Talk about your Bass Bag/Cover...

[Richard Prowse]

There was a guy in Wainuiomata who was murdered and his body was dismembered. He was a bass player and had a very distinctive bag with red pieces of leather sewn onto it. The pieces of leather were cut to look a little like a devil's face, well , so some people said... I had never seen it. Only some of his body was ever found and the bass bag seemed to disappear. This happened about eight years ago.
Some say that the pieces of leather originally were taken from a dead soldier during the Maori wars, some 150 years ago.
One day, about a year ago, I was walking past a second hand shop in Wainuiomata and, would you believe it, the bag was in the window.

[Richard Prowse]

I was curious, so I went in to ask how much they were asking for the bag and where it had been found. The old guy in the shop seemed like he was hiding something and didn't seem that keen to sell it.

"I'm walking towards the door when he calls me back and says that I can have it for $40.
I go over and inspect the bag. It smells a bit musty, but seems in very good condition. I ask the old shop keeper why there is red leather sewn onto it and he gets a bit agitated. So I give him the money and take the bag home."

When I got home, I lay the bag next to my bass and it seemed like it would be a perfect fit. Bit I kept getting an uneasy feeling about the red leather 'face' that almost seemed to change at times.
Now, I don't like wasting forty bucks, but I decide d to get rid of the bag because it was making me feel a little uneasy. It was probably the leather face.

"I notice there's something in the bow pocket, but don't really want to use my hand to get it out, so I undo the pocket and shake the bag. The best part of a human finger falls out! And it's got a ring on it! I nearly soil myself!"

[Richard Prowse]

The ring was gold and seemed to have a face on it. If the finger belonged to the bag's original owner, why was it still intact after all these years? It had, logically, to belong to someone else. I put on some rubber gloves and carefully removed the ring from the finger. There was something written inside the ring... it looked like Spanish.
It seemed to read,
"El tercer dedo no es uso a un bajista."
It was written in very smal writing and was quite hard to read, so I may have gotten some of the letters wrong.
I was temped to try the ring on but, having seen 'Lord of the Rings', I knew better.
I put it in a drawer and squeezed the bag (with the finger back in the pocket) into my plastic rubbish bin. It was rubbish collection day the next day, so I wheeled the bin out to the side of the road.
It felt better to have the bin out of the house.

[Richard Prowse]

I must admit that it was a bit of a relief to hear the rubbish truck early the next morning.
After he'd gone I went out and checked the bin.
Empty.
Then I remembered the ring.
Damn! Why had I kept it?
I rushed inside and opened the drawer, but it was gone!

[Steve_M]

Someone needs to reclaim this thread.

I have a Ritter double gig back for both my fretted and fretless Smith BSR5GN basses. It's crap. The thing started falling apart from almost the time it was delivered and I went to great pains to sew some black denim reinforcement into the seams that held but its started falling apart in different places now. I wonder where my $120 went!

Part of me is tempted to get a double leather gig bag but they're fairly expensive.

[Richard Prowse]

Originally Posted by Steve_M

Someone needs to reclaim this thread.

I have a Ritter double gig back for both my fretted and fretless Smith BSR5GN basses. It's crap. The thing started falling apart from almost the time it was delivered and I went to great pains to sew some black denim reinforcement into the seams that held but its started falling apart in different places now. I wonder where my $120 went!

Part of me is tempted to get a double leather gig bag but they're fairly expensive.

Steve, sorry to pull you up on a technicality but...
What you are talking about is actually a 'basses' bag and not a bass bag.
Unfortuuately we don't actually have a thread titled 'Talk about your basses bag' so I guess it's alright to post about this freak of the bass bag world here. But let's hope that this little leniency doesn't compell 2nd fiddle Rod to start going on about violin cases.

[Robert Prowse]

Puppy's are also a serious threat . Note damage in rim and padding

This case originally belonged to Richard Prowse and was home for his bass when just a baby

[Dennis Michaels]

I have a Levy's bouble bag and it has held up great. Theie stuff seams to be bullet proof so to speak.

Originally Posted by Steve_M

Someone needs to reclaim this thread.

I have a Ritter double gig back for both my fretted and fretless Smith BSR5GN basses. It's crap. The thing started falling apart from almost the time it was delivered and I went to great pains to sew some black denim reinforcement into the seams that held but its started falling apart in different places now. I wonder where my $120 went!

Part of me is tempted to get a double leather gig bag but they're fairly expensive.

[Richard Prowse]

Originally Posted by Dennis Michaels

I have a Levy's bouble bag and it has held up great. Theie stuff seams to be bullet proof so to speak.

I don't believe it's bullet proof... not for the basses anyway!

[Calvin Marks]

Originally Posted by Richard Prowse

I must admit that it was a bit of a relief to hear the rubbish truck early the next morning.
After he'd gone I went out and checked the bin.
Empty.
Then I remembered the ring.
Damn! Why had I kept it?
I rushed inside and opened the drawer, but it was gone!

This was perhaps one of the most entertaining stories I've read.