wombatboter

Joe Frazier- Jeff Berlin

He seems to be very active with these pictures since I saw them even in Canada... I have a friend who works for a sort of Internet-police thing and he said most of these people are really hard to trace. In most cases the lead just refers to an internet-café. Recently there was this Wal-scammer on a Dutch site and it was amazing how heartless these people are. I started a long email-conversation with him and pretented to be really interested. I kept it going for more than a month and told him about my "wife" who would be back from hospital around Xmas and who would be very pleased to see her husband with his favourite bass and that after a long fight against illness it was time to treat myself with a new bass even if it meant spending our last money. Even this invented story didn't stop the man from telling me lies and asking for the money to be transferred. Meanwhile a friend of mine send him emails too and he told him "you are the only person I'm keeping the bass for..." Horrible people..

This is a scam.....I lost 1800 euros because of an add with the same pictures. A certain "David Winter" in Aberdeen "sold" me this bass about a year ago but to be honest I was too naieve and too pleased that I had this Wal bass...ànd I had never heard of Western Union before. I learnt my lesson. I filed a complaint against this scammer but in vain. The address turned out to be a paperfactory. Wish I could get my hands on this person...

A friend of mine asked me a couple of years ago to come along to a gig in a bar somewhere around Liege (Belgium). It was a small bar and it was the Tony O'Malley band with Pino Palladino on bass, Ian Thomas on drums and Neil Hubbard on guitar (what a line-up !) It was a great gig and they played the next days in Brussel in a bar and everyday I went to see the show because how many opportunities do you have to see a bass hero in a bar and sit on the first row ? So I saw four shows in four days and during the last evening the singer said "for those who are interested : tomorrow around noon we are playing in the lobby of our hotel to cover the expenses, anyone who wants to come, you're welcome..." I wasn't sure if I would go but I went back again to their hotel.. The other shows Pino had used his pink Fender Precision but he came out the elevator with his fretless Musicman this time and the playing was incredible... One of the best shows I ever saw and what he did on fretless was beyond belief. I sat there in the lobby with a cup of coffee and within armlength the band was playing...Fantastic. Afterwards I was sitting there floored by their playing and suddenly Pino sits down next to me and says "You must be a bassplayer, I saw your face everytime for the last couple of nights..." It was a great moment : we talked about bass for the next half hour and he was a really nice person and really modest.. I asked why he played here and he said "Tony is a friend of mine and I'm doing him a favour, tomorrow I'm leaving to play with Jeff Beck"... Years later Tony moved to Belgium and I was asked to play bass in his band and suddenly I found myself playing the same songs as Pino but surely not as good...

[quote name='TheRinser' post='139346' date='Feb 13 2008, 11:43 AM']I had no idea about that side of John Giblin's playing! I asked him to play some bass and he wouldn't I'd downloaded some of the Simple Minds stuff he'd played on and it just grooved nicely... Downloading that fish album now.[/quote] John Giblin is one of the best bassplayers I know...The bassline on "Babooska" is a song of its own. Fantastic bassplaying on records by Duncan Browne (The Wild places) John Martin, Peter Gabriel, etc.... Plays it bit more upright for the moment if I 'm not mistaken. Inspired me a lot to pick up a fretless bass. A great musician.

Fender Jazz bass Marcus Miller Fender Precision Fender Jazz bass deluxe Fender Mark King jazz bass Fender squire Ken Smith 5 Chuck Rainey Ken Smith 5 BSR Ken Smith 4 BSR Wal Custom shedua Wal Custom shedua Wal MK I Wal MKII midi Wal 5 MK II Wal Pro 1 Kubicki Factor Bass Jaydee Supernatural (white) Jaydee Supernatural (pink) Jaydee roadie (brown) Music Man Stingray (brown) Music Man Stingray (black) Music Man Stingray (red) Yamaha Attitude Billy Sheehan Yamaha BB300 Yamaha Nathan East Yamaha 6 -string Yamaha 1500 Warwick Shack Chapman Stick Chapman Stick Burns bass Ibanez blazer Ibanez Musician 924 Ibanez Roadster Danelectro Hofner Ashbory Guild Music Man with jazzbass neck Tanglewood (Hofner copy) Kaas-jazzbass Spiderbass Brown bass Westone Thunder Stagg Rickenbacker copy Fender Jazz bas copy (white) Fodera Monarch Status king bass Alembic Spoiler Zon Sonus 5 Acoustic twinneck Tennessee 5 en fretless Twostring bass Xtravaganza Punkbass Precision Xtravanganza Purple copy Carl Thompson Xtravanganza Rickenbacker 4003 Singlecut Bruno Traverso (Italian builder) Basses constructed bij local bassbuilder Belgrado Belgrado headless 4 Belgrado double neck (5 and 5 fretless met leds) Belgrado brown jazz bass Belgrado headless 4 Belgrado 8 string Belgrado 5 string Belgrado 5 red Belgrado headless 5 red Fretless : Wal Mach I Wal pro I Wal pro I Le Fay Remington steel 4 Le Fay Remington steel 5 Ken Smith BSR Yamaha 5000 Warwick Streamer Collier Jazz bass Belgrado Jazz Bass Belgrado headless graphite 5 Ibanez Musician Yamaha 1100 Fender Jazz bass Fender Jazz bass Fender jazz bass Ibanez Blazer

Thanks ! Ever since I heard that Wal-sound of Dean Garcia on "This is the House" by Eurythmics and Mick Karn's basslines I knew these British basses were the ultimate instruments for me.

[quote name='silverfoxnik' post='135350' date='Feb 6 2008, 11:43 PM']Glad you've found the one bass for you (or is it, the six basses?). But, 6 Wal basses is a hell of a lot of £££££!! Are the all Custom models?[/quote] I sold a Pro fretless this year (and I paid for another one but lost the money due to an Ebay scam) but these five are the ones that I still have. But I'm planning to sell the midi Wal since I don't use it and I think some other bassplayer with a vivid imagination can do great things with it..

The trouble for me was that I had so many bass heroes.. I like Marcus Miller (so I bought a Fender Jazz), Mark King (Jaydee, Status, Alembic), Mick Karn, John Giblin (Wal), etc.. In the end I bought around 85 basses during the last 23 years and I own around 19 for the moment. I have been buying basses like crazy the last two years with extreme GAS since I just wanted to have every bass I had ever wanted..I had a lot of gigs so I was able to financially.. Finally I realised that after a long search the one bass that does it all for me is a Wal (I bought six Wal basses last year..) and my GAS is gone, what a relief and I dare not to think of all the money I have invested ànd lost during that long search...

I still live in Belgium but during the eighties there was this big boost with Britfunk and a lot of exciting basses like Wal, Jaydee, etc... Since it was impossible to buy these basses in Belgium, let alone try them out, I was obliged to go to London if I wanted the instrument of my dreams. There was no internet or youtube (which made everything more charming actually) so I had to rely on brochures I got after writing to Ian Waller or John Diggins (it still brings back memories when I see the answers I got with the signature of Ian below his kind letter). For me taking the bus, the train, getting on board in Oostende on a boat to Dover, taking the train to London, use the London tube system for the first time and finding out that Wapping was really at the end of nowhere, was very exciting around 1986. But since I really wanted to buy a Jaydee Supernatural I travelled to the Walhalla of bass : the Bass Centre in Wapping. I was amazed with what they had in stock and which I only knew from bassmagazines. I was also really pleased that I finally could take the money out of my shoes which I had hidden in two small plastic bags under my feet. I remember that I had expected the shopsellers to be more friendly since I went through so much trouble but I ended up buying a white Jaydee (which turned out to be terrible in the end since the neck was very unstable and I had to send it back to John Diggins who in vain tried to repair it...) I went back to Wapping around 2000 - 2001 but I was completely ignored by everyone in the shop and it didn't feel too good for someone who went through all the trouble getting there. I used to work in a musicshop myself and I have always treated bassplayers like I wanted to be treated myself. Good advice, listen to what they were looking for and no lies even if that meant not selling the instrument. I always hoped they would come back because of that attitude and they did... If you show respect and understanding for a client it always turns out ok and it will beat the internet. I don't go to bass-shops anymore since I don't buy that many basses anymore but I still pity the fact that I didn't buy that fancy fretless Wal that last time I was in Wapping. It costs me so much more to buy them now. Too bad bass-shops disappear because of certain factors. Around here in Belgium there is only one !