Never use a cruelty when a joke will do in its place

The Trading Musician (where I buy most of my stuff) has 2 Silvertones; one is an electric bouzouki (the Greek long neck lute type thing)...the Dead Kennedys used one, and the other is set up so that is buzzes like a sitar...what you said about sympathetic strings made me think of that. I have my 'brown' bass (a Global, $100 piece of shit) set up with the two guitar strings (a .16 and an .11, or something) where the E & A would normally be, and then two bass strings (in the D & G string positions). The skinny strings are set really low and slack, so I can push down on them behind the nut to get a rapid pitch bend. Basically the point was to have the guitar strings act as drones while I fret the bass strings. I normally play it with a pick. It has this kind of thick ugly sound to it, at least when the pick ups decide to cooperate.