Building Season 2025 is Almost Here!

With 2025 off to a very rough start (long Covid), I know I can at least look forward to a brand new build season in spring. Last year I left off with three kits that were ready to build, and eight that still needed parts. In the past few weeks I've been looking for more circuits to build, but the layout sites have slowed way down with their posts. Despite their slower output with new layouts I've actually added two new builds to the 2025 build roster. I have a third waiting in the wings, because it requires such off the wall parts I'm not sure I'll fully commit to it. There is also a Bluesbreaker variant I'm wanting to build, but it's a bit off the wall too, so it too is waiting in the wings for me to decide what to do.

Among the newbies are a Sun Face clone, and another treble boost, with a Danelectro Breakdown clone being the oddball in the wings. I've wanted to build a Sun Face clone for a while, so I figured now would be the time to give it a try. All together I have thirteen kits, again most of them still need parts ordered, with the Danelectro Breakdown, the Bluesbreaker variant, and the Fender 5F1 build still hanging in limbo. The 5F1 is mostly because I'm still not too keen on messing with such high voltage.

For my sanity I'm hoping the layout websites stay slow with their output this year. As we've seen in the previous two years I make a claim early on, only to end up going wild and surpassing it by some crazy number. Once my parts order is made that will most likely mark the end of prototype building. I need to switch over to repairing circuits that didn't work out the first time, and housing all of them. I have so many circuits in little bags I want to plug in and play, but it's not as simple as that. Even worse, I'll hear something I really like and do all the research into building it, only to find out I've already built one.

Hopefully 2025 starts looking up and I can finally get to writing and recording. I've got a few demos planned, I just need to get some of my pedals finished to aid me in that pursuit. Fingers crossed everything goes better than I expect!

The Bass

In 1999 I became more interested in learning to play the bass, just to add another feather in my cap of musical prowess. May of that year saw a dear friend by the name of Joe offering me his old bass guitar, one he said he never played anymore. Joe brought the bass to school on a Friday, handed it to me and told me to take it home for the weekend. The last thing I can remember him telling me was to let him know how I liked it on Monday. The issue being, our school district had a funny way of rewarding me with more days off from school when I had previously not shown up to school. I was suspended most of that following week, and by the time I returned it was too late. I went back to school with the intention of returning the bass to Joe, but Joe had passed away that Thursday night. Meningitis. He was only 15 years old.

I tried numerous times to get his bass to his sister, but our schedules rarely ever crossed paths. From 1999 until about ten years ago I continued to try and make it happen, but things never worked out. It was as if Joe was telling me this is where he wants the bass to stay, and it has ever since he gave it to me. On the surface it's nothing special. It's a red Mako brand, P style body, maple fretboard, single pickup bass. The strings are still original, as I can't bear to take them off. They're the last set of strings Joe played. Needless to say I've not played it since 1999. It's more a keepsake of a friend who I guess decided I was the safest home for his bass.

I think this year I might just go through and give the bass a tune up, see how it performs. After leaving school in 2000 the bass moved with me to Michigan, then back to Indiana. It's been packed away in box in my closet untouched, but not forgotten, for decades. A new pack of strings, a thorough cleaning, make sure the neck is doing alright, and it might be ready to rock. I still feel as if this belongs with his family, but it's just never happened. I think at this point they've probably long forgotten it.