Yesterday (Saturday, Aug 11, 2012) the 2nd Annual Detroit Bass Players Photo Shoot took place in front of the Motown Museum.
The event sprang from a Facebook group for Detroit bassists. Last year someone had the idea to recreate the famous photo of Harlem Renaissance era jazz musicians photographed in front of a Harlem brownstone. The idea was, let's all meet at the Motown Museum, bring your favorite bass and we';ll take the photo. It went over so well that now it will be an annual event. I missed it last year, but this year I attended with my two kids. And of course, I just happened to take an Alembic with me.
Mica may even have some recollection of the Music Man bass my oldest son is showing.
(http://club.alembicguitars.net/Images/65124/137474.jpg)
very cool James!
That's a great picture!
James,
Will you adopt me and give me a great bass to play?
VMG
Great picture, James. My daughters and I were there, but could not stick around for the photo shoot. Here is another picture that was emailed to me.(http://club.alembicguitars.net/Images/65124/137816.jpg)
Nice!
That's a lot of bass players! Cool picture!
Great pic...like a Where's Waldo of bass.
I see some of the usual suspects (Fenders, MusicMans [two Bongos, actually], Ibanezes)--and a few nontypical axes in there. Can someone ID the round green one (second row to right of middle) and angular white one (second row far right)?
The Green bass belongs to Emily Rogers.
(http://club.alembicguitars.net/Images/65124/137859.jpg)
(Message edited by billostech on August 19, 2012)
(Message edited by davehouck on August 20, 2012)
The White bass belongs to Michael Rich. Both are local artist:
(http://club.alembicguitars.net/Images/65124/137862.jpg)
(Message edited by billostech on August 19, 2012)
Cool !
Here is a link to where Emily discusses her bass build:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LlU7GX1FmU&feature=youtube_gdata_player (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LlU7GX1FmU&feature=youtube_gdata_player)
I love Emily's build. Her bass is nice too
I agree, that is a nice body shape which seems like it would balance well . . .
Okay, now I'm also curious about the orange bass with the interesting cutout areas as well.
The headstock on the white one looks like a Travis Bean or possibly Kramer.
Are both of these custom jobs?
Yes. The Orange one belongs to Mr. William Pope.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVvPTIw7Ntw&sns=em (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVvPTIw7Ntw&sns=em)
Definitely Kramer. Travis Bean had a closed headstock with a T shaped hole in it. The two prong open headstock is Kramer.
Bill, tgo
Could be a Vaccaro, who bought the Kramer neck design when Kramer folded.
Vaccaro confirmed on Mike's facebook post
Here is a message Mike sent me about hIs bass:
Michael Rich 8:20pm Sep 9
you asked me about my bass so let me tell you my story. Vaccaro took over kramer and designed a new neck. I was on disablilty (due to a broken arm) at the time and I found out they had open shop in NJ. I called them and asked if I could get a tour and if i could buy a finished neck. years before i designed and copywrote the body design and i decided to marry the two. we had an awsome day and he told me all od the storys including the michael jackson drama way before it happened. well before i could finish the company closed shop. I at the the time was an electronic techinican so i knew guitar electronics. I studied with anderson howard who was a student of lamont johnson so I understood bass construction. the body is my answer to fender's model. everything about it is based on a jazz / musicman... but with a twist. It has G&L passive pickups to give it the musicman kick but it has an active 3 band parametric eq preamp that I found in germany. the bridge used ibanez monorail detuner on each string but i found out you can't do that because the calibration was too sensitive. i installed a badass to compenstate. the next model will have a warwick bridge. just for show there is a programable led readout that will scroll a message while i am playing. i thought it would give the viewer a spaceage experiance. this model is made of basswood but i am using swamp ash for the next model. the paint job is a custom car paint with sparkles but the next model will be chrome to match the head stock.
Luv the pictures! where is the girl in the green from? she's a cutie!
Yes that white bass sure does look like the Kramer
Wylie,
Here is Emily's facebook page;
http://www.facebook.com/emilyonbass (http://www.facebook.com/emilyonbass)
btw, one of the photos made this issue of Bass Players magazine