In Dec. 1981 I was approached by Becky Hicks at Musicians Institute
about a possible gig that was developing in a counseling room down the
hall. I had just graduated the previous September and was working for
the School as a night manager. I went into the counseling room to find
one Steve Fisher auditioning Bass players from the school with an eye
toward one of them working for his company, Ovation, to introduce some
new bass strings that were coated in teflon. I sat down and played some
unaccompanied bass and got the gig. He gave me a few of the new string sets
and I agreed to show up at the Anaheim Convention Center that next month for the
N.A.M.M. (National Association of Music Merchants) show. My thoughts
about this were that I was quite impressed with the idea of working this
prestigious gig (product demonstrator) for a well known company. It did
not matter too much that I really wasn't that impressed with the product
I was supposed to be demonstrating.
When I got to the show they also had a bass for me to play. It
was a reincarnation of a short lived design that Ovation had
introduced a year (or so) before. It had a unusual shape and it did not
play slap style very well (there was a bar between the pickups and extending to the neck
joint, that made it difficult to thumb the bass and that was the rage of 1982. If you could slap, then you were really a bass player). I certainly don't mean to slam the Ovation company and the
people at Kaman as they have made many contributions to the musical
instrument field, including the wonderful acoustic electric bass guitar.
The teflon coated strings and this particular bass were not that great
in my humble opinion. Playing alone was one of the things I started
doing after a year at BIT (Bass Institute of Technology). I started to
really think about composition while I was a student there. The natural
instrument for me to compose with was the bass, so I would play ideas. A
lot of the early music I would later compose was done on the instrument in
this manner.
On I believe the second day of the show a
rather large fellow was standing in the crowd of people who were there
watching me clown around on the bass. After I stopped he approached me
to tell me he had a line of basses that he wanted me to see. I walked
over to his booth and there were these basses that had (as physical
features) everything I had wanted in a bass. They had 24 frets that were
clear of the body at the lower bout. The woods used were beautiful. I
fell in love with a medium scale bass that he had there which later became my first Tobias Bass. The man was Michael Tobias. The bass had a Koa
body and Koa and Wenge neck. I called it Mamma (The long scale Spector
bass I came to California with was Daddy). As soon as I had gotten to
the Tobias Booth a fellow named Ron Armstrong (who was Mike's X partner
from a Company named Sierra Guitars) asked me to leave in a rather abrupt
manner. I almost started to leave without saying anything further but at
the last second, I spoke to Mike Tobias and related what had just
happened. He persuaded me to stay and try out the basses he had on
display. They were quite extraordinary and aside from my duties at the
Ovation booth I spent a fair amount of time with this big bearded fellow
whom I must say I liked from the first time I met him. He was like me,
only white. We both were portly, we both had beards (I had worn my beard
since 1967 when I discovered I had no chin to speak of).
After
the show Mike was to return to San Francisco where he had been living
for the past year. He had moved there from Florida where he had a
successful guitar shop known as "The Guitar Shop" in Orlando, Florida.
That is where Tobias Guitars was actually born in 1978. He stayed in
touch as he would come down to L.A. regularly to try to get local music
stores to carry his basses. Much of that effort was in vain in the early
years.
I remember about 6 months before the 1983 NAMM show
Mike Tobias moved to Santa Ana, California, about 45 miles south of Los
Angeles. That year he started working part time in Red Rhodes Royal
Amplifier Service at 1623 Cahuenga Blvd... in Hollywood. He was to replace
Red's previous guitar repairman taking care of the guitar repair
(something the venerable Mr. Rhodes knew little about) while Red took
care of the amplifier repairs. As the NAMM show neared, Michael asked
me to help him out assembling basses (and guitars) for the 1983 show.
The problem was he couldn't take care of the front of the store (Red
didn't show up until 3PM), Work on the stuff for the shop, and get ready
for the show with his own basses & guitars. I had a background in
electronics and had always worked on my own instruments. I put a pre-amp
in a bass I had in 1970 or so, and had figured how to set up a bass so
that it would play better. I got through BIT doing that for money on the
side. It was amazing to me that there were guys who were students of the
bass who couldn't even set their instrument up or intonate it. For me it
was a necessity to be able to fix/adjust my own instrument. I remember
being reluctant about taking the job in the first place because I was
not a professional guitar repairman. On top of that I was horrified at
the notion that I was going to drill the first holes in a new
instrument. With my background in electronics I knew if a circuit failed
you could replace the faulty component and make it work again, just like
new. With a piece of wood I had no idea of how to fix it if I drilled a
hole in the wrong place. This terrified me. Mike was so supportive when
I told him this, at first he would actually drill the holes and only
then would I assemble the instrument. This must have gone on for the first 2 or 3 basses. After that I got the hang of it. I got into doing some of the repairs too, mostly setups and string changes at first,
later I would do all the electronic work on the Guitars and basses that
came in for repair. Later I got into circuit design. Repair work was crucial to our survival in the early years.
Finally after a really
hectic last week before the 1983 NAMM show we readied all the
instruments that we were taking to the convention. I sat in the booth
and played Bass and Mike handled the dealers & customers. I got to talk
to quite a few bass players about the bass. As far as I can remember we always
attracted a large number of players at the NAMM shows. Being a bass
player (Michael is a fine Guitarist) gave me an edge in talking about
what the players wanted to know. That show in January 1983 was an
important one for Tobias Guitars. We sold all the instruments that we
had taken to the show and took orders for more instruments. Not a lot
mind you, the first year I was with the company we sold 17 basses that
whole year. As Mike's reputation grew so did demand for his Basses. And
so did the amount of repair work we did. Players like Wilton Felder
would have work done at the shop.
One of the guitars that we
took to the 1983 Winter NAMM show (in L.A.) came to be known as the
"Bowling Ball" finish guitar.
In
1984 the day after I came back from a trip to Europe, someone broke into
Red Rhodes Royal Amplifier through a barred back window. At that time
several of Mikes Basses were stolen and a few Guitars. The next day Red
informed Mike that the insurance (for which Mike had paid) had been
allowed to lapse because Red hadn't paid the premium. Out of anger Mike
swung a piece of wood and hit the dumpster out in back of Red's shop
narrowly missing Red's crimson locks. It was time to move on. I was told
by the people in the print shop next door to Red's that the camera shop
across the street owned a storefront and they were looking to rent it. The
Camera shop owner was Lloyd Berman. I told Mike about it and he went
over to see Lloyd. Lloyd is this nice old Jewish gentleman. It seemed
like he had everything he ever owned in 1614 cahuenga Blvd...
I
remember the first time seeing 1614 Cahuenga Blvd.. in Hollywood. It was filled from the floor to
the ceiling with stuff Lloyd had collected since the late 40's, early
50's. Lloyd was a pilot during WWII and had crashed or been shot down.
When the war was over he came to California and along with a buddy had
managed to buy some bomb sights and other (now) surplus stuff from the
military and made a profit reselling this stuff. He started renting
Camera equipment to the independent film producers and actually produced
some movies. During that time he acquired several storefronts on
Cahuenga and was about to make one of them the new home of Tobias
Guitars.
In order to make the store front suitable for our
needs we put up walls
because when Lloyd got all his stuff out (or rather most of it toward
the back of the building) there was one big room. We found stuff from
all kinds of movies in that place. several things of special interest to
me were communicators from Star Trek TV show in the early days also some
prop cameras from Psycho (the Alfred Hitchcock film). These were props
that were actually used in movies and TV shows. I was impressed! After
we built the walls we put carpeting on them and then we built benches to
do repair work and assembly work on the Basses.
All the time
we were at Red's on the West side of Cahuenga Blvd.. we thought that it
was a fairly quiet street. Although there was one occasion when I was on
my way home and passed by a door in the alley behind Red's. The door was
partially open and I saw a guy smoking a joint and he was obviously very
happy. The door swung open further and I could see a Hooker (who had
come to be known as Piano Legs, because they were....) servicing this
guy right in the doorway. I ran back to the shop hardly able to relate
what I had just seen. I can remember Mike was quite amused by my shock.
When we moved to the East side of the street we could really
see what had been going on at a biker bar right next door and over head
in the upstairs in a Hotel that was run by this (East) Indian couple.
Over the course of time we noticed naked ladies upstairs dancing in the
window, the top of a naked lady the bottom of which was busy making love
to some guy. All we could see was her from the waist up coming (Literally
and Figuratively) over the top of the headboard of the bed which faced
the window. Another time this girl was using a stretch device to
exercise her arms and she got one of her breasts caught in the spring.
We couldn't hear her but she was obviously screaming for her boyfriend
to come get her from being attached to this device. It got so that we
faced our work benches toward the big storefront window so we wouldn't
miss anything. I say WE to include now the third member of Tobias
Guitars.
Paul Dinos was
his name. He was a guitar player that Mike had known from down south. He
had joined us just as the move was taking place. The majority of our
time was still being spent on repairs, but that was to soon change.
Musicians Institute (Bass Institute of Technology) in Hollywood was
one half block north and several blocks west of
the shop. While there as a student, I had influenced several players to
buy Spector Basses like the one I brought from N.J. as they were
literally unheard of in California in 1980. I was naturally excited to show off
this new Tobias bass that I was playing and actually helping to
manufacture, so off to the school with bass in hand, I went. After a
short while players (students) routinely stopped by the shop to ask
questions and eventually a lot of them purchased Tobias Basses. The Bass
caught on with the faculty as well.
Tim Bogert was one of our
early supporters. He was about to make the change from 4 string bass to
the new 5 string and eventually to the 6 string. I believe we made the
first Classic model 6 string for Tim. Jeff Berlin was another player
that depend on Mike's talent, to fix his Fender Jazz bass. We made a
neck to replace the original when it twisted. This was one of a very few
Fender style bass necks that Mike ever made. Jeff Berlin was really attached to
that Fender Bass. Later it would be stolen and thankfully returned
after a while as I think he probably would not have wanted to play without his
trusty J-bass (Roddy Piper) by his side. He did purchase a Tobias in
later years, but I'll bet it never saw as much action as the ole Fender.
Alexis Skjlarevski is the creator of the popular
video, the Slap Bass Program and a classmate of mine at BIT. He was also one of
the bassist who bought a Spector Bass as a result mine. He
eventually got a Tobias 5 string. I consider Alexis a great
Bassist and a friend.
In the early 80's Stuart Spector's
basses became very popular for a while and by early 1985 it was Tobias
Guitars turn for a moment in the sun. We were starting to get
international recognition in the Musical Instrument Manufacturing
community. It was nothing to get calls from Germany, Italy, Sweden,
Switzerland, France, England, Iceland, South America, any place you
could think of was ordering Tobias Basses. We had grown considerably by
then.
In Late 1984 Kevin Almieda came to work for the
company. Kevin is a highly skilled craftsman and great bass player. He
came to Ca... to go to BIT. Kevin had done inlay work for Mike since the
1623 Cahuenga days while still in school. and soon after graduation he was working for
Tobias carving necks and doing a lot of the woodwork along with Mike who
did most of the finishing. Kevin did not care for L.A. living and moved
to San Luis Obispo, where he became production manager for Music Man
(Ernie Ball), in 1986 or so. Makoto Onishi and Robert Mc Donald (who
both went to Roberto Vinn School of Guitar making) came to Tobias
shortly after Kevin left. BMac and Mak had worked for Performance guitar
in Hollywood (a retail and custom shop) and we would do some trading
there. BMac essentially took over most of the duties that Kevin had
done, and Mak(oto) did all of the finishing and the remainder of the
woodwork. Mak was the finisher for Performance Guitar. Mak is this quiet
yet very intense Japanese- American man who loves his Ford Mustangs. I
think a lot about him. As Tobias grew Mike was forced to become more of
a business man rather than just building the instruments. Because of
the excellence of these two craftsmen production of our instruments was
refined to a level that would be hard to calculate in their absence. Bob
Mc Donald carved most all of the necks from 1987 until 1992. During this
period I honed my skills at talking to prospective customers and our
increasing number of Dealers World wide and building and refining
together with the help of Bill Bartolini, the electronics package that
was installed in our bass. Because of my increasing duties in this and
other areas a full time assembler was hired. He was Richard "Obe"
Oblinger. Obe was a likable fellow and he stayed with the company for
almost 2 years. He was important to me because he spelled the direction
of things to come. Expansion....
As the instruments took
off Mike Tobias could not run the business and still attend to his tasks
in the back (workshop). Another refugee from BIT again came to our
rescue. Her name was Holly Montgomery. Holly hails from Kentucky and is
a very fine bass player. She had skills in accounting and running a
front office. Holly had to deal with ordering materials (except wood),
All billing and accounting, and most importantly scheduling all the
orders that would come in over the phone or that we would bring back
after trade shows. In 1985-86 our back orders totalled 500 instruments!
The job Holly did during those years was the basis for my computer
program that would later automate & handle those tasks. Holly did it
without a computer.
In 1988 or so, there was a fire at the
Camera shop next door and it threatened Tobias Guitars also as both
buildings had a common wall. I will always remember how the fire
fighters from the Hollywood fire station helped save us from disaster.
They came in and covered everything (machines, tools, wood supplies) and
began spraying water on the fire as it came through the wall from the
camera shop. I remember thinking "was this how it was all going to
end?". We did sustain some water damage but we survived. I remember on a
hot July day soon after that, Mike went down to the fire station and
treated all the firemen to ice cream. The thing that I remember about
this time is the feeling of our need to grow even more to meet the
demand for our basses. We soon hired more people. There were a couple of
folks along the way who did not work out but most did and stayed until
the end of production in California when the company moved to Nashville
in 1992.
At one time there were 7 of us working at 1614
Cahuenga. You could hardly move in the shop without bumping into another
employee. There was Bob Daniel who was from the Chicago area. He is a
great personality and a pretty good guitar player. He was our sander,
and if you don't know the guitar building business, being the sander
(Sandy) well, lets say it certainly was not the most high profile job at
the shop. I know, I did some sanding in the early days. We would joke to
Michael that he should name his first son Sandy. It was a very important
job though, If the sander did not get it right, then all the work done
before and after would be threatened. At Tobias a whole instrument could
be scraped or sent back to have all the finish removed down to bare wood
(a difficult process) if any tool marks or scratches showed up. Most of
our basses were natural finish and even most of the colors were
translucent (see through), so you would still see the wood's features.
Bob D. was always serious about the job but he was not very serious
about much else. He is a very funny individual. He could always make me
laugh. At one point Gil Chavez took over a lot of Michael's building duties in the Burbank location till Jan. 1992. Gil started with the company while we were still on Cahuenga Ave. Gil did a lot of the wood work after Mike started working more in the office than in the shop. His job was to cut the wood from the raw stock and mill it to be glued into laminates for the neck and body billets, cut out rough shapes of the neck and body. The next step was gluing the neck and body
together, routing all of the channels, cavities, and the final
perimeter and roundovers. Essentially he was responsible for turning boards of lumber into something resembling a bass. The neck and body still had much work to be done at this point but, it looked like a bass. Gil trained Rob Timmons who replaced him in early 1992. Gil switched
over from prodution to tooling, product developement, & prototype work
from Jan. 1992 till his layoff in late april 1992. Rob Timmon and Sean Davis both went on to work in the Fernandes custom shop after the close of the Burbank facitily. 
Rawn Randall was an interesting character. He had worked for Ken Smith Basses in NY and bought a Tobias bass while still working for Ken. They had a disagreement (probably nothing to do with him buying a Tobias :-)) and Rawn left Ken's company soon to be working for us as our new string distributor (I had always received request for our strings {GHS} from the beginning). Between Rawn and myself, we (separately) interested Mike in getting into the string business. Later on the company developed other accessories (Gig Bags, Straps, T-shirts). Rawn moved to L.A. in Dec. 1990 to manage the sales of Tobias Strings and accessories. Rawn stayed with the company until 1993.
Makoto Onishi left Tobias in 1990 to become the Luthier
at the Ibanez Custom shop in North Hollywood to be replaced at Tobias
by Chris Cumpston. Chris came into a big responsibility position at a
real bad time in the industry.
In 1990 the AQMD (Air Quality Management District) in southern California made changes in the law regarding what material you could use (along with new methods) to spray paint almost any/everything. For the Guitar Making industry in California it meant that we could no longer use the same compound to finish our instruments and finishing procedures had to be modified. The Paint Industry scrambled to come up with an alternative that would meet AQMD's new restrictive criteria. Scramble is a good word to describe this period of time. The paint industry would send us a compound that would not work on our products and we would have to send it back. After a while we had to change vendors (more than once). All the while Chris hung tough and was not intimidated (outwardly) by being the new guy just in time for the roof to fall in. In late 1990 we hired an additional assembler named Scott Uchida. I was on my way completely out of production and into the front office. I was talking to our dealers, distributors and customers full time now and handling Artist Relations. Soon I would also handle the task of orders, scheduling and invoicing.
We developed a
relationship with Jimmy Haslip as a endorsee in about 1986. He had met
Mike Tobias earlier, but had not used our basses prior to this time.
Jimmy had a session to do in L.A. and his equipment was in N.Y. It was
recommended that I call Jimmy by Simeon Pillich through Mark Brown (2
other Tobias Owners) to make a bass available to for this session. We
had no program to do such things at Tobias at the time, so I let him use
my personal instrument for the session and he was very pleased and
eventually came over as one of our most important Endorsees. In 1987 we
made a fretless bass (Red Basic 5 string) that I feel was important,
along with the addition of William Kennedy on Drums, in the already
evolving sound of the Yellow Jackets. Prior to this bass Jimmy had used
a fretted bass for the mostly Pop oriented sound of this well known
group. When he changed to the Fretless it seemed to coincide with the
metamorphosis of the band into a adult contemporary Jazz/New Age
Powerhouse with Jimmy playing lead along with the Sax or Keyboards a lot
of the time. Other Endorsees we had during this period included Gary
Willis, Chris Squire, Jerry Watts Jr., Max Bennett, and Keith Jones. On the Gospel side, there was Freddy "boom boom" Flewellen, and Andrew Gouche. I am sure that I am not mentioning all the endorsees of that period and I apologize to those I have left out.
Because of Andrew & Freddy, we had a rather large and loyal number of gospel players that used Tobias basses. There was a revolution in Gospel music which used more contemporary sounds, which in turn caused youth to become involved with church.
The Players were always a big part of the reputation that Tobias Guitars was building. I would always talk to someone inquiring about our basses who wanted to get the sound that Jimmy Haslip, Tim Bogert, or some other endorser got.
In response to the ever growing need for the company to expand, Tobias was sold to CMI, the parent company of the Gibson Guitar corporation in 1990. Gibson is a household name in the guitar industry and I am sure that nothing but good things will happen for Tobias. By 1991 I was in charge of all production data systems (orders, schedules, invoicing & shipping) as well as Artist relations and some R and D on the new products were introducing (the Killer "B", Standard basses etc.).
I was relieved of my duties at Tobias in April 1992 pending CMI's moving the operation to Nashville, Tennessee to consolidate their operations. Because of their large global operation they are producing instruments that will put a Tobias bass in the hands of many players that previously thought it impossible to own. I wish them luck and I thank Mike Tobias for a wonderful 9 year experience. Mike Tobias, by the way, is living near Woodstock, NY and has started a design and consulting firm for the
musical instrument industry and yes, he is building a new line of MTD basses
. We see each other at trade shows and talk frequently.