"Hard World" was started by myself and fellow Ex-Wise Head, Geoff Leigh, in order to re-release the first Ex-Wise Heads album "No Grey Matter" in 2002, it's been an on and off thing since then, but as time and budgets allow, we have put out most of the Ex-Wise Heads material, two albums by Mirage (Geoff Leigh and Cathy Williams), my two solo albums, guitarist Rajan Spolia's "More than Words", the Endless Tapes material and most recently the O.R.k. album "Inflamed Rides".
The story isn't over yet, and I am glad to say there are a few more things in the pipeline too…..
In the meantime, this weekend sees a "flash sale" with discounts across all the following Hard World releases at burning shed, please click on the titles below for more information:
When I had the chance to try them, I always liked playing Musicman basses, and whilst searching around for a replacement for my Wal, which (thanks to some negative airline experiences), I temporarily retired from service, I briefly used a very nice natural wood Stingray for a tour or two. However, I much preferred the Bongo as soon as I tried one, it felt more comfortable to play, flexible, expressive and with a very pleasing even response.
I was surprised, in a good way, by the very clearly defined low end, a lot more of it than you might expect, given it's actually quite light. The tonal possibilities make it a very good all round instrument, and I have experimented with different string types from time to time, switching back and forth between round and flatwounds, currently I'm back to using round wounds.
I was lucky enough to get this bass direct from Ernie Ball and along with the simple black "Stealth" colour finish, I opted for dual humbuckers.
Two tone split controls, giving a 4 band EQ, pick up balance and volume control pots.
Bridge close up.
Distinctive 3 + 1 Musicman Headstock
I believe the design team from BMW were involved in designing the stylistic aspects such as the body and headstock shape, it's certainly a different take on the bass guitar, "marmite" perhaps…..but I like it.
You can see this particular bass getting a workout on the Porcupine Tree "Arriving" Live DVD:
As well as a few other tracks here:
More recently, I have used a (borrowed) fretless Stealth Bongo live with Burnt Belief:
