"Dancin' In The Streets", 5/15/77:

Peter

-Moderators, if you believe this post is inappropriate, please delete it. I struggled with whether to post it or not. And it's long.-

Prairie Village Jon here (not Evergreen Jon). I hesitated to bring this up when this DW was being first offered to the club, since by all rights, it was like new condition. However, there is a backstory to the bass and the reason I believe it doesn't have a year in the serial number. I also think it deserves to be shared given the current asking price of the bass.

09DW14032 was a custom Dragon Wing I ordered through Will Gunn in 2008. Susan helped me with the wood blank selections and the logo inlay materials. The neck profile was built to the dimensions of my Höfner 500/1 V.63. The build occurred from March to August, 2009 and I received it in early September. There is a Factory to Customer Thread about it: https://club.alembicguitars.net/index.php?topic=7446.0

It was the first Alembic I had ever seen in person or touched.

I was tremendously excited to get it out of the case; it was 100% better than my greatest expectations. After a couple of hours of playing it, I felt (I couldn't see it) a tiny roughness on the neck right below the 11th fret which turned out to be two tiny, tiny cracks in the maple. After a conversation with Will, I called Mica, who immediately said I should send it right back to be fixed because it should have been perfect when it left the shop.

I sent it back via XXX at the end of October, cased, padded, and boxed. Mica called me a week later and gave me the heartbreaking news that it had arrived with the peghead broken off the neck, and I think I remember her saying the box had a tire track across it (not swearing to this part; I was in complete shock and driving to our vacation spot during the conversation).

She said they would deal with XXX about it and said in these cases, there were usually three options: patching the break (would be solid but noticeable), completely rebuild the peghead (much more expensive but would be like new and not noticeable), or build me a completely new bass. She said she was going to push for the last option since it was a brand new bass. She was, of course, successful and I received my new (2nd) Dragon Wing mid-2011 with some slight differences from the original design package since I'd learned some things by then.

I got to see 09DW14032 at the shop during a visit in Fall, 2011. It was in a rack with some other orphan basses and guitars which were to be rebuilt / repurposed as needed.

When I first saw the For Sale thread for this bass, I thought I recognized the quilting, fretboard inlays, and grain pattern of the back, which I confirmed after checking against my original photos.

My assumption is 09DW14032 was eventually rebuilt sometime before 2016 with a new peghead (since it isn't the same one as originally) using the 2nd, like new, method and new LEDs when the tiny neck imperfection was fixed. I also assume the serial number doesn't now have a year since it started life in 2009 and was reborn in 2016.

Anyway, that is the backstory behind DW14032, at least as far as I know. It was and is a beautiful bass which played like a dream, and I am extremely happy to find out it is again out in the world making music as it was built to do.

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I think they had C-7 incandescent bulbs inside (5watts each) so yes, they generated a bit of heat. I thought extended use caused the plexiglass cover to yellow and crack from the heat.

Never seen one, but have always thought they were just slicker than snot.
Though I have read that (pre-dating LEDs as they do) they get really hot!

Peter (who thinks, should he find one of them, he'd have to get a Nudie-style suit or Elvis jumpsuit made of asbestos.......)

That was fun!

Yea, the Lightshow was a very cool diversion off the great guitar highway.  Never seen one in the flesh.   I've recently been working on another equally strange and rare weirdo: the Bond Electraglide.

Bill, tgo

Tony Levin posted this to his FB page today. It's a parody on Progressive Rock by a long time attendee of his annual summer camps. 

Andres Segovia (1893)
Mary Chapin Carpenter (1958)

Peter

that's another one - too bad it's fretted or it'd be mine mine mine.  beautiful bass.  good luck to all!

🗿🐕