made in Tacoma

I was born and raised in Tacoma, Washington -- a city not known for too much, really, though you may have heard of the "aroma of Tacoma." That was the sulfur fumes from an old paper mill that's been shut down, and I can proudly say that Tacoma no longer stinks. Or at least I can't smell it anymore.

My point is not to rain on Tacoma, though (the city is also known for getting rained on a lot), but to share a discovery I recently made while researching acoustic bass guitars. Some of the best acoustic bass guitars are being made right in Tacoma, by a shop called Tacoma Guitars. It's a subsidiary of Fender, but the company's founders are Tacomans, and apparently proud of it.

I haven't tried out a Tacoma acoustic bass guitar yet -- which is officially known as the Tacoma (R) CB10C Thunderchief Bass Guitar -- but the photos look intriguing. They have done away with the traditional f-hole design, and instead use a large comet-shaped opening on the upper left bout.

You can also watch some guy playing one on YouTube, though the audio quality is not so great:
Still, that's pretty impressive compared to an average bass guitar. (I was always better at producing splunks and splats than actual pitches.) Maybe all that rain is good for basses.