I recently attended a gig by the The Blues Band (
www.thebluesband.com) , at Pacific Road, Birkenhead UK. I was amazed at the punchy sound that seemed to be coming from a diddy little instrument that incongruously seemed to be producing them. It sounded good with the older blues numbers.
I did not recognize the instrument so after the gig, I had to satisfy my curiosity I got in touch, by e-mail with Garry Fletcher (the Blues Band bassist). He very kindly told me that it was an Ashbory Bass and suggested I could find more information on the internet. After a brief search I came across the LargeSound site where I found some really useful information.
Subsequently I persuaded my wife that I needed an Ashbory as a Christmas present and she very kindly obliged (after I answered the usual silly "why do you need yet another Bass?" question). Anyway, we placed an order with LargeSound and they immediately despatched one. I tracked the delivery; it took two days to get from the USA to the UK and then it sat in local Parcel Farce depot for 5 days until we got in touch with them and persuaded them to take payment for the customs charges (£38 by the way) – if we had waited for them to get in touch by the promised letter I think we would still be waiting.
Anyway, the Ashbory arrived eventually. At first I was a bit apprehensive about playing it as I had never tried a fretless instrument before. It took me a little while to tune up (I understand new string do take a little while to settle down). Then I tried play; it was much easier than I though it would be; in fact it is almost as if the Ashbory has been made for me. I have relatively small hands and short fingers and on a standard bass I have to quite a stretch to cover all the notes in a scale, but with the Ashbory the fingers of my left hand naturally match the marked "fret" spacing and the right notes seems to be automatically under my finger tips. And the sound (played via my Ashdown ABM500 Evo II combo), is unbelievable.
The Ashbory certainly punches above it weigh and is just as good as instrument 10 times the price. If you are in the UK, buy one now while the dollar to pound rate is so good.
It is an excellent complement for Growler (that's my Gibson Les Paul 5 string bass, which has more sustain than Big Ben on steroids and a low B that registers 6 on the Richter scale).
Now all I need is someone to gig with!
Kind regards
OJ Wethorns
