Alembic Guitars Club
Alembic products => Showcase => Series I Basses and Guitars => Topic started by: s_wood on November 22, 2021, 05:28:33 PM
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Tom Fowler is my personal bass hero and a big part of the reason that I play Alembics today. Today, I am honored to own Tom's old Series bass, #74-74. Mica and Tom Fowler himself have confirmed that this his old bass.
74-74 was the first Alembic I ever heard. On November 8, 1974, I went to see Frank Zappa and the Mothers at the Capital Theater in Passaic, NJ. Tom was Zappa's bass player then, as he joined the Mothers in January of 1973 and would stay with them until May of 1975 (he later played with Jean-Luc Ponty, Steve Hackett, the Fowler Brothers and Ray Charles, among others). His tone, taste and chops just blew me away. I had no clue who made that big brown bass he was playing, but a few months later I saw a picture of an Alembic bass in Guitar Player. Mystery solved, and my multi-decade obsessive quest began! First, some pics of Tom Fowler onstage with Zappa and 74-74, and my ticket stub from that show!
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Here's a pic of Ron during the electronics refurb. All the original parts were there when I bought the bass, but there were many problems caused by well-intended by totally wrong re-wiring, and the use of acid-core solder to repair the jack at some point caused a lot of corrosion. It took Ron a long time to bring it back to good-as-new condition, especially because we all wanted to re-use the original parts. Somewhere along the way the headstock was broken - not unusual for a road dog bass like this one. There was an old repair that was structurally stable but semi-ugly, and besides the headstock angle was wrong. With the new repair, you can barely see the break. Interestingly, perhaps at the time of the original headstock repair the original Alembic logo disappeared and was replaced by a couple of fossils! We decided to return those to Tom Fowler as a tribute to him.
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And here is 74-74! What a great-sounding bass... the tone envelope has a very fast attack, so the bass is very punchy, and the low end is just massive! You can hear the bass yourself on Zappa's albums "One Size Fits All," "Bongo Fury," and "You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 2," on Zappa's video "A Token of His Extreme", on Jean-Luc Ponty's "Imaginary Voyage," and on Steve Hackett's "Please Don't Touch." I am truly blessed to own such an amazing bass, and humbled to know that it was once used by a virtuoso like Tom Fowler.
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Congrats!!! Very cool!
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Magnificent, Congratulations! :)
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Wow, now that’s a classic Alembic! Love the old brown PUs. Congrats!
Bill, tgo
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Great find Steve and another one to add to your already incredible selection of alembics. But how did you come to acquire the bass?
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GREAT story!! Thanks so much for enlightening us all regarding your acquisition of this true masterpiece!
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Congratulations. I saw Tom with Zappa live a few times but I think where his playing really clicked with me was on Jean-Luc Ponty's Aurora and Imaginary Voyage.
Does this mean your never ending quest for more Alembics has ended?
As an aside I haven't seen Road gear in a long time. I used a couple of their JBL Cabaret knockoffs for my small club PA back in the day. Of course they weighed more and handled less power than the JBL MRX515's in my big PA of today.
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awesome bass, great story
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Love the old brown PUs.
brown pickups rock!
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Jazzy, the story of how I came to purchase this wonderful bass in one of perseverance and luck.
I met Susan, Mica and Ron in 1993 when I purchased my first Alembic. I shared with them the story of my first Alembic experience at the hands of Tom Fowler and mentioned that it was a dream of mine to some day own that bass. Susan remembered Tom Fowler and the bass, but as it hadn't been back to the Mothership they had no idea where it was or who owned it, nor did they know how to get in touch with Tom Fowler to ask him. Eventually, through some obsessive internet sleuthing I determined that Fowler must have purchased the bass in the summer of 1974. I found pictures of him using a black P-bass in December of '73, and a few pictures of him using a Jazz bass in the spring of '74. I had a bootleg copy of a KCET-TV television special recorded live in late August of 1974 (later officially released by Zappa and entitled "A Token of His Extreme") that clearly showed Tom with a brown Alembic (just like I remembered!). I also had an audience recording of a show played on July 19, 1974 in San Carlos, CA where FZ jokes about Tom Fowler "panhandling on the streets of San Francisco to get money to buy a new bass." (San Carlos was about 30 miles south down the peninsula from San Francisco). At some point in the late 90's Mica stumbled upon the build card for 74-74, upon which someone had written "Tom Fowler."
Not much happened for along time after that, except for me routinely bugging Susan or Mica about the whereabouts of the bass and finding every picture of Fowler with that bass that I could. Then, around 2005 or 2010 or so somebody emailed Alembic looking for parts for 74-74. Mica emailed the person and asked him to email me. He did, and I told him I was serious about buying the bass. Then, he disappeared and neither Mica nor I heard from him again. To this day I have no idea who he was or whether he actually owned the bass. I would periodically post things here, or elsewhere, looking for the bass or Tom Fowler, but nothing ever came of it.
Then, in October of 2020 Hal Henkel posted the picture below on the Alembic Bass Guitar group at Facebook. The bass looked like the pics of Fowler's bass I had found over the years. I went into deadly pounce mode and contacted Hal right away. Ha is a very cool guy... an L.A. based guitarist and Alembic player himself! He was kind enough to act as a go-between between the bass's owner and me. He was the owner/engineer of a small studio in L.A. and he bought the bass from Tom Fowler years ago. We chatted on the phone a few times, and he could tell that I really loved and respected that instrument and that it was important to me. The owner told me how to reach Tom Fowler, who confirmed to me that 74-74 was his bass, and that it was delivered to him in Montreal, CA in June of 1974. With its authenticity confirmed, the owner agreed to sell it to me the bass... and we all lived happily ever after.
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Excellent and what a memory attached to such an splendid instrument. I'm sure it is in great hands. Thanks for sharing the story. My Alembic bass experience started with Stanley Clarke and whilst I don't hanker for one of his actual basses I would consider it if the opportunity to acquire presented itself and was in my budget.
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Fantastic the way everyone worked together and it all worked out :)
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Fantastic story and bass!
I always assumed this Alembic was on the studio version of Montana - if you listen on headphones, the bass sounds like it's in stereo with the neck pickup on one side and bridge on the other. But it was released in Sep 1973 (according to Wikipedia) so according to your timeline maybe not...
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Great story and cool bass. And, how about Tom's Road bass rig pic you posted with two 2x18 cabs powered by two Road 440 watt heads!
Talk about a bell bottom flapper!! I should add that's the best headstock repair I ever seen.
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Overbite Sensation was a Jazz Bass. The album was recorded from March-June of 1973, and there are plenty of pics showing Fowler playing a natural finish Jazz during that time. Great tone, for sure!
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Overbite Sensation was a Jazz Bass. The album was recorded from March-June of 1973, and there are plenty of pics showing Fowler playing a natural finish Jazz during that time. Great tone, for sure!
Overbite Sensation would certainly have been a better title with all the lyrics about dental floss. :D
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Do you know what the core wood is? The dark grain lines make it look kind of like koa, but I can’t really tell from the photos. Beautiful bass!
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I am waiting for Mica to give me the official word as to the core wood. I thought it was mahogany at first but Mica suggested that it might be oak and the grain looks consistent with that. I don't think it's koa... I will keep you posted.
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Oak would be cool! I have a 74 Series I with oak core. Just posted photos in the Showcase thread for reference if you want to compare (74-59).
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Susan and Mica have confirmed that that 74-74 has a white oak core, like rv's 74-59. Susan's recollection is that there were about 25 basses made with white oak cores around that time. The top and back are zebrawood, and the neck is made of walnut and birch.
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That’s awesome! Great wood combinations and beautiful bass! I think moonliner has a small body bass with oak core. Very nice! :)
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I love that picture of Ron holding that bass during the work-up.
Just imagine . . . . all the magic that has passed through those hands.
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I was just watching the Inca Roads vid on YouTube and admiring this bass.
Congrats, that's a dream come true!!
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The core is actually Red Birch. Foudn the build record and looked at some more close up pictures and I'm convinced of the core's identity
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That’s cool, I have one with a birch core too. There is a photo under the thread for 75-A013 with a nice side shot showing the birch core grain for comparison. :)
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What a great story! Glad this historic instrument is in good hands