1990s Roscoe – LG-3005

Roscoe basses feel like home to me. My first ever “nice” bass was Roscoe LG3005 that I bought off of a website called Superbass back around 2002. I was in a band that was playing between 3-5 times a week and finally could justify spending the money on a high end instrument. To this day, no bass has ever felt more like home than that bass.

Unfortunately, in March of 2005, it was stolen along with another bass. I had played a daytime gig at my college and came home to my apartment to shower before heading to my evening gig. I, regrettably, decided that since I would not be long, I would leave the basses in my car. About 45 minutes later I came out and my window was broken, both basses gone, my first gen iPod gone(probably actually worth money if I still had it), and my tapedeck broken where they yanked the iPod adaptor too hard (insult to injury).

Since then I have bought and sold dozens of basses trying to fill the hole left by that Roscoe. Around 2008 or so, I purchased this, my second Roscoe. I didn’t love the sunburst finish or the flamed mapel top as the already felt a bit dated to me at the time, but the price was right and I “needed” to own a Roscoe again.

This one is a fairly early build, even earlier than my stolen one, actually. It originally came with an unbelievably versatile but unnecessarily complicated Kahler bridge and a 3 band EMG preamp, that I wasn’t blown away by. So, I took it to J. Kennedy Guitars to work his magic. It got a Hipshot A Style bridge, leaving two visible screw holes from the old bridge (much like the Bigsby snakebite), and a John East U Retro Preamp. When I say that this thing came alive, that would be the understatement of the century. It immediately became my primary instrument and is one of my “forever instruments.”