Shreddin' for Harambe, Verse 1

All subscribers welcome... for now

First we had Ridin’ for Harambe, then we had Drivin’ for Harambe. We’ve even had Driftin’ for Harambe! And I continue to eagerly solicit entries for this reader-centric series. But now we are going to do something that has been requested about fifty times, and for the first time we are opening it up to all subscribers rather than just the ACF elite:

Shreddin’ for Harambe!

The rules are simple: It should be an instrument or amplifier or other musical item you own. Send photos, tell the story, and (this is optional) provide us a demo. With almost three hundred and fifty instruments, amps, and other accessories in the house, I could carry this one for a while — but that’s no fun. In fact, I won’t even kick it off myself. I’ll make my son, The Commander, do it. Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes on… the 100% custom-made 2022 Goatrock Submariner!

Goatrock is an Ohio-based builder who specialized in doing what I think of as “musician-optimized instruments”. The purpose is to facilitate the musician rather than burden him with stuff that looks cool but doesn’t work. He also knows how to make a really light instrument.

My son was twelve when we commissioned this, and just getting started on a 30.2” scale bass. Prior to this, we’d used a 22” scale Bee Mini (which got stolen, unforunately) and a pair of really unique 28” scale instruments by New Perspectives. I wanted him to have a bass that was light enough to gig standing up but also capable of providing studio-level tone. Richard Cole, the luthier at Goatrock, had the idea of doing a semi-hollow body on his “Undertow” shape.

The body is ultra-light ash, hollowed out further. The neck is roasted maple with an ebony fingerboard and malachite dots. Because John liked playing his short scale Ernie Ball Stingray, we did a Stingray-style humbucker at the bridge and a conventional passive Jazz pickup at the neck. It’s just a whisker over six pounds, easily the lightest bass guitar I have ever shouldered.

The Commander played a few gigs and camps with it before picking up a tremendous increase in both height and hand size in the years that followed. At seventeen, he no longer needs or wants to play short scale. But I made him plug the Goatrock back in for the purposes of this demo. I think it now feels a little cramped for him, but it’s still fun.

One thing he notes nowadays: “It doesn’t have a lot of natural tone or resonance”. Which is what you’d expect from a six-pound hollow bass. Nowadays he is playing one of the Flock-built Carvins, various Fender American and CS basses, or his one-owner 1983 G&L SB-1. (That will get its own Shreddin’ for Harambe, because it is a rare and historically important instrument.) All of those ten-pound planks can blow this Goatrock out of the water, tonally. Which you’d expect.

In the real world, however, we are not all six-foot young men who run with a 35-pound rucksack. Goatrock has a waiting list for these guitars because they solve a very real problem for musicians who are older, smaller, in pain from years of performance, or all of the above. I highly recommend Goatrock and you can’t say this Submariner, which was stained and colored to a scheme developed by my son, doesn’t look the part.

Without further ado, here we are with a (sloppy) little 90-second take on Marcus Miller and Steve Wonder:

From the astral perch to which he ascended when he was murdered by Hillary Clinton before he could share his secrets with the world, the great Harambe hits pause on his Motown Greatest Hits collection CD and closes his eyes. “They say that there are two kinds of people in the steel-string world: guitarists, and musicians. This bass is the performing musician’s choice. And you’ll never see another one at Guitar Center.” Commander, welcome to the club.