The spinning bass arrived in Italy with a first aid kit tucked inside the case. That detail alone tells you almost everything about what Davie504 was walking into. When a musical instrument ships with emergency medical supplies as standard equipment, the line between performance and personal injury has already blurred in a way that would make most musicians quietly decline the invitation. But declining was never really an option, not after three years of the internet drawing its own conclusions about why he had gone so quiet.
The instrument that started a three-year argument
In 2023, YouTube engineer Matias Krant built something that looked, as Davie504 put it, ‘less like a musical instrument and more like an instrument of torture.’ The creation was a 360-degree spinning 18-string bass guitar, technically three instruments fused into a single rotating neck: a standard bass, a fretless bass, and a guitar, all sharing the same cylindrical body and controlled by a foot pedal that could dial the spin up to speeds Davie504 refused to demonstrate on camera, citing a preference that the recording not become ‘evidence in a manslaughter trial.’
Matias had one specific person in mind when he finished building it. He made his intentions public, left comments under Davie504’s videos, and waited. The response was silence. Davie504 was traveling through Asia at the time and genuinely missed the outreach, but the internet, operating on its own timeline, reached a simpler verdict: he was scared. With no reply forthcoming, Matias eventually handed the instrument to Charles Bertu, widely regarded as one of the finest bass players working today, and then to Rob Skellen. Both played it. The footage circulated. The challenge hung in the air unclaimed.
Flying across the planet to settle a debt
A few months ago, Davie504 came across the spinning bass again online and realized the instrument still existed. He contacted Matias directly and asked whether it could be shipped to his home in Italy. Matias said yes. The problem was that Davie504 was currently in Asia. Answering a YouTube challenge from 2023 now required a transoceanic flight, which he completed without much ceremony and described as an occasion for ‘questioning several of my life choices along the way.’
The instrument arrived, the 700 connections were made to get it operational, and the pedal that controlled the spin was engaged for the first time. The neck rotated. The strings blurred. The risk became visible in real time.
He played it anyway, and not without preparation. ‘To everyone who said I couldn’t play it,’ he said afterward, ‘you were absolutely right. Which is why I practiced before recording this video. Modern problems require modern solutions. Checkmate.’ The bass, it turned out, was signed by both Charles Bertu and Rob Skellen, the two players who had filled the gap during the three years he was absent from the challenge.
The moment the case clicked open
The first aid kit sitting inside the shipping case.
The full-circle wrap belongs exactly here. A spinning 18-string bass guitar arrived in Italy after crossing the same distance Davie504 had just flown in reverse, and the first object out of the case was not a tuner, not a cable, not a spare string. It was a medical kit. He noticed it before he touched a single fret, filed it away as ‘slightly concerning,’ and played the instrument anyway, three years late and, by his own admission, exactly on time.
