='1919743'] Didn't they pull out of the rock/metal market in the 90's? [/quote] Yes they did, and Jol Dantzig absolutely refused to make any more guitars of the Chaparal/California/Diablo/Centura style even though plenty of people waved lots of money at him to do so. He took Hamer back to their core values & designs and they then started to produce the best guitars they ever made until they were taken over.

[quote name='peteb' timestamp='1357235935' post='1919597'] I have and they were indeed great guitars (never actually played one of their basses thru) I think that they started to go out of fashion along with the other 'super strat' makers when more traditional looking instruments went out of fashion, propelling Fender back to domination of the market! Fender bought them (presumably at a reasonable price) to eliminate a possible competitor and protect their brand! [/quote] They only made "Super Strat" style guitars for a comparatively short period - the vast majority of their models are far more Gibson like in terms of construction methods.

[quote name='Gust0o' timestamp='1357229685' post='1919449'] I think the market killed Hamer. People were likely just not buying them in the same volumes as in previous periods, and someone made a commercial decision. [/quote] Hamer had been a small volume boutique guitar builder (they were the first of the boutique builders in fact) since it's inception & had prospered very nicely doing just that. They sold everything that they made & had one of the finest reputations of any guitar maker. They would have carried on doing just that to had they not been forced out of business.

[quote name='uncle psychosis' timestamp='1357231367' post='1919500'] Its not like its a fly-by-night thing, either---they bought them four years ago. Why buy a company to close them down and then keep them going for four years? [/quote] You obviously aren't aware of what actually happened - Fender actually started the process of closing Hamer down almost as soon as they bought them. They stopped Hamer producing guitars to supply to shops & turned them into a "special order only" outfit. How the hell is a guitar maker supposed to keep up a profile & sell guitars if the owner stops them supplying shops with their instruments?

[quote name='uncle psychosis' timestamp='1357229114' post='1919438'] ....I don't think its particularly fair to assign some kind of underhand motive when its far more likely to just be because of simple economics. [/quote] But Fender have a long history of using underhand bullyboy tactics with smaller companies - look how they threatened Rob Green at Status when his first basses went out under the "Strata" name. Fender absurdly made him change the name as it was supposedly too close to "Strat" & people would obviously confuse the two & accidentally buy a high end carbon fibre bass guitar thinking it was one of Fenders sh*tty bolt together guitars.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1357123612' post='1917639'] I just wear two standard-sized ones simultaneously.... [/quote] In series or parallel?

I used to work in a (now defunct) music shop in Cardiff that was one of the few places in the UK to stock them in the late 70's/early 80s so I got to play loads of them & they were all fantastic instruments. I've owned a quite a few over the years & got to meet Paul Hamer & Jol Dantzig at the Frankfurt trade fair a couple of times too. I've always been a big fan or Hamers & it is indeed a real shame that they are no more.

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1357080678' post='1917380'] I suppose that the bottom line is that , as Karl Marx famously hypothesized , Capitalism is barbarism , and ultimately the more profitable companies will consume the less profitable ones . [/quote] Going by the way Fender & Gibson operate when buying up these smaller companies I think a more appropriate Marx quote would be "A single party state cannot exist without first eradicating it's opposition"