Somebody asked for this, so here it is. I'd love to hear the story of one of your pieces of gear too!
Ever since 1974, when I was 12, I had been a Beatles freak, not just a fan as I'd been for as long as I remembered, but a full-blown freak, especially about McCartney--Band on the Run had come out at the end of 73, and it was all over the radio in 74.
So from 74, I wanted a Ric 4001. I had a huge poster of McCartney playing his on the Red Rose Speedway tour, and I often stared at that poster for hours. I was taking piano lessons in early 74, and my teacher suggested that if I wanted to do what McCartney does, I should play bass. From that moment on, I listened for the bass in all The Beatles music and that of McCartney (and that of anyone really).
My parents didn't have the money to spend on a bass and amp for me, so in 76, I was finally able to get a job at an apartment complex, paid under the table $1 an hour to mow and paint. I worked my ass off all summer, and at the end, I was able to buy a short scale, plywood bass, and an amp. It wasn't a Ric, but it was a bass. I got deals on other basses, an Ampeg Precision knock off for $100 and a Fender Telecaster for $200, but all of these basses were right handed, and let's face it, they weren't a Ric.
I kept listening to that Ric, especially on the Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour albums. You could have given me an Alembic, and I'd still have wanted a Ric.
Finally, in the summer of 78, I got a job at McDonalds, and I saved all I could for the Ric. So I went into a shop in Nashville--can't remember the name, but it was just out of downtown, long defunct. They sold Rics, but of course had no lefties. The guy made a couple of calls and told me that he could get one for me in about 6 months. So I worked hard, just to save enough money for my lefty Ric. I think it cost $800 at the time. I was able to save all but $100, and on Xmas day, six months later, my parents had paid the $100, and there it was under the Xmas tree.
I can still remember the smell of the case when I opened it--it still has a tiny tiny whiff of that smell. There it was, my Mapleglo 4001. I was in a hard rock band at the time, and I carried it proudly to practice. It wasn't as loud as the Telecaster, but it was a Ric. The sound was different from that of McCartney's from Wings Over America, but it was a Ric.
I remained exclusively a bassist, though I also played guitar on my own, in bands until I was 23, when I had to quit playing music for mental reasons. Fast forward 10 years, after I was through with all my degrees, and I started playing in a band when I moved to Germany--I mostly played guitar, but I also pulled out the Ric. I kept playing guitar in bands up until about two years ago when my last band broke up.
Anyway, I played that Ric proudly when I lived in Germany, and I got a chance one night at a jam to play it through an Ampeg SVT stack--it was a religious experience.
A couple of years ago, I decided I wanted to play bass in a band again. I wasn't 100% happy with my Ric's sound, so I ordered vintage reissue pickups from Rickenbacker, and voila. All of a sudden, I had the Ric sound I'd always wanted. I can get that Sgt Pepper sound, that Wings Over America sound.
The Ric is a bass that does what it does better than any other. It's not as versatile as my Precision, but it is still my favorite bass. If I had to lose all of my gear except for one, it's what I'd keep.
And yesterday, I finally ordered an all tube Ampeg half-stack--V-4b head and a Heritage SVT 410-HLF cab. I plan on lots of those Ric-Ampeg religious experiences.
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Originally Posted by dirtdog
