mc2

Jackson TBird matched pair topped from same piece of flame maple. Originally made for Brian Wheat of Tesla with Gibson '60s headstocks to piss off the boys in Nashville. Sort of related to this topic...the only Hamer ever done with Jackson sharkfin inlays. Unfortunately, still missing since the late '90s.

I recall Jol having left Hamer somtime in the early '90s for a bit, no? Was acting in a "consulting" capacity and then later came back. If he decides to venture into "Dantzig Guitars," I have that 6,000 sq, ft. empty church near Ft. Wayne I'd be happy to offer him to use, since he seems to have a warm spot for working in cool old buildings. Get him back to his Midwest roots.

I recall my guitarist's custom Chaparral being $3600 back in 1988....so what would that be in 2010 dollars?

OK...I own up. All of this is MY fault!! I collect mainly Hamer, Kubicki and SUNN. Ever since I went to that Fender NAMM party back around '93 and made fun of Bill Schultz to his face about having Steven Segal jam with Bonni Raitt and The Ventures, Fender has just been trying to get me back by buying up the brands I collect and do strange things with them, just to fuck with me. Yes,it's MY fault!! Crazy bastards If you don't believe me...then why did Steven Segal also become a sheriff in Jefferson Parish, just over the New Orleans city line, just waiting for me to cross over? Never tell an actor that he sucks on guitar.

A few of the name studio players like Pomeroy and Will Lee have had Hamer 8- or 12-string basses in their arsenals. Entwistle also had a 12. Dave Pomeroy's house burned down last year and he lost some of his massive bass instrument arsenal...offered to loan him my 8 & 12, if he was in a pinch. I lost most of my stuff in a fire years ago, so I could relate.

I saw him and Clarence White in that classic Byrds line-up back around back in the Stoneage. LOVE B Benders. Anyone ever compare them to palm benders of the Hipshot ones?

I wouldn't exactly call him underrated. You're right, but the thread is "who is a great bass player we never hear people rave about". Ask 100 people on the street who JJ is, and at least 99 of them will look at you with a blank stare. Well then....if we're naming Jamerson, then we need to also name other session monsters like: Carol Kay Dave Pomeroy Norbert Putnam Neil Stubenhaus Duck Dunn Will Lee

Bruce Thomas -- Elvis Costello & The Attractions Percy Jones -- Brand X John Deacon -- Queen Bill Wyman -- Rolling Stones Tom Petersson -- Cheap Trick John Wetton -- King Crimson, UK, ASIA, etc. +1 John McVie -- Fleetwood Mac ...me

Another starving musician..... It would be funnier if, when he reached for the camera at the end...he ate it!

Dudes, sorry to hit you with both barrels, but it's time to whip out the big guns! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULmC8JTTVy0 THAT's the secret, undescribable Canadian "element" again that they bring to all their music that I mentioned in another post!!!! What IS that called?? Same thing Nickleback has a lot of Sort of like using a sugar or salt substitute in real food....

Yeah...but THIS blows me away more. A real Cinderella story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY...feature=related

No. Real radio. I was the top all-night (midnight-6 a.m.) guy in the city for years. My shift of choice because there were no playlist restrictions at the time. That was in Rochester, NY, WCMF...great music city back then and one of the ten best radio stations in the U.S. at the time. A lot of labels used Rochester as a city to test market/break new acts, so we got a lot of great bands playing their first US gig there. I remember Kraftwerk, in particular, doing its first US show and playing the entire "Autobahm" album live. We also did weekly (sometimes several a week) live radio simulcasts of concerts in town. Not just local stuff but national acts too from local clubs and colleges....Brand X, Gentle Giant, even The Grateful Dead. Somewhere there is a huge 6-ft file cabinet with hundreds of 10-inch reels of these shows. We were also the station that got Spiro Gyra signed in a local band hunt we held. Same with the first at doing local "Homegrown" radio show and albums featuring local talent. We also had the downstairs of the radio station converted into a "studio" and did weekly broadcasts from there with a live audience of 50 or so listeners...not BS acts either...we had Robert Fripp, Journey (1st LP lineup) and other acts labels were trying to break. I was the youngest on-air guy they ever hired at 19 y.o. and it was just a killer experience. I'd never even applied for the job. My college roommate was an intern there and gave them a demo tape of my college radio show I'd done without my even knowing and they hired me without...total dumb luck. Besides the radio stuff, I also got to go to every concert in town for free and also hosted/MC's events. After four years I ended up going to a competing station, mainly because I held the record for being fired the most times by the program/music director...but the general manager kept hiring me back because of my ratings. I later found out that the firings were because the program director was doing some illegal shit (long story) and thought I knew about it (I was the last on-air guy left from before he was in charge.) Actually, I hadn't a clue but he was sure trying to get rid of me. I also guested at CHUM in Toronto and WKBW in Buffalo. So, I was doing that and gigging on my spare nights. Engineered/produced some local acts and then left for NYC when our first album was done. I did a lot of the voiceovers on many of the NAMM-TV commercials that ran at the '90s NAMM shows and still do some voiceover work. Fun times. Man....that was sooooo long ago. I'm not even sure where to look for that. I actually might have a copy. If I run across it I WILL post it. An audio copy of the entry would be funnier but that's likely in a case of old reel-to-reel or cassette stuff with the oxide flaking off.

When I used to be an FM radio DJ, back in the stoneage...Streisand's label ran a contest for DJs to enter their interpretation of her single "Evergreen." I remember entering it, reading the lyrics over the music....starting out in a serious Barry White type voice and then 30 secs in I started eating an apple on mic, talking with my mouth full, belching, etc. Didn't win but it sure was fun You also had to send a photo of yourself...mine was in a tropical silk bathrobe with a tucan on my head. I'm not even sure why we got to enter, as we were a cutting edge rock/underground station and never played Streisand type suff. The woman sure had a great set of pipes though.

Is this question a direct result of too much Nickleback discussion in a 24-hour period?

Can't argue with success. It sure beats workin' at Guitar Center, plying guitar in your basement and saying how bad Nickleback is That said....they may not be the most prolific band to ever write and play but they sure know how to milk that formula they've hit on. They remind me of a modern Guess Who, another successful Canadian "rock" band that I can do without after a couple songs in a row. I think it's just that decision to milk your hit formula until it won't sell any longer...makes it hard to listen to them for too long at any one stretch. But I think Three Doors Down is close to being the US version of Nickleback....and I like Three Doors Down a lot more. I have no idea why. Maybe it's that Canadian thing? Canadian rock bands just have some weird secret ingredient sprinkled in. They sound like real rock but there is somethin you can't taste or smell that tells you they're not. If you took all the successful Canadian musical acts from the 60s thru now and listed them all...and look at that list....there IS some weird secret unspoken ingredient that is common to all. I can't name it but it's there. Neil Young, Nickleback, Rush, Celine Dion, Guess Who...etc..... Same with Canadian comedians. Many great ones but when you line them all up on a list..there is some common secret ingredient. Moose blood maybe?

Tiny Tim.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl5F2A1Xi-A...feature=related

I loaned my '86 Kubicki bass to a bandmate for a session years back and it came back with belt worming on the back...the only marks on it after 23 years. Never loaned an axe after that.

Yeah, I also think this one looks familiar. Did you buy it in Vegas? Is this Ed Roman's pickle?

I like the flame figuring on the skin. I emailed Hamer Customer Service and asked how many they made like this but the bastards have not replied.

Taste like "buttah?"

Rather ironic that the kings of guitar trademark infringement lawsuits would be rolling this out.

The buying public, in general, is stupid and wants what it sees in the hands of it's idols on TV. It might be the biggest turd in the world but if "Robbie Rock Star" is playing it, they want it. Hamer went that route largely in the 80s with a lot of top artists. Not so much now but I think that also fits Hamer's brand focus. They don't seem to want to sell their US models to the masses...and they do not produce enough to do that anyway. If you notice, many of their 80s heyday models ARE the ones that they have reissued as imports, to sell to the kids at lower prices. Perhaps Fender will dump marketing dollars into Hamer USA to push it more and try and grab some of the PRS,e tc. market share. Who knows what the plan is at present? US Hamers ARE pretty expensive for US dealers to stock without the sell-thru demand. As mentioned above, if buyers cannot find US Hamers to try out, it becomes a harder sell. Fender may resort to forcing its dealers to carry a certain dollar amount of Hamers to keep the Fender line...but, then again, it may come down to just imports. I would guess that alot of the sifting thru Fender/Kaman/Hamer dealers went on this past year and they have some "plan" but that the crap economy has also thrown a monkey wrench into making major changes. Maybe I'm a distant relative of the late Bill Schultz, ex-head of Fender because we certainly share the same tastes. My main bass amps for decades were SUNN and SWR and my basses/guitars largely Kubicki and Hamer. They sure didn't help the first three brands.....hopefully Hamer may fare better since Schultz is no longer of this world.

Ya know....I gotta just say how friggin' annoying it is to NOT see ANYTHING on TV about Les Paul's passing...yet I am STILL seeing nightly crap about fkin' Michael Jackson's dying a month later. Same in the print media. One small story in the local NYC area daily...the size of yet another Michael Jackson follow-up on his drugs, kids and family. Technically, Les Paul likely had a larger impact on the music industry IMO, with his invention/pioneering of the solid body electric and multi-track recording, etc. It drives me mad that news in American print/TV is pretty much the stories you would see in People Magazine or totally skewed political BS.

RIP.....If every musician could leave 1/1,000th of a footprint that he did the world would be a better place.

Kubicki 81 neck on an 80s double-bound Chandler Thinline Body w/o f hole Fender Jorgenson Aluminum Tele (body AND aluminum neck) mostly from parts I got from friends at Fender Hamer Esquire, TLE and T51 Three longscale TLEs