The Stick Bass

A few years ago I was back in the States and said, "I sure wish I could bring my upright bass back to Italy with me", (to take an upright bass on an airplane, they make you buy a full fare ticket for it). So, instead I went to a friends bass shop and picked up a used ebony fingerboard for $50, grabbed some hardwood that we were ripping out of my friends walls at the time, and whipped myself up a bass in two days. It's gone through allot of changes. First I tried using a big washtub as the sound chamber. That collapsed. So I stuck a tea-box on it. That was too heavy and clunky to carry around. So, I ripped it down to just a stick and put a pickup on it. The only problem with that was to make a battery-powered amplifier big enough to boom out bass on the street, I needed to carry around three car batteries. I used it for concerts, but not too often on the street. Now, it has a tea-box that I can hook on or off as my mood determines.

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