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Jack Casady interview

jules

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Jack Casady interview
« on: January 31, 2011, 02:00:20 PM »
Fly Guitars is delighted to feature an interview with a bass legend, Jack Casady. He talks about how he started out, and his influences, but as always, the focus is on his gear. Jack was famous for his customised instruments. There's a section on his early Fender Jazz basses, Guild Starfire basses, his Alembic number one, and of course the development of his own Epiphone Jack Casady Signature bass. In seven parts.

Thanks go to Jack Casady and Graham Fieldhouse for making this interview possible. Additional thanks go to the following photographers: Sam Holloway, Jim Mead, John P. Rossignol and David Sidle. Also to Rob van den Broek and John Lessick.

Jack Casady interview
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2014, 03:44:02 AM »
Regarding the first Guild Starfire bass Casady says:  “It was nice and fancy, the one Owsely worked on.  He made a nice carving, and a modular inset for the electronics...On that one you'll see the nice carved piece, beautiful the way I've stained it dark brown and it had all this inlay at the top.”  Jack’s memory fails him on the details, but I can supply the back story.

Owsely was also a lifelong childhood friend of Southern California guitar maker Roy Noble, to whom in April of 1968 he had sent Jack for doing work on the bass which was “in the white” (wood still unfinished).  Roy’s home workshop was about 5 minutes from my small commercial unit (Erika Banjos) in Van Nuys and we were good friends who saw each other almost daily, and in fact used each other’s shops and collaborated on some projects.  Since I was building bluegrass banjos from scratch my skills necessarily included fancy woodcarving and custom pearl inlay.  Jack needed a bit of both, so Roy sent him my way.

The carving was an ornamentally disguised wood control knob panel which had to fit tightly but easily snap-in and snap-out, as it concealed a secret dope stash underneath to be used when traveling.

The peghead inlay of white mother of pearl was a complex design drawn by Jorma’s first wife Margareta (who also drew the cover art for Hot Tuna’s 1971 “First Pull Up, Then Pull Down” album).  It’s a densely wandering pearly snail-track in which can be found a five pointed star, a keyhole, and two round four-way acid tabs.  It took 28 hours to do, and the total of $126.00 was paid on June 17, 1968, by Jefferson Airplane check No. 1883.  As a surprise, I had routed the inlay channels deep enough to insert tiny (pre-LED) 12-volt grain-of-wheat bulbs under all the inlays and then assembled everything with clear epoxy.  The plan was to have the hidden wires make contact inside the peghead with the metal 2nd and 3rd string tuners, allowing the current to pass through the strings and through insulated holes in the tailpiece to a battery mounted inside the guitar which was connected to the cable jack.  The inlays were supposed to light up as soon as Casady plugged in, but I couldn’t get it to work correctly before the guitar was picked up so never mentioned it.

Not long after that, Roy spent a few days with the Airplane at their 20-room San Francisco “Castle” on Fulton Street while they were recording the “Crown of Creation” album.  At one point, everyone but Roy left the studio to “get a breath of fresh air” and by the time the band returned after toking up Roy had attached an external battery to the lights and closed the lid on Jack’s case.  Of course work in the studio was disrupted when Jack opened the case to find everything brightly shining!  A small battery pack was permanently installed on the rear of the peghead to run the lights, which were used in all performances until the bulbs finally burned out.

It’s one of those little behind the scenes stories no one knows about, so hope it brings a smile!
« Last Edit: February 17, 2014, 03:47:37 AM by Chuck Erikson »

jules

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Jack Casady interview
« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2014, 12:46:11 AM »
Quote from: Chuck Erikson;18130
hope it brings a smile!
It most certainly did. Great story and very interesting back story. Thanks for posting! Are there any pictures of it in detail that you know of? Would be great to have a look...

mrbass

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Jack Casady interview
« Reply #3 on: March 12, 2014, 02:49:35 PM »
Great story indeed! Where is this bass now?

Jack Casady interview
« Reply #4 on: February 12, 2015, 07:08:59 AM »
Haven't checked in here for awhile, but although I don't have any old shop photos here's the original artwork on the peghead inlays: [ATTACH=CONFIG]3173[/ATTACH].  And here's a shot of the carved control knob panel: [ATTACH=CONFIG]3174[/ATTACH].  Just saw Jack for the first time in decades, at the January 2015 Anaheim NAMM show, and had fun reminiscing with him a bit (and he apologized for forgetting details about my having done the work -- he's a great guy!).
« Last Edit: February 12, 2015, 08:04:41 AM by Chuck Erikson »

 

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