Christie Moore, For the Love of Bass Guitar

For the Love of Bass Guitar: Christie Moore…

I’d like to let people know that I am not just a bass player.

For years I have played in bands and the attitude towards me is that I’m just the bass player. “Play bass on this recording” and “we have to learn this song for tomorrow night” is what has been said to me. And even though I write my own songs, the view is that the bass player just stands at the back and plays bass (with exceptions). So I want to put the record straight.

Yes, I play bass. Not a brilliant bass player but good enough to play in a band. I stick to root notes mainly with the occasional little flurry of notes. My first bass I bought from the Music and Video Exchange music shop in Notting Hill (remember them?). The guy went downstairs and got this unbranded Strat copy which I named the bass “bass from the basement”. I used that in my first band on the London scene in the nineties.

Then I got my second bass, a Vintage Music Man copy I bought for my gig in Hollywood, and so it is named my Hollywood bass. This has become my favourite bass for its deep rich tones. I often have to turn the volume down when plugging into an amp because it has such a high output. Its main problem is that it’s heavy and wears me out after an hour plus of rehearsal.

So I tend to use the next bass I got, which is my Hofner travel bass. Not rich in tones but lightweight, and it does have a full scale. The main weight saving is the smaller body but I have travelled to the States with it, and Australia.

My next bass is the Westone Thunderbird, given to me by someone who was having a clear-out. Nice bass, lighter than the Hollywood, and nearly as good a tone. Then my girlfriend bought me a Hofner Macca bass. Very lightweight but difficult to play, and the level coming out is very low. I don’t tend to play that one much.

Now back to my powers of invisibility. Many times I made suggestions to other members of the band and I got ignored. It’s nearly always the singer or guitarist or drummer that people come up to and speak with. So after many years, I decided to form my own record company and release my own music on it. The first album is called “Holly Davidson” because if I ever had my own band I would call it that. Then I released my girlfriend’s material, her band is called Patrick Moore (after our surnames) and the album is called “Rockdown” as she wrote the songs during lockdown. I still play bass with the two bands I’m in but I’m not so ignored now I’m a record company executive.

The record company is called Beaver On Productions because I used to work for a guitar amplifier manufacturer and one of their proposed amps was to be the Basic Valve Range or BVR for short. So I drew a beaver with a guitar and stuck it on the amp, much to the annoyance of the designers. I kept the beaver for myself. Who knows if the company will succeed or not but at least I still play bass.

View more “Love of Bass” stories
Submit Your “For the Love of Bass” Story