About 20 years ago, I used to play bass guitar in a high school "basement band" that never left the basement. While most of my friends wanted to play a "regular" guitar, I always loved and wanted to play the bass guitar. Some of my favorite musicians have always been bass players – Paul McCartney, John Entwistle, Donald "Duck" Dunn and this one particular fellow named Sting.

The three other guys that I played with all went on to be true musicians and performers. Me? I just dabbled with it in high school as an enthusiast and decided after the band broke up just before graduation that the visual arts were my true calling. I decided back then that I'd rather concentrate on being a visual artist in college as I recognized that I didn't have it what it takes to be a true professional musician.

My younger brother Steve and Me with my White Fender Squier "Bullet Bass" Circa late 1988

So, for all you fellow Beatleologists out there, I took the 'Stuart Sutcliffe' approach to it all and walked away from music to pursue art and the girl of my dreams.  My all-white Fender Squier "Bullet Bass" sat in the corner of my apartment bedroom during my college years where I would fiddle with it every now and then for fun. I never found another band to play with. So when money became tight fifteen years ago, I pawned it off to get the cash necessary to help pay for Roxie's wedding ring when I decided I wanted to ask her to marry me.

After we were married, I would mention in conversations every now and then that I missed playing bass if music ever came up. Over the years, I unintentionally made Roxie feel guilty until I eventually made her mad as if I blaming her that I sold the bass guitar. That wasn't the case and I sincerely apologized to her. She told me a few years ago that if I wanted to play bass again, then go out and buy it. And for me to quit complaining. She was right.

Man, I love her more and more each and every day.

So, back in 2002, I started eyeballing a few different bass guitars. I knew that I wanted an authentic Fender Precision bass guitar. I didn't want a Squier nor some other brand or Fender knock-off bass. I wanted the real deal.

As I was shopping around, I started lusting after this one particular bass that caught my eye. It was an exact reproduction of Sting's 1953 Fender Precision bass with a sunburst ash body and maple neck. This is an old-school 50's bass with a single coil pick up and a two-color sunburst finish. It has that pre-1957 neck and vintage style pickguard. This ain't a plain vanilla bass guitar like the one I had as a teenager.

It is part of Fender's 50th Anniversary of the design of the Fender P-Bass. Fender started (re)producing a series of signature model basses that were reproductions and/or reissues of some very famous bass guitars and this Sting Signature Bass was one of them. It even had Sting's autograph in the 12th fret set in pearloid.

But I went into sticker shock with the cost of it and many other bass guitars out there that I was looking at during that time period. I just couldn't convince myself to buy one at the time. Way too expensive.

Then, last November, I went down to Memphis for Thanksgiving and caught the bug again to play. My Uncle Mike and my cousin Mac were jamming down in the basement before Thanksgiving dinner. My uncle is an excellent guitarist who helped me pick out my first bass all those years ago. His son (my little cousin) can play the drums like it's nobody's business. They encouraged me to pick up a bass guitar that day that they had in the corner. I joined them in an impromptu jam session. I was intimidated with plugging it in and found out that I was very very rusty when I did. I was horrible. I felt like I couldn't play any longer as I had forgotten how to play.

When I returned back to Illinois after that trip, I kept thinking about playing the bass again. I had the bug again. I wanted to buy a bass and re-learn to play it properly this time.

So, back in February 2007, I started going into guitar shops and started looking online to see what was available for sale. Since the Sting signature bass was a 2001 model that I had been lusting out after almost five years ago, I assumed I'd be out of luck since it was a limited edition release. I was instead eyeballing online this beautiful blizzard pearl (almost silver) 60^th Fender Anniversary P-bass online. It was a standard modern P-bass with silver tones. I was going to buy it and add a pearloid pickguard instead of plain white in order to give it some pizzazz.

But before purchasing one online, I decided to head over to the local music shop here in Springfield to see if they carried this silver P-Bass just down the street. I like supporting local businesses. They didn't. That was a good thing for me because right there in the shop was a Sting signature bass like the one I wanted five years ago. I held it and played it. Man, it had that vintage tone and sound. Like Donald "Duck" Dunn's bass.  Forget the blizzard pearl bass. I wanted to buy this '53 Sting Signature Bass that was in the shop.

The clerk tried to show me a less expensive midnight wine colored P-bass in my price range that was the same color as my car, but my mind kept coveting that Sting Signature reissued '53 Precision bass guitar. I decided to sleep on it because this it cost a pretty penny. Almost a grand. I didn't want to impulse buy.

I did my homework and studied up on basses… and in particular with this one retro-single coiled '53 style Sting Signature Fender bass that was a limited edition. I learned that many professional musicians were changing out the coil pick up and replacing the stock bridge with a Badass III bridge instead on this reissued '53 Sting Signature bass to improve the sound. Me being me… I daydreamed about adding these modifications and going one step further by adding a 50's-style chrome bridge cover, a coil pickup cover and a pearloid pickguard to give it some pizazz with "the look" that I always dreamed of having on my own bass. Even though I am a Sting fan… I wasn't necessarily trying to emulate having Sting's EXACT looking and sounding bass. I still liked that classic 50's stock look with all the chrome.

But as I considered all the "extras" that I wanted to customize it with, I knew that it was going to add even more to the cost going well over $1300. I couldn't afford that. So, for shee-yits and giggles, I looked one last time on eBay and couldn't believe my eyes when I found it.

It was THE bass guitar of my dreams.

For less than half the cost of what it should have been, I found on eBay a barely used Fender 1953 "Sting Signature Series" Precision bass guitar. Just like the one in the guitar shop that I had almost bought on impulse for a $1000… except this bass had already been hot-rodded  by a professional as I had just been daydreaming about. It was as if he had read my mind and put it up for sale on eBay just for me.  It was synchronicity indeed.

The stock single-coil pick up was changed to a Seymore Duncan SP3 pickup for a much better sound which greatly improved midrange punch. And just as I had read on various websites about this particular bass, the stock Fender bridge had been replaced with the superb Badass III string thru bridge.

He even went the further steps to customize it to give it some pizzazz as I had wanted to do also. He switched out the early 50's style pickguard and replaced it with a beautiful pearloid pickguard. He had also given this bass some additional hardware by adding a genuine 1955-style Fender pickup and bridge cover. Exactly how I had wanted. And he even placed upon it the thumbrest like Sting's actual bass had but the Sting Signature bass (for some strange reason) did not include in the re-issue.

It was perfect for me. It was meant for me. It WAS synchronicity.

The fellow that originally owned this bass purchased it last December and only played it at two gigs. He took beautiful care of it. He said it ended up being too heavy for him and hurt his back. For all extensive purposes, it looked and played like a $2,500 custom Fender bass guitar.

I clicked on "Buy It Now" and spent $600 on it. It ended up being hundreds of dollars less than the one in the store or the manufacturer's retail price. And all the customizing and time I would have done would have cost me so much more. I got a deal.

As I write this, I've been relearning how to play bass for the past four months. I did end up buying a brand new Fender bass amplifier at the guitar shop down the street since I felt a little guilty that I didn't buy the other Sting signature guitar there.

But I can play again and I've relearned about a dozen songs and I'm taking some lessons off a DVD I purchased. And thanks to bass tabs, I'm learning to play some of my favorite songs. I've shaken a lot of rust off these past few months as it has been coming back to me.

I just enjoy playing. I'm playing bass again with truly the bass guitar of my dreams.

Me, my new chin whiskers and my 1953 'Sting Signature Series' Fender Precision  Bass
May 30, 2007

menu