WELCOME
Hello and welcome to our little corner of the low end world.
Lonnie and I have been on a mission the past few years to rescue, recycle and restore American-made plywood basses as they are truly underrated for their contribution to all types of music. Whether it is Bluegrass, Big Band, Swing, Jazz, Blues, Dixie Land, Rockabilly or Old Time music…there is great vintage plywood bass holding down the low end beat. More music has been made with these manufactured plywood basses during the late 1930’s through the early 1960’s than at any other time in our music history. American Standard, Epiphone, Kay, King…doesn’t matter we love them all the same.
At our Bass Gallery you can view photobucket slide shows of our current family of vintage basses. The slide shows showcase Lonnie’s skill for restoring these fine vintage instruments. If you are looking to purchase a bass check out The Showroom. We now offer a few basses that are for sale and ready to gig. The Workshop Blog is where you can track the progress of our current bass project. The Epiphone History page shares our current research on Epiphone upright bass history. You can add your Epiphone bass information to the Epiphone database project by e-mailing the details of your Epiphone upright bass.
We love vintage basses and hope the commitment we are making to restore and repair these big beauties will shine through at our website! Consider buying a vintage bass instead of a new manufactured bass. You can save a few trees that will not be consumed in the manufacturing of new plywood bass…think green.
We are not a full time bass restoration business and we are self taught in the artistry of bass repair. Feel free to contact us at bassmonkey2@comcast.net if you have any questions about your bass or one of ours.
Come back often to see what's new and thank you for visiting our website!
Lonnie & Wendy
Thank you for visiting our website.
Lonnie and I have recently been interviewed by the local newspaper while attending a bluegrass festival.
Here is our story in a nut shell...
Alan Bartram, bassist for
Del McCoury and the Travelin' McCoury's with his new/vintage 1939
American Standard Bass compliments of Bass Monkey
Matt Malley, co-founder and former bassist for the Counting Crows taking delivery of his fully restored 1948 Epiphone B-4 Bass compliments of
Bass Monkey
Photo by Shlomo Ben-Yaacov
PS: With the introduction of new communication technology we can now “face to face” video chat by iPhone 4G. We are willing to give a “face to face” video presentation and demo of any one of our basses. Heck I’ll give a tour of the entire workshop. If an iPhone 4G can pick up the sound and video clarity of an upright bass we are willing to do a live demo. Contact us by e-mail for a phone number and a time and we can “chat it up”.
