My first bass guitar, a Westone! Not sure what model it was, but this picture is exactly the same one that I had. This is what I cut my teeth on. I bought one in England around 1985. Pounded and picked on that thing for 6 years. The neck had great action and the pickups were hot enough to accommodate the kind of music I was wanting to play. I was in the U.S. Air Force stationed at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk and we attended church in Bury St. Edmunds.
The main reason for wanting to play the bass was because there was a need on the church praise & worship team. So I learned how to hold down the low end on a lot of praise and worship songs. We did a lot of contemporary church songs as well as hymnals and old gospel favorites. There are a lot of interesting chord progressions in that kind of music and a few interesting time signatures too. There was always lots to learn.
After about a year a few guys wanted to get a band together for outreach ministry. Our band’s name was CounterPoint and it started up in 1986 with my brother, Larry on the keyboards and vocals, John on the guitar and vocals, Stu on the drums and backup vocals, and me on the bass and backup vocals. There were other members that came and went over the years but we four were the core of the band. We played Christian rock cover songs and eventually had some original songs as well. We played all over the United Kingdom in churches and in Saturday Markets preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ and singing praise and worship songs with a louder rock and roll feel.
Around 1991 Stu, also an American USAF guy, got orders to return to the United States. We tried replacing him with an Alesis HR-16 Drum Machine. Spent a lot of time learning how to program that drum machine. Had to buy the Alesis MMT-8 Sequencer to complement the memory of the HR-16. It kind of worked, but the band didn’t really stay together very long after that. So CounterPoint died. That happens to lots of bands.
I actually lost that Westone bass in Newcastle. We were spending the night at a church, on our way to Glasgow, and our vehicles were broken into. My brother lost his Korg keyboard, I lost my bass and my new Peavey Horizon II electric guitar.
Twenty five years later, I finally bought another bass – a (Music Man) Sterling Ray5 .