I'm finally getting this page together! I'll be posting Scroll Bass related news and stories here, and adding to it regularly.

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to meet George Biondo here at my shop. George was the bassist in Steppenwolf from '68 through '78, and played on the albums Steppenwolf 7 (which is still one of my favorite albums of all time!), For Ladies Only, Slow Flux (my 2nd favorite Steppenwolf album), Hour Of The Wolf, and Skullduggery. During those years, George mostly played an Ampeg AMB-1, and the sound and the look of him playing that bass was a big factor in my addiction to Ampegs.

Anyway, George is alive and well and working as a session bassist here in the LA area. He's having a custom bass built by my friends Pat Wilkins and Mike Lipe, and Mike had me do the main machine work on the neck for it. When I heard who the bass was for, I passed the word along to George that I'm a big fan of his, and he stopped by my shop. We pulled out most of my vintage Ampeg collection, and he especially enjoyed playing my AMB-1 #000269. I had a great time talking to him about Ampegs and Steppenwolf.

The AMB-1 that he played all those years was actually originally a fretless AMUB-1 when he bought it in '68. It was the only one he'd ever seen, and the music store he bought it from was desperately trying to get rid of it! A short while later, he ordered a fretted neck for it from Ampeg to convert it into an AMB-1. A year or so after that, he had it repainted all black. George found a company that did black chrome plating, which was unusual back then, and for a while the AMB-1 was all black with black hardware. When Steppenwolf was getting ready for the next tour, his bandmates made him redo the hardware in chrome, because it was just too dull looking on stage! He traded it to a long time friend in the '80's, and is tempted to try to get it back from him.