Monday, September 7

A musician I know is unloading a bunch of gear. All of us who've been at it for more than a decade or two are generally in some liminal state between acquiring and shedding. I have everything I need to make music right now, but after seeing John's listing on Marketplace, I can't stop thinking about his Guild Starfire bass.

My first bass was a cheap '80s-era Magnum, which my mom helped me bring home from a thrift store when I was about 16. My brother called it Frankenbass, because one of its tuning keys was a metal washer someone had soldered onto the shaft in a cheap fix. I don't know what happened to Frankenbass — it either went back into circulation or was abandoned somewhere. 

In December 2010, I walked into Dennis' Music in Ypsilanti and bought a dark blue Squier Jazz bass for $100. I played it on stage that same night, backing up my friend Pat at Mittenfest, an annual fundraiser for the creative writing nonprofit 826 Michigan, then held across the street from Dennis' at a bar called Woodruff's. It was only my second gig on bass.

I've played the Squier ever since, and recorded my last two albums with it. When my friend Misty asked me to join her band in 2022, I bought my first bass amp and settled into a new supporting role. Although I'm confident with the bass parts I've written in the studio, I feel like I'm still pretty early in my journey as a live player. I've gotten incrementally better over the past few years, though the band doesn't gig quite enough for me to have improved by leaps and bounds. Still, I've been thinking about an upgrade, and a hollow body Guild would offer me a different palette of tones. Also, it looks great, and has a short-scale neck, which suits my wingspan a little better than the Jazz bass. 

I message John, who tells me a prospective buyer is coming to look at it on Wednesday. That's all the incentive I need. I hit the ATM machine and drive over to his basement studio on Ann Arbor's west side. At the door, I'm greeted by his enthusiastic little mop of a dog, Remi, who rolls around at my feet. The bass is strung with Thomastik flatwounds and plays like a dream. I've known John since the '90s. He's a great player and a nice guy. I have no business spending money on another instrument right now, but this is too good to pass up. I drive home, windows down, with the Starfire in my backseat.