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Lime Spiders’ Rickenbacker 3001 bass

A rare Ricky bass from a classic Aussie garage rock band.A few months ago my band supported the Lime Spiders, a band that has been around for over 30 years… Growing up in country New South Wales during the 80’s, I’d only read their name in Hot Metal magazine (one of Australia’s great music mags) and then when Sixfthick toured Europe, every second French dude we met at our shows was wearing a Lime Spiders shirt. I’d yet to hear their tunes, so I was looking forward to the show.

We had a great set and the Lime Spiders were really cool… classic Oz garage rock. Afterwards I had a chat with the bass player Tony Bambach about his cool Ricky bass. I hadn’t seen one a 3001 before, so I was really interested to see what they were like.

Tony mentioned he’d bought the bass in Boston back in the 80’s and it was his work horse. I had a quick play and was impressed with how light it was… it would be no problem playing a long set with this bass slung over your shoulder. The build is very Fender like, with a bolt on neck and slab body.

The neck profile is pure Rickenacker though… which honestly I’m not a massive fan of. There seem to be 2 types of Rickenbacker bass necks, the thin… almost Jackson guitar profile radius neck which I love and the thick… square shouldered neck with has more in common with a table leg then a bass. This is kind of the latter… quite chunky with square shoulders.

The pickup sounded great… very P-Bass. The simplicity of this bass was again probably influenced a little by Fender and really works. This is a great rock bass… very solid sounding and all business. The controls work really well, with a bass & treble control which helps you get some different sounds fromt he one pickup.

All in all, a cool looking, great sounding and unique Ric kenbacker bass. If it had a more Jazz Bass type neck profile I’d totally add one to my bass collection.

Check out Tony playing his Ricky in this classic Lime Spiders clip.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UodZ_fFyO8