This was used exclusively on the All We Want is Fun CD. I have a love hate relationship with my Warwick.

This was my first "real" bass. Before it I had been using my Alvarez for years. There is no comparison in sound. The Warwick is the deepest sounding bass I've ever played or heard. A lot of this is due to the fact that it weighs a ton. It's made of Bubinga which I believe is the heaviest wood used in guitar manufacturing. It also produces the heaviest sound. Some people call basses made of such exotic woods "coffee table basses". Fuck them, but I kinda like that too. I've played this bass side by side with Fenders, MM, Dan Electro and other basses, and none have beat it for thump. Nuff said about that. I also love that it has what's known as the "Warwick growl", something very cool and unique I just can't seem to squeeze out of any of my other basses. You can hear shades of it in "Television", "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave" and a few other songs on Fun, but I really learned how to make the most of the growl after recording that CD. Then I bought my Sterling.

The bass is also hands down the most beautiful of my electric basses, and is the only bass I own that seems to have a spirit of it's own. I'm not sure what that's all about. It be that at the time this particular bass was made (mid 90s) Warwick still did a lot of their work by hand. It could be that's it's all natural, the wood is unfinished. It could be that Andrea (of Swimming Pool) lent me the money to buy it, which gives it soooooo much sentimental value to me. Could also be that this isn't the original Corvette I purchased. About 3 weeks after I initially purchased the bass I noticed the wood was cracking in the back???? I returned and they gave me a brand new one that had just shipped in from Germany. It felt like a completely different bass, looked a lot different also as the grains of wood differed significantly. I liked the newer one even better than the original, so I've since come to adore it as a one of kind. I'm sure it is actually. A lot of bass companies put their products out cookie cutter like (I believe even Warwick does now also). They're pretty consistent in their quality and workmanship. This bass is unique. Makes it really difficult for me to ever let it go.

What I DON'T like about the Warwick: As I've already said, it weighs a ton and it's not as much fun to jump around with as my Sterling. It also is a little hard to tame. What I mean by that is the pickups and electronics are really hot. When I use the bass live I have to practically keep the bass and treble controls on zero if I don't want the bass to be all garbled sounding. The highs click and clack bigtime if I dig in too much with my right hand, and when the adrenaline is pumping this is something I have little control over. Don't really want to try and control it, as it's pure emotion. I don't want to have to say - hey - I'm clicking, better lighten up. The lows can get really distorted too, and if everything isn't just right in the club we're playing, the bass can get real muddy. For some strange reason the way I EQ this bass needs to be varied much more according to the room than my other basses. It can really be overpowering if I'm not careful. It's not consistent. I don't like that. I know exactly what to expect when I plug in the Sterling. It never lets me down. After I plug in my Warwick, I often find myself saying - what the hell is that? - regarding the sound.

My Music Man Sterling is my main bass. All recordings after All We Want is Fun have been done with it. Obviously, I love it. Why? Well, 1st off it cuts through the mix like no other bass I ever played. Every little nuance of my playing comes through. At first this intimidated me as I began hearing things I never heard before and not all I heard was to my liking. If I was a little off on a fret, you heard it, if I bent the string a little more cuz i was swinging the bass around or jumping, you heard it. Any sloppiness was clear. Not fun, when you're not used to it. This now has become something I don't want to live without. Every bit of emotion I put into that bass comes out from between Santo's smashing cymbals. I especially like doing runs and lines ala Gene Simmons up and down the neck, and making weird whirring noises in my transitions - the kinds I'd never be able to reproduce even if I wanted to. I can't do this stuff with my other basses.

Another part of my adoration of the Sterling I'm sure comes from the fact that Flea was one of my first real bass heroes. I was forever unconsciously trying to get my other basses to sound like his bass did on the early Chili Peppers albums. Didn't realize in my early playing years how much the Music Man bass actually had to do with the sound. Fist time I picked up a Music Man it felt and sounded right. Duh!!!

Music Man puts out several basses, the most widely used (and most well known) is the Stingray. People have asked why I chose a Sterling as opposed to the Stingray, especially since it costs more. Well, I'm gonna tell ya. The body of the Sterling is slightly smaller than the Stingray, and fit more comfortably to my body. Many people believe that the Sterling neck is a lot thinner than the Stingray - it's a myth. You can check the specs at their website if you're in doubt. The ray's neck is only about an 8th of an inch thicker at the top - I'd challenge anyone to tell the difference in a blind test. The other thing I liked about the Sterling was that it offered more versatility than the Ray electronics wise. It has 3-band EQ and a 3 position switch that changes the polarity of the pickup. Don't understand that switch, but know I use it all the way to the left cuz it's the loudest and punchiest like that - for finger style playing. I flip it all the way to the right for my pick playing cuz it cuts out some of the thunder. Never found a use for the center position, it just seems to take the life out of the sound. Maybe if I do weddings one day.

Things nobody cares about but me: The strap is stuck in the straplock. :-) I'd rather have it like that than the other way around. If you ever see me with a different strap than my black sparkly one, it means I finally broke it free somehow. I don't like the stickers on my pickguard, but old stickers left a lot of that sticky goo and the ones presently on it were the only ones that can cover the goo. I could buy a new pickguard but I'm too cheap and don't care enough. 2nd gig I played with the Sterling I smashed it into something of Randy's and took a nice half inch chip out of the top front. I covered it with some blue sparkle nail polish my girlfriend had laying around the house. It was almost the exact same color as the bass, so I took it as a sign from the heavens. In hindsight I wish I'd have just left the gash as I think it would have looked cooler than the nail polish. The good news is that the gash got me over worrying about the bass. I treat it like the tool it's supposed to be now. Not worried about getting anyone's fingerprints on it.

This bass totally kicks ass. Couldn't say why I don't use it more often. In fact, I don't believe it's ever made it to a Nerve show. Any time I've ever considered it, at the last minute I always say, "Naaahh, the Sterling is my bass." Perhaps one day.

What I love about the Dano: It's semi hollow bodied and can therefore feedback like a guitar if I want it to!!! It has a strangely unique punchy sound due also to the body and the fact that it has 3 lipstick pickups as opposed to the more traditional pickups found on just about every other bass in existence. It's super versatile as it has a pickup selector switch that gives about 7 different choices of settings. It feels like it weighs about 5 pounds. It has tons of punch, bottom, midrange - and cuts through the mix almost as well as the Music Man. It cost me next to nothing!!! Well, technically - I bought one for $350 and then about a month later found a closeout sale where they were letting them go for a little over $100. I bought another (which I sold for the same price) and now wish I hadn't. You can't buy em anymore anywhere. I wish I had bough a bunch of em when they had the closeout sale. Anyhow, glad to have the one I do.

What I don't like about the Dano: It's not made of the finest materials and the weather can really affect the neck. I auditioned for a band once where there was a big temperature change in the room I auditioned in and the bass freaked out on my. It was like the strings were inches off the neck (exaggeration - but it felt that way). The stuff I was playing was pretty chopsy and it felt like as if I were trying bench 300. I made it though. Passed the audition and got to play with the guys. For the record it was Bumblefoot.... more info on another page somewhere in this bass geek section. After that instance I've been a little reluctant to trust the thing. Must get over that. It was probably a freak thing - AND, I had the bass restrung BEAD. Only other bass geeks will understand what that means and how it probably affected the neck.