How much do positive or negative associations between a bass (or guitar) brand and well known players influence your own choices?

[WinterMute]

22 hours ago, gjones said:

I've owned a couple of Geddy Lee Fender Jazzes but I don't really like Rush - they're just really classy basses.

 

 

The only "name" bass I've ever owned was a Geddy Lee, great bass, not enough strings. I'm a massive Rush fan, and have owned Wals and Jazz basses, but I've ended up with SR5's, a Bongo 5 and an ACG, not brands played by anyone I could point to as an influence TBF. 

[BigRedX]

3 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

fenders where quite a long way down the list of basses to get. You would see them but they weren't really something you would notice. It was kind of rickenbackers with a few gibsons.

 

Back then AFAIWC Rickenbacker were a company that made bass guitars. I can remember being quite surprised when I discovered they made guitars as well!

 

However I do think that Fender basses tended to get overlooked because they weren't as distinctive as a Rickenbacker or a Gibson Thunderbird or EB3. I was very much into The Sweet in the early to mid 70s and I distinctly remember Steve Priest as a Rickenbacker player who occasionally used a Danelecto Longhorn Bass (copy). However looking at their various TotP performances on YouTube it appears that most of the time he's playing a Jazz Bass...

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

 

Back then AFAIWC Rickenbacker were a company that made bass guitars. I can remember being quite surprised when I discovered they made guitars as well!

 

I knew they made guitars too - pictures of the beatles were around most places.

 

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

However I do think that Fender basses tended to get overlooked because they weren't as distinctive as a Rickenbacker or a Gibson Thunderbird or EB3. I was very much into The Sweet in the early to mid 70s and I distinctly remember Steve Priest as a Rickenbacker player who occasionally used a Danelecto Longhorn Bass (copy). However looking at their various TotP performances on YouTube it appears that most of the time he's playing a Jazz Bass...

 

Very true, they are very beige. TBH, most bass players I remember in glam had stuff made of stars or odd shapes.

[Stub Mandrel]

10 hours ago, Nail Soup said:

Any chance of a picture? Spare me the ordeal of googling that search term!

 

 

[Stub Mandrel]

10 hours ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

I think we need to see these amazing ba😀

EsESS

 

 

 

 

[tegs07]

In my teens I really wanted a Stingray as I saw Simon Gallop live with The Cure a few times playing one. It wasn’t really the association with the player, Id just never seen a Stingray before and thought it looked and sounded amazing. I still do.

Edited May 25, 2022 by tegs07

[Cat Burrito]

1 hour ago, tegs07 said:

In my teens I really wanted a Stingray as I saw Simon Gallop live with The Cure a few times playing one. It wasn’t really the association with the player, Id just never seen a Stingray before and thought it looked and sounded amazing. I still do.

He's played most of the classic / iconic basses to be fair. I know the era and I too was taken with them when I saw Simon with one. They always made me think of Siouxsie and the Banshees but most people think of them in terms of funk. They also seemed quite popular during the Britpop era.

[Cliff Edge]

Absolutely none. ( Er, well, see below) When I started out the only bass player I was aware of was Jet Harris. He played a precision but I couldn’t afford one and I had no idea how good or bad they were anyway. My first was a Framus Star Bass my father bought me. It was much later that I realised some bloke in the Rolling Stones was also using one. 
Since then I’ve mostly used Fenders with the odd flirtation with other brands solely out of curiosity, not aware if anyone remotely famous used any of them. 
Confession. A couple of years ago I became aware that Carol Kaye is now using an Ibanez instead of the Precision, so I went investigating them. I bought an SR900, ok it’s not the same model but that’s not the point. It’s very nice, so thank you Carol. 
But I’m not selling my old Jazz.