Category Archives: Gibson EB3 Bass guitar

Wednesday 25th June 2014 – WHERE AM I?

Ohh yes – I’m in a parking space on the side of the road near Dole, 250 or so kms from home, busily making a list of things that I have forgotten to bring with me, such as all of the fresh fruit and the soya desserts in the fridge. The soya desserts will be out of date by the time I return, but seeing as how I’ve closed all of the windows in the attic (in the middle of summer) I shudder to think of what the fresh fruit will be like by the time that I return home.

So with the customary couple of hours on the computer, after lunch I emptied a ton of cememnt out of the back of Caliburn and gave him a good brush out. He’s still not very clean inside and so I laid some sheets of OSB and plywood on the floor – at least that is clean and so should keep me clean.

I then loaded him up and I brought the gas cooker even though I have no gas – I’ll try to find some en route as I travel around. For the bed, I’ve brought a foam-rubber folding chair thing that Marianne gave me a few years ago when she was cleaning out her cellar. I’ll have to see what that is like one day, so why not now? Roxanne had one in her room for when she had friends for sleepovers and no-one ever complained. Mind you, I can’t for the life of me remember how or why I forgot about the folding bed thing that I bought ages ago.

I’ve also disconnected the dump load. The cables are still running too hot for my liking and here in Midsummer and I’m not there, better to be safer than sorry. I really ought to fix this properly one of these days.

I’ve sorted out some clothes and some food (except the fresh fruit and the soya desserts) and drink, made myself a flask of hot coffee, put the Gibson, the Roland amp, the Carlsbro amp, microphone and stand into the van and then hit the road.

I played tag with a woman in a silver-grey Peugeot 206 estate all the way from Montmarault to about 20kms short of Montceau-les-Mines, and stopped at Montceau for tea. I found a Turkish kebab place that made me a gorgeous Oriental salad and chips, with bottled water, all for a very democratic €8:00 and we spent most of our time chatting about our experiences living in a foreign country.

So back on the road in the dusk and here I am

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Friday 6th November 2009 – I haven’t finished moving in yet.

gibson EB3 bass guitar Ibanez acoustic bass guitar attic libraryYou’d be astonished at just how much stuff you can fit into a room thats just 2.8m by 1.7m, I can tell you.

What I have been doing is installing the library up here. This is about half of it, and you have to agree that it’s amazing what you can do with a couple of planks and a small pile of bricks.

And I’m glad that I brought the books up – it wasn’t before time. Some were on a raised shelf, others were in plastic boxes,but some were on a wooden bookcase. This has a plinth that’s about 60mm high yet the damp in my room had penetrated the wood to such an extent that the books on the bottom shelf had suffered. As I’ve said before, I’m surprised I didn’t catch pleurisy with the amount of damp that was in my little room.

And the awful smell that was down there – I reckon it was damp wood and soggy books because it seems to have come up into here now. At least it’ll have a chance to dry out.

You can see the hifi on the top shelf. It’s a little cube that is in fact a radio and a slot that takes SD cards. And seeing as most of my music these days is in *.mp3 format and I use SD cards for all kinds of things, this is ideal. It came from Curry’s in the UK and cost £17.99.

The reason why I was so keen to buy it was that it runs on 12volt DC so it’s just the job for here. The speakers were pretty awful and they soon were binned in favour of these that I picked up in a clearance sale in Montlucon.

Next to it is the Ibanez acoustic bass. When I came to live down here full-time in 2007 I rediscovered the urge to start playing again and in the absence of mains electricity an acoustic bass was in order. It took me ages to track one down.

Next to it is the legendary Gibbon – a Gibson EB3 short-scale bass the same type as used by Jack Bruce of “Cream” fame. It’s a 1964 model and I bought it in 1975. It cost me a fortune back in those days and I sold my soul to buy it. It’s pretty well-travelled and even so, I”ve been offered what amounts to a King’s ransom for it, sight unseen. It’s sat in its armour-plated wooden crate for the last 20 or 30 years with hardly ever seeing the light of day but I reckon it’s time to bring it out into the open and give it an airing.

I’ve also found a heavy-duty curtain to hang over the glass door. The temperature dropped in here last night but in my nice snug little bed I was warm and comfortable. But this flaming bed – comfortable indeed it is and I had a really good night’s sleep. But when you flatten down the back of the settee to make the double bed the bed bit overhangs the base. So when you roll over to the edge of the bed to get out, you reach a point where the bed overbalances and throws you onto the floor. It took me quite by surprise and the air was as blue as the walls of the room. With some of the language that I used, it totally redefined the meaning of “a rude awakening”.

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