Pins on the Map

This last weekend I drove solo north to Seattle to help my sister and brother-in-law pack up stuff and pretty up their house as they prepare to move to Montana. Seattle can be a baffling place to drive, but I made it straight to their house--on Magnolia--with the help of a map courtesy Google.

Leo Goff's post on the forum mentions that there are now two Barker Basses in his town, Eads, Tennessee. And there will be three when I get his custom fretless four done. If I don't hear it by the end of the day, at least I'll have seen a needle bounce and know that there are excitable electrons on board.

Early in the life of Barker Musical Instruments I knew--by memory--where all the basses were, and I could even come close on what serial number was where. That moved into a time with too many to recall so I bought a map.

It's a US map, and a big 'un, 32 x 48 inches. I didn't really need it that big, I just like maps.

(If you share that quirk, check out www.ravenmaps.com and take a look at your state. Or your country. These people have taken maps to a level that enables you to convince your significant other that you have a piece of art that deserves to go right here, hanging on this wall!)

My US map in the office is more pedestrian than a Raven (I have those at home) and it's mounted on bulletin board material (burlap covered Homasote to be specific) so I can push pins into it with impunity.

Then came Germany. And Japan. And England. And Venezuela. So, shucks, I needed yet another map!

These are humbling things for me to look at.

The heartless business analyst would take a quick glance at the US map and say, "You're obviously not selling many in the Midwest! You've got to figure out a way to make the Barker attractive to those Norwegian Bachelor Farmers, and to the catfish noodlers of Oklahoma! A squiggly line from North Dakota to Arkansas wouldn't bump into a single pin!"

I, on the other hand, look at all the other pins and I think of the interesting bass players I have spoken to and, in many cases, met, and I feel just plain grateful.

Maps can help you get where you're going. Don't leave for Seattle without one.

And they can remind you where you've been.

Allow me to introduce...

That's folly, of course. If you're here, you know what Barker Bass is all about. So now we have a blog, a window into our company and, at times, into the scattershot thought processes of the owner.

I welcome your comments, your insights and your questions.

I will post twice a week, usually Monday then Wednesday or Thursday.

Today's shop project is to get three B1 basses in sequence for final assembly and stringup. One is Leo Goff's custom four string fretless (www.leogoff.net), notable for some aesthetic things as well as a little different electronic setup (more about that as we go along), and one will be, at least for a while, one of my players. It has the Graphtech Ghost bridge with peizo pickups, and I want to be with that option for a while so I can build an informed opinion about it. I may also tinker with some other things on that bass, provided they don't muddle one another up.

In creating testbeds there is an efficiency temptation to try several things at once. The result might be a flashy prototype but fuzzy information from the new ideas.

The music in my head today came from the Stolen Sweets (www.stolensweets.com) who played the penultimate Music On the Green concert in Redmond last night. It's that tight harmony, lots of rhythm guitar, slightly swooping yet ratatat music of the 30's. It was so very well done, and the bass player was a Gibraltar back there, and the arrangements were so varied, intricate and clever, that the time went by way too fast. It was in that somewhat rare category where the art of music becomes an illusion in time (like a painting may become an illusion in space) and we were there but not there. It was good to experience that with Linda (Barker) and Rex (Gatton) our guitar player friend and colleague of many years.

And rain threatened. The crowd, however, was bumbershot in preparation. Bumbershooted. Umbrellized. And on went the show.