Lakland Basses: A shameless plug

I've been playing a Lakland Skyline 55-01 for a couple years now. It's my only 5-string bass and it sees a lot of action for precisely that reason. Leading up to finding it, I had been on the hunt for a 35" scale 5-string with really even-sounding Bartolini or similar pickups, but that also had a  bypass switch to go from active to passive for some more tonal variations or if the 9v battery ever gave up the goat during a gig. The 55-01 was exactly that, and it sounds great, plays great, and looks great - simple as that.

So, fast forward to last month when I sacked-up and wrote an email to Dan Lakin with a brief resume outlining some of the highlights of my music career thus far. I figured that musical instrument and equipment manufacturers considering artists (not that I would ever seriously refer to myself as an "artist" in public, but whatever) for endorsement want to know that their gear is going to be seen first and foremost. Being heard is also not a bad thing. That means that if you can tell them there have been, and more importantly will be TV appearances, big concerts, and music videos where you are using their stuff, you're helping your case. So that's the kind of info I gave, and I'm pleased to say it didn't require any embellishment or exaggeration on my part. The same cannot be said for other aspects of my life, but I digress.

Obviously, if you're a hugely famous and successful musician all of the big dogs like Fender and Gibson (not necessarily the best - just sayin') will likely come to you and start giving you stuff in hopes that you'll use it in a highly visible way. The next step up from that is if you partner up with a manufacturer to help design an instrument or other piece of gear with your name on it. That privilege is usually reserved for legends, although there are exceptions.

Neither of those scenarios are applicable to me at present, but I'm certainly thrilled to now be on the list of endorsing artists for Lakland Basses. There are some really heavy dudes on that list. My thanks to Dan.