bbqbob

To expand on the Chris Holton's request... let me put this "out there"... If anyone cares to try a 4-string Spitfire and you're in Canada or the USA...and heading to Ottawa, Ontario, arrangements can be made. Hit me here with a PM and we'll make it happen. Here's Bernie with my bass before sending it to Canada. Cheers, [attachment=196981:Bernie.jpg[attachment=196981:Bernie.jpg]

Hello to all... I've now received confirmation from the man himself, Bernie Goodfellow, that is indeed one of his early "pre" Spitfire designs...circa 1992 or so...possibly 1995. I've also confirmed, there is no serial number but as you can see by the photo's, this one is signed B J Goodfellow in pencil in the rear pickup cavity and it looks like, with a grease pen on the head stock... then sealed and finished. I've had a chance to take more photo's of this GB Bass and please, enjoy these until I mooch a decent camera and take some much better "staged" shots. Cheers, BBQ Bob [url="https://plus.google.com/photos/118109354070615509564/albums/5936108955887068289"]https://plus.google....108955887068289[/url]

Hey there... Having just acquired my first five string, I can offer these thoughts. I've been playing professionally since 1972, mostly on P-Bass and occasionally, a JAZZ or PJ - but all four string USA Fenders. I even cobbled some Warmoth JAZZ designs together too and they're great players with Lindy Fralin and SD Antiquity II Jive PUPS on board...but the Lakland DJ-5 I just got, is an different beast completely. Not only does the neck feel comfortable to me, it's also VERY fast and slick. The DJ-5 body seems resonate into my belly...not that I have a huge gut, but I haven't scratched a guitar in years with a belt buckle... Here's the weird part for me... I practice every day for a couple of hours...and switch back and forth between various fretted and fretless models that I have...and all seemed smooth and felt good. So I hit the stage with DJ-5 for the first time and played three full sets with it, smiling the whole time. For last set, I pulled out another Lakland I have, JO-4... and it felt like I was playing a toy bass. It took me a couple of minutes to forget the "tiny" feel and settle in again.... and like I mentioned earlier, I've been play "4s" forever. I had to laugh about it... but I'll tell you this much for free... the extra low notes are just what was needed in some of the arrangements where myself and the keyboards were holding the low end and low mids together. HUGE Bottom end...and extra envelope of tone and presence. BTW - the show is a Texas Swing band like Asleep at the Wheel. I would say to all the four string hold outs (like me)... find a decent playing MIM 5'er and give it try... you may just like it - A LOT. You can always by a real nice fiver later. Regards,

Good day from the Capital City of Canada... Thanks for your response. I only acquired the bass yesterday at about 2pm local time... kit formed it, checked everything out and then got to work with removing any leftovers from previous owners....sweat, scratches, bad solder, etc. At 10pm last evening, I hit the stage with it... HUGE sound with a ton of tone choices to work with. Just spectacular... and the "eye candy" rating is pretty good too. It's got a super slick and very fast neck...with zero neck dive, very nicely balanced. If this IS a R&D early version or great grandfather of the Spitfire, then the improvements in the final version new model, must be mind-boggling. I did send an email with photo's to Bernie Goodfellow last week, but he hasn't responded as of yet. I suspect he's a busy guy... At this time, this bass is not for sale... but if it turns out to have some providence too, even more reason enjoy it for a long time. Cheers and thanks again, BBQ Bob Ottawa, ON., Canada Pro Full-Time Player for 41 years...

[color=#000000][font=verdana, geneva, lucida,]Hello to all... This is my first post on Basschat, but I've been viewing the site for a couple of years now. I hope I'm not out of line with my request for information. I'm looking for ANY and ALL information on this bass please... I've just obtained what is labelled as a BJ Goodfellow Jazz Fretless. There is NO serial number. From the limited data online... I may have a pre- "Sptifire" version of Bernie Goodfellow's design. It does have a Goodfellow preamp onboard made by TAMTEC. The PUPS are Kent single coils with this information written on the bottoms... J88+55 4KT 63 3.5KT 63 Under the bridge pickup is written "BJ Goodfellow"... I'm enclosing a link to an external site with photo's I took this morning of the bass. (I hope that works)... In the meantime, I'll insert a couple of photo's here too. [url="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-p1gGkRF0mN4/UmFL87_5uWI/AAAAAAAACPY/ECTYGwMMCxU/w652-h869-no/P1030583.JPG"]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-p...o/P1030583.JPG[/url] [url="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-d6TNussI_js/UmFL9PNu_qI/AAAAAAAACPc/pThC1MaCIfM/w652-h869-no/P1030584.JPG"]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-d...o/P1030584.JPG[/url] And the Google site with all the photo's... [url="https://plus.google.com/photos/118109354070615509564/albums/5936108955887068289"]https://plus.google.com/photos/11810...08955887068289[/url] I thank you all in advance. BBQ Bob Ottawa, ON., Canada.[/font][/color]