Some possessions you pursue with a passion. Others find you. The Yamaha BB1100s sits defiantly in the latter category.
Made, I would guess, in the mid 1980s, this is the Japanese company’s take on the classic Fender bass designs. Its sleek body horns make it look rather dated these days, but in the hands of a New Romantic, given to the odd slap and ping, it would have looked quite the part.
The combination of two pickups and active circuitry mean that the bass is nothing if not adaptable, with a big tonal range on offer. In truth, the active circuitry hasn’t really stood the test of time and the instrument sounds better played passively, but overall it still plays and records very well. The relatively thin neck still allows for a very playable low action, though it did need a sizeable truss-rod tweak from Graham in Andy’s Guitar workshop in the mid noughties to correct a pronounced forward bow. Since then it’s survived rather better than Andy’s.
I bought the BB1100s in ’88 or ’89 from Tony Conlon. I first met Tony in 1985 during the filming of Revolution, the American War of Independence movie starring Donald Sutherland and Al Pacino. Critically panned and equally unloved by the paying public it gets the odd airing these days on those non-premium movie channels on your Sky box. It really was that bad. When I say that I met Tony in 1985 - that is perhaps over-stating the case. Truthfully, I stepped over him, or around him to be more specific.
Tony and I had both landed roles as extras in the film, along with several hundred otherwise equally unemployable Plymothians. There was big money on offer – if I remember rightly about £35 a day. Now, for someone like Tony who had been signing on prior to the arrival of Goldcrest Pictures in the city, this represented riches beyond compare. Unfortunately after 3 days on set and 3 sleepless nights fuelled by incredibly cheap alcohol, Tony’s body rebelled and shut down. Of course, I didn’t know he was Tony at this point, I just saw a very pale Goth who looked seriously ill.
I next met Tony about a year or so later. He played in a band with a keyboard player called Simon who ran the high-tech department of City Music in Plymouth. I was a regular loiterer in the shop – lots of interest, but no money to spend on stuff. I got to know Simon, and then Tony, and later joined their band. We played together for about a year with me on guitar, Tony on bass and Simon on a large collection of keyboards, often borrowed from the shop. This was probably during the time when the Yamaha DX7 was at its zenith and our stuff was covered in those very distinctive twinkly synth sounds of the period.
Given that City Music doesn’t appear to exist any longer, and I’m sure the receipts are long since lost, I don’t think I’m breaking any confidences in saying that Simon bought the BB1100s on his staff discount and passed on the savings to Tony. Given that Tony was a recovering Goth, the bass seemed to suit him well – its in-voguish looks and general air of practicality gave the impression that here was a musician ready to move on.
A couple of years later after I’d moved to London, Tony would come up from Plymouth occasionally to play bass on various demos I was working on: an arrangement that no doubt suited me rather better than him. One day though he called me up and offered me the bass for the then knock-down price of £150. He had been tasked by the proto Mrs Conlon to at least contribute a new kitchen table to their new house and he desperately needed the funds. Not that I had £150, but I did have a Marshall amp I never used, and I wanted a serviceable recording bass, so I duly went down Denmark Street and got royally fleeced.
That’s how I’ve come to own a Yamaha BB1100s for the best part of 20 years. If I’d had money to be precious about basses, there’s no way I’d have ever chosen one. It would always have been a Fender Precision - the only consideration would have been which colour. But, as a guitarist who plays a bit of bass, the BB1100s has proved good enough down the years to dissuade me from ever considering replacing it. It’s needed minimal maintenance, and has served me solidly. It didn’t even look out of place when I played a residency in the Club Montepulciano house band. Indeed, the sunburst finish was set off quite well against the high waisted sky blue jackets worn by those of us in the rhythm section.
So, it’s not an instrument to love – and with a name like the BB1100s I’m not sure that even its designers thought that it ever would be. But it found me and I’ve stuck with it. It’s far from a classic, but actually it’s not that bad at all.
