First Time I Saw Alembic Guitar

[funkyjazzjunky]

Michael Hampton and Rodney Curtis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XzKKcC7kek

[jazzyvee]

Wow thanks for posting that one FunkyJazzFunky it reminds me of their gig I went to back when One Nation Under a groove was ripping up the charts.

[funkyjazzjunky]

Man, I could not believe the sound.  Normally I would feel the bass at a loud concert.  In this case I distinctly heard every note.


VMG

[rv_bass]

That’s a great looking/sounding guitar (and bass) in that video!

[jazzyvee]

As an educated guess, Parliament Funkadelic was most likely the first time I would have seen an alembic guitar. At the time I only knew alembic made basss and then only one Stanley Clarke was using so I would not have recognised the guitar used as an alembic. But since then mine is the only one I have seen on stage outside of the Alembic Gathering I attended in 2012.

[lbpesq]

The first Alembic guitar was I ever saw was either John “Marmaduke” Dawson’s, or the Series guitar the other guitar player had in a short-lived band I was in back in around ‘74 or ‘75 in Pasadena called “Cripple Finger”.   I then lusted after one for the next 30 years until I got my first.

Bill, tgo

[StefanieJones]

We used to go to the Capitol Theater every weekend back in the day. Sadly, I never saw Funkadelic, or an Alembic while there though.

[rv_bass]

201-777-8653 (TOKE)...Used to be the Grateful Dead hotline number at the Capitol Theater back in the day

[StephenR]

First Alembic guitar I saw was also Marmaduke's.... NRPS and Commander Cody show at the Academy of Music in NYC 1974.

[gtrguy]

In the 70's we used to have a guitar repair guy in the town I grew up in named Larry Roberts. One day in his shop he showed us a guitar case with a 6 string Alembic guitar. I had never even heard of the company. I kinda remember it was selling for $1200, which was a lot of money. I bought an Alembic hot magnet kit for a humbucker from him.

[cozmik_cowboy]

I was aware of Alembic basses a long time ago; they weren't around like P-basses or 4001s or anything, but I heard them.  I recorded one in '79, and first "played" one in '83 or '84.  (I'm a guitarist, and a lousy one at that, so any attempt at bass definitely gets quotations)

But the first time I saw an Alembic guitar in the flesh (in the wood?) was at Bill's house last April.  I didn't play Woody, Irv, or the Other One, but I did play 2 Alembicized ones; ya know, they're sorta OK...................

Peter   

[StefanieJones]

First Alembic guitar I saw was also Marmaduke's.... NRPS and Commander Cody show at the Academy of Music in NYC 1974.

Saw NRPS at the Capitol, and they played for hours. That was such a fun show. It seemed like it would never end.

I first heard of Alembic in 81 or 82 when band got me into Return to Forever. Couldn't afford to get one back then.

[edwardofhuncote]

Me personally, I think I would like a Distillate guitar. There was one on Reverb last year somebody got a gleam in their eye and modded with some Alembic Telecaster replacement pickups, they even filled the old AXY cavity with a grain-matched piece of zebrawood. That one really spoke to me, but I knew I wasn't guitar player enuff to lasso that Dragon.     *this one- https://reverb.com/item/29224165-alembic-distillate-mod-electric-guitar-o9462

I have yet to encounter an Alembic guitar in the wild, though I did have a very close call last Summer. My first encounter with an Alembic bass was in Nashville, Tennessee in 1996. Down on Broadway. It was a Distillate 5-string, with a cocobolo top. The guy was super-nice, and invited me to check it out, then he let me play it. I was just blown away with the wood and joinery first, those three purpleheart laminates up the full length of the instrument, and the layers that made up the body wings. I of course knew about Alembic, but had never inspected one close. Then I played it. It took another 18 years, until June of 2014 before I had one of my own, but that was the moment.