My First 15 Seconds of Fame

Here is a cute little story.

Back in 2007, Bass Player magazine started up a little contest on their forums for bass players to submit tips and suggestions for publication in the magazine. If yours was picked, you would win a piece of gear they had reviewed. So, I submitted a suggestion that I used regularly--calling on my drummer background, use the snare drum rudiments to create practice patterns for use on the bass guitar. And then I forgot all about it.

The end of 2007 was pretty insane for me. My database consulting business had collapsed, my home was being foreclosed on, my first band (Deacon Dark) had just fallen apart and, just to add insult to injury, my computer had crashed. So, it is pretty understandable that I wasn't exactly keeping day to day tabs on those forums. As a bonus, the email address I had used when I registered for those forums had been dead for years by this point. Thus, when my suggestion was selected, I had no clue and the editors had no way of getting in touch with me.

The story could have ended right there if it weren't for an interesting little happenstance. My wife and I went out to see a new band made up of musicians I had worked with and, while we were waiting for the show to get started, I was mingling with all the musicians in the audience. A bass player buddy of mine said, "Oh, by the way, congrats on Bass Player." As I said, I had completely forgotten about submitting that suggestion so my only possible response to him was, "Huh?!?". He then went on to explain that he got the new issue of Bass Player (this was December so it was the January 2008 issue) and saw that my suggestion had made the publication and I had won this neat Seymour Duncan Paranormal DI pedal.

When I got home, I logged into the forums and, sure enough, there was the announcement along with several public requests for anyone who knew me to let me know to get in touch with the editors of the magazine. I did and, just in time for Christmas, I got my brand new pedal in the mail. I have used it for years and it has proved to be one of my most valuable tools. Plus, it is really cool to be able to say, in some tiny way, *I* was in Bass Player magazine.

Here is a scanned image of that page that Seymour Duncan keeps on their site:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/images/products/effects_pedals/seymourduncanparanormal.pdf

:)