London bass shop

[Misdee]

Martin who eventually became the manager was a big Billy Sheehan fan, I seem to remember.

[Musicman666]

i used to go to some place in romford during the 80s ...trace elliot gear and status basses all in one shop if my memory serves me right...then there was alan gordon's in walthamstow ..holiday and freedman's in leytonstone...wapping bass center not so much as i never could work out where it was.

[cetera]

19 hours ago, Musicman666 said:

i used to go to some place in romford during the 80s ...trace elliot gear and status basses all in one shop if my memory serves me right

Monkey Music?

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

38 minutes ago, cetera said:

Monkey Music?

I think they were in Victoria Road as I recall. The studio we used (The Whopping Conker) wasn’t far from that on the other side of the road.

[Misdee]

Monkey Biz, they were called,I seem to recall. 

 

But back in the early 1980s there was Soundwave in Romford. That was the first dedicated bass shop I remember. I never got to go to the shop but I remember the adverts listing their stock in the gear section of Sounds music paper. They were something to do with the fledgling Trace Elliot  amps and Status basses. I think maybe they were made on their premesis or something like that. That was the only place in the UK you could buy a Steinberger bass when they first came to the UK in 1982, and the price wass £999, if I remember correctly. That's £3322 in today's money, apparently. Quite reasonable by today's standards, the only problem being back in 1982 I didn't have the train fare to Romford, let alone £999.

 

Unlike nowadays when bass players will buy any old tat at any price so long as it has a romantic association with the past, back in the 1980s bass shops were important because it was all about having the latest thing. The kind of gear people fetishise nowadays - P Basses, Gibson Grabbers, short scale basses,flat wound strings, old vave amps ect- were considered extremely undesirable and outmoded. The more modern, hifi and hi-tech your gear was the better. There wasn't the worldwide marketplace facilitated by the internet that we take for granted nowadays and shops like the Bass Centre had the contacts to import the most desirable and exotic equipment into the UK.

 

Reading between the lines, I think the advent of the internet was the beginning of the end for the Bass Centre as it was in its heyday because it effectively ended that shop's exclusive access to so much equipment. UK bass players had more options as to where they spent their money. Purely nostalgia on my part but I preferred the old days and the excitement of a trip to the Bass Centre compared to waiting for the DPD man to deliver a cardboard carton.

 

Edited June 20, 2023 by Misdee

[NancyJohnson]

3 minutes ago, Misdee said:

<snip>

 

Unlike nowadays when bass players will buy any old tat at any price so long as it has a romantic association with the past, back in the 1980s bass shops were important because it was all about having the latest thing. The kind of gear people fetishise nowadays - P Basses, Gibson Grabbers, short scale basses,flat wound strings, old vave amps ect- were considered extremely undesirable and outmoded. The more modern, hifi and hi-tech your gear was the better. There wasn't the worldwide marketplace facilitated by the internet that we take for granted nowadays and shops like the Bass Centre had the contacts to import the most desirable and exotic equipment into the UK.

/<snip>

 

 

I bought a Gibson Grabber (G3) for peanuts somewhere over in Romford, early 80s, maybe it was this place.  When it worked properly (intermittently), it was dreamy, but a lot of time it just kept cutting out and despite it only being a few years old the pots were very crackly.  I wasn't even out of my teens, but there was a level of kudos because I had a real Gibson.  It was rubbish.

 

One summer day in the mid-80s, I stripped the thing and spray painted the body with a couple of coats of a deep-burgundy VW rattle can over the original natural finish (which started to come off almost immediately).  I used it for a bit more and traded it for some camera equipment in a junk shop in Windsor.  Amazingly I saw it online a few years back, someone selling it at an inflated price as 'one-off custom colour'; the finish - some 30 years on - way worse that when I had it, but recognisable.

[Kiwi]

31 minutes ago, Misdee said:

Reading between the lines, I think the advent of the internet was the beginning of the end for the Bass Centre

I know why they went under, because one of their sales people was a mate at the time and told me.  I'm not going to share it publicly because I have no proof other than what they said, but the BC going under had nothing to do with the internet.

[Greg Edwards69]

38 minutes ago, Misdee said:

Monkey Biz, they were called,I seem to recall. 

Yes. Monkey Business, Romford. Set up by an Ex-Honky Tonk Music (Southend) chap.  Both shops are now sadly gone - I blame PMT for that.

[NancyJohnson]

4 hours ago, Kiwi said:

I know why they went under, because one of their sales people was a mate at the time and told me.  I'm not going to share it publicly because I have no proof other than what they said, but the BC going under had nothing to do with the internet.

 

But it didn't really go under as such, more shut down, restructure, relaunch.  Although the LA store shut and they're pretty much a mailorder outlet (no storefront as such), selling their own Bass Collection basses, Brian May stuff, NS Design kit, plus peripherals.

[uk_lefty]

On 06/04/2023 at 23:57, jrixn1 said:

 

Yes, I've popped in there as well - it was on Brune St. No longer there.

Maybe this is a funny or interesting story, maybe not... In 2006 one Sunday morning I ventured out to find this shop on Brune Street and was feeling very dizzy and not really with it (possibly a stress related condition I only really found out about in the last few years). Anyhow, I just couldn't find it with my A-Z in hand and this was before Google Maps on your phone etc so I went into a Newsagent and asked. They had no clue. A lady walked in with a very smartly dressed gent. The shopkeeper asked them if they knew where it was, they tried to help and asked what I was looking for, they didn't know and as I left I accidentally stood on the chap's foot. Outside I realised I had asked for directions from none other than the artist Tracy Emin and a friend she was out and about with. 

 

Anyway I got to the store and was very tempted to spend £800 on a new German made Warwick $$. I really wish I had not been so sensible with my cash back then.