For those of you too young to remember. . . .

[FlatEric]

Hi.

It seems that the scans (to those who were around then) have brought back a lot of memories,
the same thing that happened to me.

Some brilliant posts.

BigRedX - glad someone else apreciated his work - always went straight to his articles as soon
as I got it - wonder what happened to him - anyone know?

Jon, one of the lads in a rival band had one - two pick-ups and switches!!!! WOW
One evening managed to borrow it for the night, we did a swap. EUCH! No thanks.
I think younger people just bought stuff, never set up and changing strings was something
you only ever did when they broke!

Keep them coming, there's some very interesting reading - I'm thinking of starting a Nostalgia Spot.


Cheers.

[teej]

[quote name='FlatEric' post='890080' date='Jul 9 2010, 07:22 AM']Keep them coming, there's some very interesting reading - I'm thinking of starting a Nostalgia Spot. [/quote]
Nostalgia? Nah - it's not what it used to be...

[machinehead]

I bought a Washburn D28 6 string acoustic guitar back in 1978 for, I think, almost £300. Even then it was a lot of money to me. The Washburn case was £50. Shocking price!!! In the same year I bought a semi-detached house for £15,000.

I've still got it though. It sits beside my red Rapier 33 Strat copy. I couldn't sell these guitars now no matter how skint I am. My loft has quite a few old guitars and basses lying about. Must have a look some time.

Gear is so cheap now by comparison.

Frank.

[BigRedX]

Regarding Stephen Delft - I found an article on-line regarding a design for a compensated nut written back in 1992 (and therefore pre-dating the Buzz Feiten system?). He also appears to have moved to New Zealand.

I have just about every IM from the "What's Your Union Doing For You?" cover up to some point in the early to mid 80s. I also have most issues of Sounds International from the late 70s and early 80s too (A superior publication IMO). I must dig them out of storage and see if they are as good as I remembered!

[Bassassin]

[quote name='FlatEric' post='890080' date='Jul 9 2010, 07:22 AM']Jon, one of the lads in a rival band had one - two pick-ups and switches!!!! WOW
One evening managed to borrow it for the night, we did a swap. EUCH! No thanks.
I think younger people just bought stuff, never set up and changing strings was something
you only ever did when they broke! [/quote]
I think you're quite right about that - I had no idea about intonation, truss adjustment, saddle height & all the elementary stuff when I was 16 & I think that reflects why so much JapCrap had the poor reputation it did. I've rescued & revived a good few MIJ cheapos from that era & I've not found one with a bad neck/fretjob yet. Different story with the Korean/Taiwanese stuff from the 70s, though!

Pretty sure if I had that bass now I could make a good player out of it with no problem - the first thing I'd have to do would be reposition the bridge so the G string didn't hang off the neck above the 12th fret...

I probably couldn't do much to stop it sounding like someone slapping an empty wheelie bin with a dead fish, though.

J.

[Low End Bee]

1978 bass? I chopped in my old Shaftesbury Ric 330 style bass against a Shergold Marathon in black. With some staff discount jiggery pokery and a kind manager I paid £120. I still miss that bass. The 1968 Precision I bought for £250 in 1979 was next. I preferred the Shergold to be honest.
Both of these were bought with my own (not my parents) cash before I left school. I was a hard working little school dodger in those days.

[Happy Jack]

I remember 1978 very well (I was 21) but not for the basses. It was going to be a long time before I started playing bass, but occasionally I'd pick up my flatmate's bass to plonk around on.

It was pale blue and said "Mustang" on the headstock, which I thought was a bit cheesy. He said "It's a shortscale" and I said "Yeah, like, whatever".

I was hanging round with a wannabee band at the time. They were strange. The drummer was crazy, played too loud, and kept speeding up. The lead guitarist was an incompetent egotist. The vocalist had an enormous schlong and wore very tight jeans to prove it. The bass player was a quiet, steady type.

How very, very different from modern times, eh?

But catalogues? You want catalogues? And crazy prices?

[url="http://tinypic.com/a/r5s6/3"]http://tinypic.com/a/r5s6/3[/url]

Sorted.

[RhysP]

[quote name='BigRedX' post='890134' date='Jul 9 2010, 09:27 AM']Regarding Stephen Delft - I found an article on-line regarding a design for a compensated nut written back in 1992 (and therefore pre-dating the Buzz Feiten system?). He also appears to have moved to New Zealand.

I have just about every IM from the "What's Your Union Doing For You?" cover up to some point in the early to mid 80s. I also have most issues of Sounds International from the late 70s and early 80s too (A superior publication IMO). I must dig them out of storage and see if they are as good as I remembered![/quote]
They were really good magazines. I've still got a few of them, along with some copies of "Beat Instrumental".

[BarnacleBob]

As a man who prides himself in knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing am loving these old ads.

Ibby Blazer £112 in 78/79 from macormacks Glasgow rings a bell.

BB

[oggiesnr]

I bought a secondhand Antoria EB-3 copy for £25 and a Lachenal Concertina for £70. The latter got stolen some years ago but would now cost about £1500, the former I still have and is worth b******r all

Steve

[steve-bbb]

[quote name='Rayman' timestamp='1278575584' post='889250']
Be Bop Deluxe and Yes records that really grabbed my attention.

[/quote]

i was 16 and had a saturday job and discovered be bop deluxe and was so impressed i went and bought all five albums in one week after seeing them at hammersmith odeon and then began figuring out loads of the guitar and bass parts on my black jap copy LPs (4 & 6)

[discreet]

Brand new USA Fender P in 1976 - £280.

[EssentialTension]

First bass (1974): Hofner Artist 185 (used) £30 = approx two weeks wages after tax.
Second bass (1975): Hayman 4040 (new) £110 = approx six weeks wages after tax.
Third bass (1976): Fender Precision (new) £220 = approx ten weeks wages after tax.

....

Seventeenth bass (2011): Takamine B10 (used) £1200 = approx two weeks wages after tax.

[Paul S]

I played guitar then. My first decent one was a Hayman 30/30 bought in a secondhand shop for £65 in about 1975.

[LeftyBiskit]

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1278667947' post='890209']
I remember 1978 very well (I was 21) but not for the basses. It was going to be a long time before I started playing bass, but occasionally I'd pick up my flatmate's bass to plonk around on.

It was pale blue and said "Mustang" on the headstock, which I thought was a bit cheesy. He said "It's a shortscale" and I said "Yeah, like, whatever".

I was hanging round with a wannabee band at the time. They were strange. The drummer was crazy, played too loud, and kept speeding up. The lead guitarist was an incompetent egotist. The vocalist had an enormous schlong and wore very tight jeans to prove it. The bass player was a quiet, steady type.

How very, very different from modern times, eh?

But catalogues? You want catalogues? And crazy prices?

[url="http://tinypic.com/a/r5s6/3"]http://tinypic.com/a/r5s6/3[/url]

Sorted.
[/quote]

1978-a mere 17yo I had just bought my first bass of a friend for a fiver-It was a Hofner Artist,in bits too-I built it all up-didnt know anything then about set up's intonation etc,
and i still have it,although it doesnt get played much as it's a righty,but it plays alright but doesnt stay in tune very well.
nostalgia eh-is it really only available in b+w
It's shown in Happy Jack 's catalogue.

[EssentialTension]

So, my Hofner Artist, which cost me £30 in 1974 was 48 guineas ( = £50/8sh. = £50.40) in 1963.

Edited June 9, 2012 by EssentialTension

[4-string-thing]

In july 1978, I started working as an apprentice electrician earning £22.50 a week. I saved most of that for a few months to buy a bass to replace the "Top Twenty" I'd had for a couple of years. As soon as I could I paid £85 for a new Hondo II Rickenfaker. I had that for about a year before I had enough to buy a s/h Fender Precison for £240, with a hardcase thrown in, at Humbucker music in Leicester. I still have the bass and its still in pretty good nick and all original. I've just joined a new country-rock band and they've pretty much insisted that I use it ahead of my Warwick or Ibanez!

In 1980, I bought an Acoustic 220 head and 404 cab (£440 from Loughborough Music Centre) I've still got both of them too, both almost mint, and will be using them in my new band too!

It goes to show how much easier it is for kids starting out today, I had to pay about 3 months wages to get a decent bass and the same again for an amp. Nowdays you can buy a really good starter bass for about £100 and a 100w combo for not much more!

Also, can't remember where or why, but I heard Stephen Delft mentioned on the radio a couple of weeks ago!

[BottomE]

Nice post.

Summer of 78 i got my first real 6 string! Hey, aint that a line to a song?

It was a Gherson SG copy and played ok. I remember my mum telling me to go out and play in the sun as the weather was good but all i wanted to do was try and shred.

[bertbass]

Bought my precision in 1972 and it cost £220. It was £200 right handed but being lefthanded I had to pay an extra 10%. It was sunburst as I couldn't afford another 10% for a solid colour. I never could understand that as sunburst uses at least 3 colours so why did it cost more for just one?

Ah, The Target in Reading. I've done a few gigs in there. Did the manager, Ted if I remember correctly, fire golf balls at you as you were trying to pack the gear away?

[yorks5stringer]

First Bass was a 1962 Gibson EB2 bought for me by then girlfriend now wife with £50 left from her grant (!) at the end of term in 1975. Sourced via BIL in Salisbury who knew some people, also got a Truvoice (Selmer T&B 50watt amp for another £50 too.

At the time had not graduated but my first job in 1976 paid £33 a week....

Our first car together in 1976, an ex yellow PO Morris Minor Van cost £90.

Edited June 9, 2012 by yorks5stringer

[BigRedX]

[quote name='4-string-thing' timestamp='1339249219' post='1685879']
In july 1978, I started working as an apprentice electrician earning £22.50 a week. I saved most of that for a few months to buy a bass to replace the "Top Twenty" I'd had for a couple of years. As soon as I could I paid £85 for a new Hondo II Rickenfaker. I had that for about a year before I had enough to buy a s/h Fender Precison for £240, with a hardcase thrown in, at Humbucker music in Leicester. I still have the bass and its still in pretty good nick and all original. I've just joined a new country-rock band and they've pretty much insisted that I use it ahead of my Warwick or Ibanez!

In 1980, I bought an Acoustic 220 head and 404 cab (£440 from Loughborough Music Centre) I've still got both of them too, both almost mint, and will be using them in my new band too!

It goes to show how much easier it is for kids starting out today, I had to pay about 3 months wages to get a decent bass and the same again for an amp. Nowdays you can buy a really good starter bass for about £100 and a 100w combo for not much more!

Also, can't remember where or why, but I heard Stephen Delft mentioned on the radio a couple of weeks ago!
[/quote]

There's some names from the past...

I got my first amp - a Carlsbro Wasp 10W from Humbucker Music, along with a pickup fro my acoustic guitar back in 1976. Cost me £35 which I raised by selling all my model railway stuff.

I also spent most weekends and all my holidays during 1979 helping out at Loughborough Music Centre which was in the process of rather naffly renaming itself Groops...

[musophilr]

I turned 21 in 1978. Student grants were around £300 per term, and once you'd paid your hall/flat rent you could typically budget £10 a week for food and so long as you didn't smoke the rest or piss it up the wall you could also get an EllPee once a week for about £1.75. By that time I also had 3 motorbikes (BSA Bantam, BSA Barracuda, and Triumph T100) - at least one of them was in bits at any time. That summer I passed my test on the Bantam. You had to ride round the block while the bloke watched you from the pavement, do an emergency stop, and answer 2 questions on the Highway Code. Life was so much easier then...no internet, the first 8 bit micros were a year off, no CCTV or other surveillance, music was by and large played by real people on real instruments, and since the advent of punk a year or two earlier there was no real requirement to have any musical competence either.