Author Topic: Hello from Montreal (Read 280 times)

paul_harwood · « **on:** January 15, 2012, 02:59:05 AM »

I am an x Mahogany Rush bassist. I bought my Alembic in 1985 from Canadian rock band April Wine x-bassist Steve Lang. He had bought it in the late '70s in New York at Sam Ash. Its a series one. I took a train to Toronto and back the same day just to buy that bass. It was the best of 3 Alembics for sale I knew of, in my neck of the woods. I still own it today and will only take it out on very good gigs or recording. I put it through a tough 10 years of mostly local gigs and decided that it was getting too beat up on gigs that frankly, did not even cover the depreciation of the instrument. I have a 1992 Squire P bass that does the bulk of gigging and recently I slapped some old Alembic P bass pickups I had lying around for maybe 25 years. I run them passive. They are a bit low in output but they sure sound nice. I am tuned B-E-A-D on a 4 string. (Poor man's 5 string.) I found this forum tonight looking up info on Oasis basses. I looked around the forum a bit and this is a very cool hang indeed. One of my dreams has always been to have an Alembic custom made with unlimited budget and take a vacation to SF to help in the final setup. Of course this dream is from an era long ago when all this was pre- hyper inflation etc. Who knows maybe some day still. I am currently playing some bass for my buddy Graham (G.L.)Chambers and his blues project. I used my Alembic on his 1st solo CD release in 2009 called These Blues. He does have a MySpace page for the CD and a few of the cuts I play on are on the imbedded player. But I have started a new solo project called 'Tex Harwood'. I play blues guitars and sing on this project. I am not giving up bass but I am hoping this new guitar and vocals, frontman/leader project will pan out. The baddest bassists I listen to these days are the cutting-edge black gospel players. They are taking the bass guitar to places I never even imagined in my day. I also am a long time Phil Lesh and Jack Cassidy fan. I am looking forward to chatting with y'all on various threads. Cheers. PH

dadabass2001 · « **Reply #1 on:** January 15, 2012, 06:47:15 AM »

Hello Paul and welcome to the club. Another long-time Lesh and Casady fan here (among many others). Best of luck on the new project.
We love pictures, so please post some in the showcase, the closer the better!
Mike

pauldo · « **Reply #2 on:** January 15, 2012, 09:09:46 AM »

Paul - Mahogany Rush - YEAH!
Welcome aboard always good to have another Paul around! We share some of the same dreams (having a custon built). This is a great place to hang - pleasure to have you here.

Paul TDO

artswork99 · « **Reply #3 on:** January 15, 2012, 10:37:34 AM »

Hi Paul, welcome to the forum. Glad that you found your way here. Great looking Series bass and story to go with it. What is the top on the bass? The B&W make the figuring stand out... very nice, maybe a close-up when you get the opportunity. All the best with the new project, you know an Alembic guitar will work for that too

Best, Art

paul_harwood · « **Reply #4 on:** January 15, 2012, 10:44:58 AM »

Hi guys, Thanks for the welcome. I guess I should get Jack's family name spelling under control. I get confused with the similarly named actor's spelling. He was good in the Eiger Sanction. (A nice Carol Kaye bassline in that movie soundtrack!) I will eventually post better photos of my Alembic on this site as well as the bass's documents. Cheers. PH

paul_harwood · « **Reply #5 on:** January 15, 2012, 11:09:42 AM »

@artswork99,

From the bass's document:

The top and back are Shedua.
Core: Cherry
Neck: Maple/Amaranth/Beech
Fingerboard: natural ebony
Veneers: Padouk

serial: 77 743

June 22, 1977

Cheers.

PH

sonicus · « **Reply #6 on:** January 15, 2012, 11:25:09 AM »

Welcome ,
Awesome Bass! I look forward to read your posts in the future and of your stories and experience in the music biz!

jacko · « **Reply #7 on:** January 16, 2012, 04:10:09 AM »

Hey Paul. Great to have you on the forum. I saw Mahogany rush in the late 70's at Newcastle City Hall in England. Would you have been the bassist then?

Graeme

paul_harwood · « **Reply #8 on:** January 22, 2012, 01:31:55 AM »

Hi jacko and all,

Thanks all for the welcome. Y'all are really nice.

I remember that Newcastle gig. What an awesome hall! So, yes, I was on bass that night. I think we were a tad loud for the hall? ... LOL!

I just got back from my Saturday gig. We had the PA's subwoofer hooked up till we blew it.

I was using the Squire P bass with the Alembic P bass pickups. Man there is no end to the bottom. I'm tuned to low B with just regular bass strings. Killer bottom end throughout the range of the bass. Those are mental pickups. Am running them passive.

Cheers.

PH