You wait for ages and then three come along at once...

Well, here's something you don't see every day. A (sort of) Triple Neck Wal Bass. Well, they only ever made one and this is the third I've come across!!!!


This pretty little (!) thing recently came up in an eBay auction. Funny thing is, it's a copy... of a copy. But by the same guy who made the first copy... Confused?

This is a replica of the Wal triple neck originally comissioned by Rick Wakeman for his "King Arthur On Ice" extravaganza and later gifted to Yes bassist, Chris Squire, and  used to great effect on the track "Awaken" from the "Going For The One" album. You can read more about the original bass here and here... The original is now on loan to the Hard Rock Cafe and the bass which Squire now uses on tour is a copy made by a Japanese luthier.

If you've got about three grand plus  burning a hole in your pocket here's the eBay link:

http://www.ebay.com/soc/itm/330876682726?roken=gGWLXM

Here are some photos of the original and Squire copy in action...

Roger Newell playing the original Wal built triple neck with Rick Wakeman



Chris Squire playing the original triple neck with Yes in 1977

Chris Squire playing the Kid built copy with Yes

Note that, at this point, Chris hadn't removed the pick-up covers...

The eBay leftie: The bass which came up on eBay was a bit different. It's a left-handed bass for a start. It was made by a Japanese luthier, Hiroshi Kid (who made the copy that Squire now uses). Here's the blurb on the eBay ad:

"Enter Hiroshi Kid of Kid's Guitars - Japanese luthier of painstaking, one-off instruments well-known for his Brian May, SRV, Frank Zappa, Zemaitis and korina Gibson replicas. Around the same time the original Wal was retired, Hiroshi Kid decided to make an extremely high quality replica of it and present it to Chris Squire. He also made one left-handed version on a customer's request. Chris Squire still tours with his Kid's triple-neck to this day (he swears it's better than the original), and you got it, you're looking at the sole southpaw.

Ash body, three-piece figured maple necks (one fretted bass, one fretless bass and one guitar with three courses of two strings), tooled Western leather pickguard, stereo outputs, more knobs and switches than you can shake a stick at, and a custom molded hardshell case. Low action, high attention to detail, and it sounds just like Chris's. So what are you waiting for, Lefties? Your Rickenbacker 4001CS is lonely..."



And some eye-candy from the ad too.

And here's Chris chatting about his version of the triple neck bass... Starts at 6mins and 9 seconds