Meet Bad Ronbo

[bassduke49]

Today I had the pleasure of meeting "Bad Ronbo" (Ron Mayer) on my Christmas trip to the Buffalo, New York, area. Ron was kind enough to have me over to inspect his fine collection of Ricks, talk about them and bands, and share a brew. Ron can fill in the details on each bass, but they are all rare pre-1972 examples, including the "crawl-space" bass, a 21-fret Mapleglo 4001 from 1970(?). He's still working on it some some of the parts are loosely attached in this photo. He also has a '68 Fireglo, and the black one is partially refinished and was a mid-60s 4001S. Nifty stuff. That's Ronbo in his "KiLLeR DWaRFS smoking jacket, in front of some mean Ampeg and Fender stacks. Ron is also a World War II re-enactor specializing in the German army side. He's appeared in several movies as such.

It was great to meet him, and I thank him for his hospitality!

[BAD RONBO, KiLLeR DWaRfS]

yes, it was a pleasure to have put a face to an internet friend ! i fear though, you may be a tad shy of posting your pic in my KiLLeR DWaRfS smoking jacket, eh ? many thanx for sharing the pics of your great collection of firewood ! hope to see your project come to fruition ! still waiting for gallo's project to come to fruition as well ! hint, hint.

[winston]

Ron you have aged very well IMO. I bet you can still rock the house too.

[hieronymous]

Don't forget the Moog Taurus bass pedals!

[ram]

Paul - lucky you! Ron - cool stuff - great basses &pedals and great rig!!! I like the jacket.

[BAD RONBO, KiLLeR DWaRfS]

thanx, guys, for the kudos ! the mapleglo has no laquer on it, thus the dull head wings. the mould from the crawlspace it was found in had eaten the finish, but not the wood, and destroyed the case, thus it sleeps in my old '76 p-bass case. so it's properly stripped and sanded, ready for goo ! you may note i've installed n.o.s. klusons as i hate those grovers. i used to constantly have to peen the cases back together when they loosened and fell apart. (had them on my MD '73 deluxe,'73 MJ geddy and the JA.)

[mikeyesfan]

Great way to spend vacation time.
Nice looking Basses...
How's the weather in Buffalo?

[jps]

Great photo, Paul. Now we need pics of you rocking out in front of Ron's massive rig. Can you hear me?

[rickenbrother]

Where's the pic of Ronbo and Paul together?

[woodyng]

nice pic! yes,ron,i could see you wearing an SS uniform (whilst playing the black bass) speaking of rare stuff,that's a rather unusual fender cabinet---what's in it,anyway?

[VRICKY63]

Very cool collection of very cool stuff. Fender folded horn.....18" ??

[johnallg]

Very cool indeed. Yeah, Paul, where's the pic of you in the jacket?! And Ron, about being in Buffalo at this time of year, two words - lake effect.

[BAD RONBO, KiLLeR DWaRfS]

mike, wood and ricky63...

we got socked today with horizontal snow and high winds ! the fender folded 18" comes with that amplifier. the early cabs like mine had the cloth grill but the newer ones had carved black foam as did the head, shown in the '72 fender catalogue. saw one of those in moncton with the metal motel room suitcase stand in the mid '70's at musicland on main street. btw...i don't do SS, just plain german (wehrmacht heer)army...i get into less trouble this way and the u.s. vets love us. doing movies and history channel is fun stuff like the "patton 360" series. that was filmed at our event here in ny. last movie i did was with roy scheider and darryl hannah in 2006. everywhere else it is called "the poet"(original title) but in north america it's called "hearts of war". there are about ten different covers around the world ...i'm on three of them but mainly the USA version and the UK version. if you see them please don't post pics on this site...not proper.

anyways still waiting for some old codger to post the pic of him in the KD smoking jacket ! there were no humans to take our pic together so we took each other's. he didn't have time to play thru my gear and knock stuff off the walls.

[teeder]

Nice herd of Ricks, Ron! I'd like to see a close-up of that '68!

We got pounded with snow yesterday too!

[rickboy88]

That's a nice collection of vintage Rics!

It's nice to be able to meet forum folks. I met up with Jeff Rath (used to be on forum) at his place earlier this year.