The quote that's being cited here is from Bass Culture-The John Entwistle Bass Collection, p 112. The quote is from the page facing the photo of the most famous Exploiter, also shown in the first auction picture above. It reads: Alembic took two years to make the three basses for me. The other 4-string is in a Hard Rock somewhere. I sold it as its punishment for going wrong at the beginning of Live Aid.
If you haven't got this book (still available at Amazon.com), you should definitely get it.
It's not clear exactly which three basses he's talking about in this quote as there are nine Alembics in the chapter. I believe there are probably three 4-string cone-head Spyder/Exploiters - at least two wood-necked ones and one with a Modulus neck as well. There's also a split-headstock 4-string and a cone-head 8-string Exploiter. I'm fairly sure that there's a graphite-necked 8-string Exploiter as well.
I visited Alembic when Jason Newsted was in Metallica and they were at their peak (the Black album). Alembic was just finishing a gigantic 10-string Series bass for him, with a super-quilted maple top that was dyed black because all their stage gear that year was either black or white. It even had black chrome hardware and black abalone inlay. If I remember correctly, Mica mentioned that Newsted was trying to have a bigger Alembic collection than John Entwistle, and this meant he needed something like 34 instruments. I've got Bass Culture and the Entwistle auction catalog as well and even though they are filled with amazing basses, there are a lot of pictures of him with other Alembics over the years as well.
A friend of mine had a picture of this exiled Exploiter from the London Hard Rock, must have been in the mid 90s. Leland Sklar's double-neck Moonstone Flying Turkey bass (the one on the inside jacket of Jackson Brown's Running on Empty album, but who ever sees album art any more?) was also there at the same time.
David Fung
