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At The Show
Even though a killer purchase wasn't made, we were still happy with what we saw, touched and drooled over. The absolute highlight of the show by far, had to be watching Michael Manring in action. On his own and together with Steve Lawson. These guys bring a whole new meaning to bass solos. More on that later...
Have you seen a Gus bass? I hadn't before and I am absolutely blown away by them. Not only are they asthetically very pleasing. They are custom built with every piece of hardware, apart from tuners and straplocks, all made by Gus. Hand wound coils, machined bridge that is nothing like I've seen before. Dual action knobs - that look a bit like bottle tops - including a 4 way pickup selector, which was pretty neat. The body is carbon fibre/cedar composite making it very light and giving great tonality. All topped off with a sexy, sleek chromed aluminium horn. The basses are the G3 range with the 'geetars' being the G1 range. The G3s come in four and five strings, active or passive.
Did you get yours? They had splashed coupons around various music related publications and I know there were a few folks on alt.guitar.bass that had sent off the coupon for the free set of strings and never received them. I was one of them. Sooo, I donned my agb.com hat and posed the question to the representatives on the exhibition stand as to why peole had not been receiving their strings. "It was while stocks last", came the reply. Aha - a familiar term - which to me meant that at least some stock must have been sent out. So I asked how many sets of strings had actually been sent out and explained that it seemed to be an international phenomenon, because as far as I knew, nobody was actually receiving these strings. 5000 sets of strings were sent out they tell me. Looking at my disgruntled face must have been a disturbing deal for them as they half turn towards a box behind the desk and ask me which strings I wanted, . "A standard bass five set, please"... "Oh, we're out of bass strings". Humpf. So I relieved them of this rather tasty looking 0066CC Elixir pen and walked away. Ha - that showed 'em.
Heda man! Shame I didn't get a pic of him. Simon and I had a good old chat about Gus and bass in general... he was quite amazed at the PL1 story. Gus has been making guitars since 1994 and basses since 1996. They haven't been using retail outlets for sales but have been doing quite well for themselves. Their website is at http://www.gusguitars.co.uk. However, Simon was quick to tell me that he is looking to do a major overhaul on the site as it's very basic. Yeh - come on Simon, pull your fonger out! He also tells me that he will be going into retail sales quite soon and is setting up in New York as well as exploiting the web in conjunction with some other well know bass sites. Good luck Simon - I'll be in touch about that 'is it green, is it 0066CC' axe that went so well with my nail polish! What a nice bloke.
It's bassically a small world... Simon mentioned that he had liaised with a 'guy from another bass forum,' that he couldn't remember the name of. Bud chirps, "The Dudepit? Steve 'Dude' Barr?". Yep, that was the one. How could he forget a character like Steve?
All in all - a great looking, superb sounding, highend, higherpriced, but well worth it (imho) bass. Oh yes.
Michael Manring & Steve Lawson
It was known that these guys were going to be playing today, but we didn't know where or at what time. We had been wondering around for over an hour already when Bud stops and says, "that's Steve Lawson", pointing to this rather humble looking dude who looks a bit like Geddy Lee. Bud calls out, "Steve!", and introduced us to Steve. With big smiles, hand shakes and wows all round, Steve tells us that he and Michael are performing at 1 & 2 pm in the Bass Guitar Magazine Booth. Ahh yes, we had just been there and chatted with this young guy on the desk - apparently you can get Bass Player Magazine in England. Huh! We wander around some more and head back to the BGM booth to see what we had really come for. On the way, we walk past the EBS/Goodfellow booth where some guy is really slapping that thing. We look to see it's the young guy from the BGM booth - huh! So, we're both feeling a bit sick at this point and there was more to come.
Anyone who has heard of Michael Manring will have probably heard that this guy detunes and tunes while he's playing. I can remember thinking to myself, "what is the point of that, that's just showing off". Well, let me tell you, so what if it is just showing off - it sounded awesome! He wasn't just using the onboard hipshots on every string, he also had levers on the bridge. Is there anything this guy can't do? I think not.
It really didn't feel like almost an hour that we had been stood there, just feet away from Michael the man Manring and Steve flawless Lawson. Afterwards, we chatted and took snaps. I had noticed that Steve played with this fingernails and asked if he somehow used his finger pads too. Oh yeh, he files them in such a way that at one angle he has his nail picks and at another angle, the classic fingertip pad. Brilliant.
We came away with an autographed copy of Steve's new CD, 'Not Dancing for Chicken'. We played this when we got home and it really is superb, relaxing and beautiful. We can't wait to play it when we have guests, to tell them that it is all done on a bass guitar. They will be stunned.
More about Michael Manring can be found at http://www.manthing.com/
More about Steve Lawson can be found at http://www.steve-lawson.co.uk
More pics of Musiclive can be seen here.
Review the review... What the pros had to say!
Linny - I saw the review - I'll link to it from my site ASAP - thanks very much. Cool photos too! :-)
-Steve Lawson
Thanks so much for the nice comments, everyone. And thanks so much for the nice review, Linny (my sweetie was thrilled/embarrassed to be mentioned)! It was a fun, and yes at times, bizarre experience!
-Michael Manring
Freebies... included, two eBay.co.uk t-shirts. We didn't even have to ask. Can't be bad.
All in all, it was a fine show of the biggest names in music and many, many basses to drool over. Our purchases included Cakewalk's Music Creator Software, for Bud. If you follow the newsgroup, you will know that he has had trials and tribulations trying to find some suitable software for his recording requirements that will work on XP. This was a good price at £29.95 at a saving of £20. Bud also bought a set of DR strings for ten quid that should have been closer to thirty. On the Rotosound stall, he asked about a set of nickels in the same guage as the RS66LC set, but alas, they don't make the nickels in that size. Bummer. Oh, I forgot to mention the guy on the Rosetti stand. I figure this is a music store - they had walls of guitars and basses. As we walked past this wall of Ric guitars, Bud spotted where the basses were and speeded up. As I looked in the direction that he was heading, this Rosetti guy moved in close to me and said, "You're doing a good job of looking interested". Buh?! "Err, I play bass...". "Oh! Um, er... the basses are over here, let me show you", he spluttered. Oh puh-lease! We walked away with aching feet, ringing in our ears and happy that we had our moneys worth.
By Lynda 'Purple Linny' LeCompte
| | | | | | | | | | | LeCompteBass.com
May 12th, 2007