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Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 2:48 pm
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Merseykid wrote:
"58 Bassman's run at roughly 10k in the UK"
What did you mean by that?


To give some perspective as to the value of the amps which the guy in the link works on.

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Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 5:23 pm
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Sorry if anyone visits this posting.
I'm on "Emergency call out" tonight and have had two call outs.

I'm knackered (As we say in the UK)
Will have to go to bed and recover.
See you tomorrow.
Nearly 1.30am
G.night


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Posted: Sat May 02, 2009 12:01 pm
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This story is great! I look forward to it whenever I can get on this site.

The UK Vox amps that you own are great to see.
Do you know that the Vox amps that were made in the US were done by Thomas Organ company under an arrangement that was not really to the liking of the UK Vox company. Through some legal manuvering, T. Organ got out of actually importing the UK VOX amps into the USA.
Thomas organ licensed the name and built the amps themselves in the US.

The US VOX amps in the 1960s were early solid state technology and sounded like crap compared to the ones in the UK.

Beware of buying a vintage VOX in the US. The "Super Beatle" Vox amp is no AC30!

Please post a picture of your WEM bass amp.

Thanks,
Bill

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Posted: Sun May 03, 2009 4:39 pm
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Hi Guys
Sorry I haven’t been near a computer for a while.
I mentioned earlier that I am a Heating Engineer.
Which is a posh name for a plumber who fit’s central heating. But it looks good on my billheads.
I recently got an offer I couldn’t refuse.
A taxi driver I know (one of my neighbours) was carrying a passenger, originally from Liverpool, but now running a construction business in London.
He got into conversation and told the taxi driver that he was in Liverpool visiting relatives.
He mentioned that he was having trouble finding a qualified Gas Heating Engineer to do a job for one of his clients. Of course, my neighbour told him about me.
The guy knocked on my door one evening and asked me if I was interested in doing a job in London (About 400 miles away).
I wondered why he was asking me, when there must be lots of heating engineers in London.
“There is”, he said, “but they all either want too much money, or can only do the job next month or later”.
He explained that he wanted a huge cast iron boiler removed and a smaller one in it’s place.
He said that if I would do the job this week he would pay me £1000.00 just for my labour charges.
(About $1450.00)
He also employed my son who is a plumber, fitting bathroom suites. He paid him the same amount.
He set us up in a self-contained basement apartment of the house we were working in.

The house was huge. Three floors high and 15 bedrooms. So it needed a very large boiler.
I finished the job on Friday and got back on Saturday.
This is why I haven’t been near a computer for a while.

Hi BC
I’ll take a photo of the WEM tomorrow. It’s 12.30 and too late to climb into the attic right now.


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Posted: Sun May 03, 2009 4:48 pm
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As I was saying last week.

We had plenty of bookings that week.
One of them was at the Majestic Ballroom in Birkenhead.
Birkenhead is a large town situated on the other side of the River Mersey (Which is about 3 miles wide). The quickest way to cross the Mersey is by using the Mersey Tunnel, which runs, under the river.
One end of the tunnel is by the famous Liver Buildings, on the Liverpool waterfront.
The other end is right in the center of Bikenhead. A very useful tunnel
We were driving to the gig about 7 O’clock pm, and about to go through the tunnel when I spotted a black guy standing by the entrance trying to thumb a lift.
I immediately asked Roy, our driver to pull over to him. “Hey Derry” I shouted.
“What are you doing, where’s your van”?
It was Derry Wilkie the singer out of ‘Derry Wilkie and the Seniors’ one of the well known Liverpool groups of the 60s, and I knew that he was playing at the same venue as our group.
“Oh man” he said “am I glad to see you”. We moved about to make room for him.
“Why are you trying to get a lift”? I said
He explained that he was supposed to meet his band at the driver’s house, got held up and was half an hour late.
“They must have thought I had made my own way to the Majestic and they were gone when I got to the house”.
He didn’t have a car so had got a bus to the Mersey Tunnel hoping to get a lift, which would be much quicker than using public transport all the way.
No mobile Phones (Cell Phones) in those days.
I had only known Derry to say Hi to before, but after that episode we became good friends.
If this story goes far enough I might mention how, much later on, that small act of kindness would be repaid “in spades”, as they say.

We had a ball that night. The Majestic was packed to the rafters.
Derry jumped in while I was singing, grabbed a mike and joined in doing a duet with me; in a song he happened to know the words to.
(I think it was an old Little Richard, rock and roll song, Long Tall Sally)
Unfortunately, it was not in harmony, just both of us singing in unison.
The audience were delighted at the unusual sight of Derry and me singing together.
Everybody was clapping and cheering, and they all joined in the fun.

Wednesday arrived and it was rehearsal night (Practice night, as we called it).
I always got to the Bakery late, on purpose, so that I didn’t have to wait outside waiting for Roy to let me in.
He was the only one with a key to the place.

When I arrived everyone was there, except Jay, who usually came by public transport.
“Anyone know what’s happened to Jay” I asked. But no one had any idea. He hadn’t phoned anyone.
We decided to carry on without him.
We had been practising for about an hour when in walked Jay.
“What happened to you”? I asked
I knew he wouldn’t be this late without a reason. “Get held up”?
“No” he said, “I’ve got someone outside I want you to meet.”
I noticed that he hadn’t brought his guitar with him.
He went back to the door and beckoned to someone outside.
In walked a young nervous looking guy about 18 years old.
We all looked at each other.
“I want you to meet Stan Smith,” he said.
“Hi Stan” I said. The others nodded. Looking puzzled.
I looked at Jay and waited.
“This is your new lead guitarist,” he said
“What happened to the old one”? I said feeling a bit uneasy.
Jay then went on to explain that another group, “Sonny Web and the Cascades”
Had offered him a job, because their lead guitarist had left them.
Now Sonny Web (Real name Kenny Johnston) was a friend of mine, so I was a bit Pi**ed off with him stealing my lead guitarist.
“What the hell is going on” I said.
“Well you know we weren’t hitting it off,” he said, “so I decided to look elsewhere”.
He didn’t know how close he was to getting a free nose job.
“Wouldn’t it have been manners to discuss this with us first” I said.
“At least it would have given us time to get a replacement”.
“That’s why I didn’t look for another job, until I had found someone to take my place”
“But that’s not up to you” I said, angrily. “It’s up to us to find our own musicians”
Jay was never one to see anyone else’s side of the argument.
“I saw him in Frank Hessy’s”, he said, “and he’s a really good guitarist”.
I was fuming, and Stan was looking very uneasy.
“I’m sorry mate”, I said, “It’s not your fault.”
Look I’ve got to go” Jay said moving hastily toward the door.
“Can you drop my amp off for me” he said to Roy.
Roy looked at me.
I just shrugged my shoulders
“Yeah OK” Roy said.
After Jay had gone, I looked at Stan Smith, “What guitar have you got”
“Er I haven’t got one yet“, he said.
I was staggered. “What? You haven’t got a guitar?”
Stan looked embarrassed. “I’m getting one this weekend he said”.
“Well you better use mine for now”, I said.
I handed him my Hofner. “Let’s try out some of our songs and see what you know”.

After we had gone through about three of our numbers, I realised that this guy was going to be our lead guitarist.
Unlike Jay, Stan was a proper lead guitarist.
I knew that most guitarists like to play their instruments to show off their abilities, and this often leads to disputes with others, because they either have the volume too high, or they are hogging the limelight.
The more skilled they are the more they want to show off. Which I suppose is only to be expected.
Stan wasn’t like that at all. He was a natural backing guitarist, very skilled, and from a singer’s point of view, providing the perfect backing.
He made the vocals sound ten times better.
I was no longer annoyed with Sonny Web and the Cascades.
As far as I was concerned, they could have Jay with my complements.


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Post subject:
Posted: Sun May 03, 2009 10:00 pm
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Your story is great and what helps it along is your "easy to follow" writing style. I think you should write a book, or maybe this is it.

A few questions: Were instruments extremely expensive then? I mean I know that a Strat or Gibson would be high, but were Hofners and Burns guitars more affordable?
How big an obstacle was buying a guitar and amp for your new lead guitarist since you had a working band with proven income?

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Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 6:48 pm
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Hi BC
Yes Fenders were expensive, but the use of them by The Shadows made them very popular, especially the strat. Gibsons were also expensive. The Hofner and the Burns were not as expensive.
I can't give you any examples of prices simply because I can't remember.
Don't forget that the UK went metric at the end of that decade. Before that we had Half Crowns, Shillings Florins and all sorts of currency from the middle ages.
Now it is 100 pence to the Pound. Just like the Dollar. Much easier.


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Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 7:17 pm
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Here are some photos from my Loft (Attic)


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Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 7:18 pm
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Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 7:20 pm
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Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 7:27 pm
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This is my P Base.
I also have a Stratocaster but the decal is damaged Is it possible to acquire a new one or would I have to send the neck to Fender ?
Image


Last edited by Merseykid on Sun May 11, 2014 6:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 7:57 am
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WOW! :shock: :shock: :shock:

that bass is so cool! and i love the amp too!


shame about the decal! :(

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Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 11:23 am
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What a cool looking amp and that's a beautiful Precision bass!
Thanks for taking the time to take and post the pictures.

Now no one can complain that this thread had no P-basses in it. LOL

The bass appears to have been refinished, which is unfortunate for its value, but I suspect it still sounds great.
Its great to see the cover plates on the front of the bass.
The original tortise shell plastic pickguard on your bass is very valuable.
You should be careful not to crack it.

Getting decals for basses is a delicate subject around here. I believe that Fender may give you one if you send in pictures of the headstock + body and the serial number off of the neck plate, but I don't know it their policy has changed.
I think that you can understand that they are sensitive about copy instruments being branded Fenders.


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Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 4:55 pm
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Fender will send a logo to a fender authorized repairman to fit to your guitar. It is quite a drawn out process and requires you take several photo's of the outside and inside of the guitar. In your case they may accept an appraisal by one of the vintage dealers on denmark street.
Either way i'd email customer services about it.

That Wem ER40 is from 1966 on to about 1970

http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/watkins/er40.html

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Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 3:37 am
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The P Bass decal is OK. It.s the Strat decal that needs replacing.

Anyway, to continue

True to his word at the end of the week Stan arrived with a Gibson stereo guitar. Semi acoustic
I can’t remember how much it cost, but although a relatively expensive guitar, I know it was one of the cheaper Gibsons.
He already had an acoustic guitar, which he had used to learn, and practice on.

I was surprised, to say the least, at the skill this 18 year old had.
Although, he also had his party pieces.
Unlike Jay, though, we had to almost plead with him to play them.

Stan, who was one of those likable guys who never in his lifetime had any enemies he became a lifelong personal friend.
I don’t think I ever met anyone who didn’t like him.

Stan was a great admirer of Chet Atkins and if you were in another room while he was playing, you could easily believe you were listening to a recording of that great guitarist.
He lived for his guitar, practising for hours at his home.

He once told me of an incident when he was on a bus, early one morning, travelling to work.
Suddenly a solution to a problem popped into his mind.
The problem he had was that Chet Atkins had done some fancy finger work, producing a particular chord sequence on one of his recordings.
Stan just couldn’t work out how he had done it.

It was the solution to this problem, which had suddenly popped into his head that day on the bus.
He immediately jumped off the bus and got another one back home, to see if his guess was correct.
If I remember correctly, Chet Atkins had tuned one of his strings a semi tone lower than it was supposed to be and that was how he had got this unusual chord sound.
At least that’s how I think it was done.
Whatever it was I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have been able to work that one out.

Stan lost a days pay for that episode.
As it was, he didn’t care because he had finally sorted what was bothering him.
It was the correct solution.
That was the kind of guitarist he was.

With the addition of Stan, the group was complete and we began to get bookings all over the UK
We appeared on the same show as Brenda Lee, a famous Rock singer from the USA
What a show she put on. She had her own big band with her, plus backing singers.
She was fantastic.
It was rubbing shoulders with the top names in the industry, and seeing what went on behind the scenes, which educated us on how things really should be done.
The venue was at Southport, in a legal, gambling casino.
They could afford it.

I won £50 that night on the roulette table.
That was a fortune to us, in those days.
I’d never gambled in my life before that, but I was very wary, not to become addicted to it.
Or maybe I was too tight.

We also got work with one of the UK’s top agents and our earnings went right up.
Everyone except Aussie gave up the daytime job.
Stan eventually was able to buy his very own black Vox AC30 amp. He had up to that point been plugging into Aussie’s amp. What a difference that made. His Vox had the new top boost sound, ideal for a lead guitarist.
Stan was in heaven.

With the success of the Beatles, there were agents from all over the country flooding into Liverpool, looking for someone to sign up.

A competition was organised at the enormous Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, famous in the classical music world.
There was to be a prize of £500 plus a guaranteed recording contract with one of the top labels.
As there were over 200 groups in the whole of the Merseyside area they only allowed those who were considered to be in the top 20 to take part.
Fortunately, we were considered by the organizers to be in that category and they sent us an entry form.

Now that was a day to remember.

. Image


Last edited by Merseykid on Sun May 11, 2014 6:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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