Girls Who Like Cigarettes BlogSpot
The story is so long that I don't know if I can recount it. In short: Albey Balgochian = world renowned bassist learns how to build custom basses by learning how to build and fix violins -- truly difficult skill. In any event, famous bassists like Stanley Clarke and Foley and Darryl Jones buy those basses and LOVE THEM. Albey opens up his own company (working closely with Darryl) calling it TADA: A-BASSES. Ridiculously amazing instruments emerge. Then, after doing this for a few years, he stops doing it. It was taking time away from his true love: playing. Eventually the Darryl Jones license goes to Lakland where it is mega-popular.
Through all this, it is worthy to note that Albey is one of the nicest human beings (and one of the most amazing bassists -- he plays with Jazz legend Cecil Taylor in NYC) alive today. Whether you're hanging and talking about bass, or rapping about afro-cuban funk music or talking about pizza.
Anyway, so I was walking through the East Village one day, where I lived at the time (and hope to live again, soon), when I saw an A-Bass sitting in Guitar Man in the East Village. Specifically, this was a vintage 1996 A-BASS prototype that he had worked on with Darryl as a DJ prototype...this A-BASS was mine. And it was a doozy. When I first picked it up, the action was too high, the strings were flatwound, and the thing was HEAVY. But when I plugged it into the store's small amplifier the thing just sang. Also, the finish was beautiful and the birds-eye maple neck was like nothing I'd ever seen nor played. Leo Quan badass bridge. Basslines pickups. Hipshot tuners. All pretty standard fare...but for some reason, with its dings and dents and character, it just fuckin SMOKED.
Since I loved the proto so much, I eventually got the nerve up to reach out directly to Albey, via email, to see about the possibility of having a new, custom bass made. Albey eventually responded and invited me to NYC to discuss the project. He had too of his basses laid out, a fretted and a fretless. We hung for a loooooooooooooong time, talking about music and, of course, bass, and stories about the company and Darryl and Cecil Taylor. I got the impression that he was sort of interviewing ME for the bass, to see if I was the right "fit" for the instrument. Of course, he would deny this, but I actually like the fact that you sit down, talk about it, and work it out. He had tons of materials left over from the old company, and some new stuff, and could put together a bass for me, sure. In fact, he had one last remaining nitrocellulose hand carved body that he could work on for me. I, of course, jumped on this after seeing some iphone pix from his studio in Boston. A down payment was issued. The rest, as they like to say, is history.