Grateful Dead Music Forum

Not much pics or vids of this bass, Phil's Doug Irwin


A little furthur research show the bass on the famous Rockplast vid, apparently played in 1981

I'd say it's pretty well documented given that he only played it for about a year. One of the commercial video releases has it, Dead Ahead, I think? Something from RCMH in 1980 IIRC. I only have it on VHS so I haven't seen in in a while.

mijknahs wrote:

Or not playing!

I wonder why he used it for such a short time - i think it was the nicest of his basses look-wise

Unlike Jerry, Phil has played alot of basses. Seems he almost always has a new bass and changes instruments frequently.
Phil's Irwin was a 4 string bass, he has played 5 and 6 string basses. Phil is apparently always searching for the sound.
JMHO

Phil switched from the irwin to a couple of 4-stringers - a J-bass with the pickguard and finish removed, and then a G&L, I believe an L2000, before getting on the Modulus 6 string kick that he's still on.

I believe the Irwin got shelved because he just wasn't crazy about the sound. Personally I agree with him on that.... although it really does look nice!

gr8fullfred wrote:Unlike Jerry, Phil has played alot of basses. Seems he almost always has a new bass and changes instruments frequently.
Phil's Irwin was a 4 string bass, he has played 5 and 6 string basses. Phil is apparently always searching for the sound.
JMHO

With the exeption of the 80s, jerry changed guitars very frequently

With the exeption of the 80s, jerry changed guitars very frequently

I am going to disagree with that quote. Jerry played a bunch of different guitars in the early days. But once Irwin delivered Wolf, Jerry played his three Irwin guitars from 1973 thru the early 90s,Until Cripes delivered Bolt. Jerry played Tiger for 11 straight years. Not a very frequent changing of the guard at all. Jerry talks about not liking changing guitars or even the setup on the guitars.

Your forgetting about 76-77 when Jerry used his Travis beans. & if I'm not mistaken he actually used several beans in those 2 years, 3 , or 3 setups I can think of. The 500, the 1000 & then the 1000 fit with his first obel & buffer.
Then 78 wolf came back with the dimarzios & from then on he really didn't change guitars very much at all. In the 90's he went through a few tho

gr8fullfred wrote:

With the exeption of the 80s, jerry changed guitars very frequently

I am going to disagree with that quote. Jerry played a bunch of different guitars in the early days. But once Irwin delivered Wolf, Jerry played his three Irwin guitars from 1973 thru the early 90s,Until Cripes delivered Bolt. Jerry played Tiger for 11 straight years. Not a very frequent changing of the guard at all. Jerry talks about not liking changing how to play guitar or even the setup on the guitars.

I would totally agree with you. He changes guitars but not frequently. And I also remembered that, as much as possible, he doesn't want to really change his guitars all the time.

ndrewoods wrote:

gr8fullfred wrote:

With the exeption of the 80s, jerry changed guitars very frequently

I am going to disagree with that quote. Jerry played a bunch of different guitars in the early days. But once Irwin delivered Wolf, Jerry played his three Irwin guitars from 1973 thru the early 90s,Until Cripes delivered Bolt. Jerry played Tiger for 11 straight years. Not a very frequent changing of the guard at all. Jerry talks about not liking changing guitars or even the setup on the guitars.

I would totally agree with you. He changes guitars but not frequently. And I also remembered that, as much as possible, he doesn't want to really change his guitars all the time.

I'm going to agree with the original quote.

Check it: Not until he first laid hands on Tiger in 1979 did he stick with the same guitar for a period of more than 2 years.

^ What about Wolf?

Wolf changed pretty drastically... same body and neck, but there are lots of differences from version 1.0 to 2.0, with about a year of Travis Beans in the middle of the two main Wolf eras.

Oh... Tiger is my favorite Garcia guitar, mostley because he used it from 80-90 my favorite years