Ludicrous as this may sound and I'd be the first to admit that it was ludicrous in the extreme, verging on the unbelievable, but John Milner was our first bass guitarist despite not owning or being able to play a bass guitar. As well as not owning or playing a bass guitar our 'would be' bass guitarist, was skint and couldn't afford to buy one either. He thought about getting a second hand bass from Barry's Music on HP (hire purchase) but as John Milner was under eighteen he needed his mum or dad to sign for him which they point blankly refused to do. There
was nothing else for it, we would make our very own D.I.Y. bass guitar.
First we cut the body, neck and head out of a plank of wood and screwed them together. We pooled our money and bought a pick-up, volume control, metal tuning pegs, fret wire and four bass strings and added them to the body, neck and head.....then painted it pillar box red and...voila! John had this bass...which sort of looked like a Fender bass.
See if you can spot the difference.
BASS (A)
AND
BASS (B)
The trouble was there were certain technical factors we hadn't taken into account. For example frets have to be an exact distance apart and the strings a certain distance from the bridge to the neck, otherwise it's unplayable.
Although it was possible to tune the four open strings on our bass to E, A, D & G when we tried to play, say G# on the E string by placing your finger on the G# fret (fourth fret up), instead of getting a G# note you got an F!
Believing it to be a ‘minor teething problem’ that could be ironed-out, we went ahead and bought an amp...which, unfortunately, came without a speaker. But, as we said - oh, the confidence of youth - if we could make a bass guitar (not withstanding that it was unplayable) we’d have no problem making a speaker cabinet...yeah, right.
As the name suggests a speaker cabinet requires speakers and a cabinet. The cabinet was the easy part; an orange crate would do nicely...
...loud speakers, however, were trickier.
Then, in a 'Road to Damascus' 'Eureka' type moment, we remembered a place where there were literally hundreds of speakers just hanging around...ready for the taking. The Metro Drive-In Cinema.
The Metro Drive-In Cinema was covered with row upon row of speaker posts each holding two speakers.
The actual speakers themselves were housed in a small cast metal box with an on/off volume control. An electrical cord ran from the cast metal box to the speaker post that was shaped like a capital ‘T’ on which the two speaker boxes where hung when not in use.
You parked up next to the speaker post, rolled down the driver's window manually (cars didn't have electrical windows in those days) lifted the speaker from its cradle and clipped it onto the inside of the window. You then manually wound the window back up again, switched on the speaker, adjusted the volume...bingo you were in business.
We estimated our 'bass' speaker cabinet would need six speakers, two rows of three.
On ‘The Night of the Mass Speaker Heist’ which the incident came to be known, we drove to the Metro Drive–In and parked up alongside a speaker post. But instead of hanging the speaker box on the window, we placed it on the car floor and stood on it.
Before continuing with the ‘Speaker Heist’ if you've never been to a drive–in cinema don’t feel too deprived because you haven’t missed much... apart from a whole bunch of aggro that is. If you’re unlucky enough to occupy a back seat your view of the screen is either restricted or continually being completely blocked by the heads of those sitting in the front...and if you found yourself seated in the front it was only marginally better as you were forever being told to move your head by the whinging complaining moaners in the back. Then, if it rained...well, mayhem prevailed!
Saying that, however, there was a definite upside to the Drive-In cinema...well for us teenagers, anyway. Hardly any of us paid. On any given night at the Drive-In in the 60's at least 70% of the teenage audience hadn't forked out a penny. Not a cent.
The great thing about drive–in cinemas is you do just that. You drive in, in a car. And what did most cars have then and still do today, which could have been designed for teenagers to sneak in to the drive-in without paying? The boot, or the trunk if you’re American.
From personal experience I can tell you it is absolutely mind blowing just how many pubescent bodies can cram into even the most modest of boots.
We used to borrow dad's Vauxhall Velox and regularly stowed five people in the boot. We'd drive up to the ticket kiosk hand over our 2/6 and purchase one single solitary ticket.
Once inside the perimeter fence we’d park up facing the gigantic silver screen and wait. Then, as the lights started to dim, doors of single occupancy cars would open and teenage drivers would get out, stretch, and nonchalantly amble round to the back and unlock the boots. Shadowy figures would emerge gasping for air - it could get extremely hot and stuffy in the boot - and slip into the cars.
It made a really cheap night out - five or six people for the price of one 2/6d ticket. 6 old pennies each (2.5 pence in today’s money). Can't say fairer than that.
Which reminds me of a night when a crowd of us were on our way to the drive-in in Dad's car. As usual with about a half mile to go we pulled over and let everyone hop into the boot. However, on this occasion Lea stayed in the front with me and when we started up again, unbeknown to those in the boot, we drove straight past the access road to the Metro's ticket kiosks and turned down a dirt track further along the road. After a couple of minutes we stopped in the middle of nowhere, as though we were stopping at the ticket kiosk, and called out, “two tickets, please”. To add a degree of authenticity for those huddled in the pitch black boot we waited a moment before adding, “Thank you”, then continued a further hundred yards deeper into the bush, aiming at bumps to simulate the ramps in the drive-in.
After making a three point turn so the car was facing the direction we’d come, Lea leapt out and unlocked the boot. As the last person climbed out he jumped back in the car and before our mates realised what was going on we roared off into the night, leaving them in the middle of nowhere... when we finally stopped laughing went back for them.
Where was I? Oh, yes, ‘The Night of the Mass Speaker Heist’.
So on this particular night we arrived at the Metro Drive-In, parked up beside the speaker column, unhooked the speaker from its cradle, pulled it through the car window and stood on it.
With the speaker secured under foot we drove off – TWANG – the flex went taught and snapped... and hey-ho we were in possession of our first speaker. We repeated the process five more times and after watching the movie we drove home with our haul.
Once we had managed to open the cast metal housing we discovered the speaker inside was extremely small; the size of a jam jar lid if not smaller. Undaunted, we mounted all six little speakers onto the orange crate and wired them together. Our speaker cabinet was ready and it had cost us nothing...well 2/6d, the price of one ticket - two of us had snucked in, in the boot.
We attached the wires from the speaker box to the amp and switched it on. There came a reassuring hum from the speakers... so far so good. We plugged the bass guitar into the amp, turned up the volume - the hum grew louder.
This was it. Milner hit E the thickest bass string. But instead of emitting a deep, rich, throbbing bass note there came instead the sound of – well, what can only be described as a wet soggy fart. The six jam-jar-lid-sized speakers couldn't handle the low frequency. The little cardboard cones gave up the ghost and split - not as in ‘leaving’ but split as in shredded. That was it...after that Milner gave up his aspirations of being our bass player. I seem to remember he joined the police force and shortly afterwards was posted to Gatooma...Lord knows what happened to our D.I.Y. replica Fender bass.
If you are interested I'll be adding more "Chequer Time" next week.
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