It has seen better days.welcome to the first instalment in the series. since i’ve run out of my own guitars to talk about, why not those of my friends! not to worry, my guest writers will still keep us enlightened with more classic guitars soon.

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this battered bass guitar belonged to a then 2nd year medic friend of mine called ganja (don’t ask). ganja’s lmsn rds’ coursemate in the days when they lived in a house with the dingiest looking basement in which they jammed in. you know the taik ayam smell under a kampung house with stilts? there you go.

it’s an aria pro II SLB series (possibly either a late 80’s or early 90’s) which had a few chips here and there. it had a plywood precision-type body with a composite J-style pickup at the bridge and a P-style neck pickup. the bridge had part of a saddle missing, cleverly replaced with a 5 pence. the strings were knackered as fcuk and boy did it sound shite. hehe. all in all, it was lovingly called sheffield’s lousiest bass, after its SLB moniker.

having said that, ganja was a keen guitar player and he was one guy who actually could sing whilst doing bass runs. in fact, he fronted rattlehead, a megadeth tribute act we formed for the sheffield gig in the easter of 1999, playing that plank of wood which looked as if it came off a toilet from CBGB’s in new york. we had it restrung with rotosounds just for the gig, and god knows, if it still has the same 4 strings on it now.

this bass was also used by bagak of f.a.k.a.p. in the sheffield student band competition. ktong ktong it went, yet f.a.k.a.p. gave the most rousing performance ever that evening despite being disqualified for playing only RATM covers.