Speaking of GC, I had some time to kill in the local Guitar Satan where I worked over a decade ago, and they had not one, but two actual new Gibson basses, a 2015 T-Bird and an EB-0. I think that EB- 0 has been there five years, maybe longer and I doubt it will ever sell, even at the $1499 price because there's also a vintage slothead EB-4L for $1199 that I played when it belonged to another music store that scratches that itch MUCH better. The '15 Thunderbird? Henry ought to be ashamed to put out such a POS with the Gibson name on it!
The EB pickups are awesome, giving a great woody tone that gives the passive T-Bird tone a different dimension and much more like the Nordstrands equipping the adjacent high end Ibanez basses (I love those, but they feel like toys in my hands) than the MM soapbars they resemble, and the bridge were great, but the bass itself, it was terrible. The body wings were visibly differing thicknesses and the finish was flaking off the neck/wing joint on both sides of both parts as well as the outer wing edges, exposing the wood. The oversized headstock with the ultra-skinny body made for terrible neckdive even by Thunderbird standards, and the tuners were crooked. I guess the one positive for others, but not me, would be that holding the neck up all night wouldn't be a problem because whatever kind of "mahogany" the bass was made of, its overall weight was way south of ten lbs, and felt even lighter than the toy-like Ibanez instruments. T-Bird are normally heavy because of their size, but this one felt like it was in the 6-7 lb range, no joke.
For that bass, Gibson's price of $2349 is ludicrous. After tax, Henry expects to have someone pay over $2500 for a bass that looks like the Korean off brand reject junk of the late 80's. Even the shittiest low end $200 import had better fit and finish. Maybe Henry is trying to make some kind of point about lazy labor producing sub-par instruments because that bass was clearly not built for a player with any kind of attention to detail or appreciation for sealed wood. (The older EB-0 had none of those issues; it just sounds like a modern EB-0, blah.) Gibson can't blame it on climate or handling either. Nashville and Knoxville have essentially the same climate and I remember from my time working at that store that all Gibsons are drop-shipped from the factory, and any blow heavy enough to damage the finish to the degree this one has would have taken a corresponding chunk of wood with it, which was not the case. It still played great, but for that price, hell no would I buy one. Especially not when the Epiphone version is much cheaper and has the traditional T-Bird tone, something this one couldn't do.
Seriously, even though the EB pickups are great, a Thunderbird still ought to sound like a Thunderbird at least some. I know Uwe finds the new combination a refreshing update. but he also has an entire stable of T-Birds that SOUND like T-Birds. My suggestion would be to have a TB+ in the neck with the EB working its midrange magic in the bridge position, which I know is aesthetically mismatched, but I think a bridge EB could have a black plastic cover, or heaven forbid, chrome on both. If someone gave me that bass, I would hesitate just because I know a substantial investment is required just to make the instrument able to age without shedding its finish even worse and crooked tuners, while functional, are completely inexcusable on a modern instrument. Re-drilling mounting holes on a new bass is ridiculous.
The test amp was a vintage GK 800RB into a vintage EV-loaded Mesa 2x15, far and away the best amp in the place. I played several basses today, and my favorite was a black Epi Jack Casady, followed by a 5-string Peavey G-Bass that thought it was a Ken Smith. I would love to have the money to bring those home. I also tried a vintage Baldwin hollowbody with an Ampeg scroll-esque headstock. It was junk. There was also a 70's Guild JS II that was fun, but I don't care for medium scale. The pickups didn't impress me either. I was REALLY hoping to try one of the new fan-fret Ibanez basses since I'll probably never see a Dingwall in the wild. I played, but didn't plug in a new Fender Jazz V Deluxe; it had a wide, but comfortable neck.
I also appeared to be the only person in the bass room who could actually play and/or was not high on meth. No, I'm not kidding. There was some bald tweaker beating the shit out of every bass he held "slapping" it (thankfully he favored Schecters and Squiers tough/cheap enough to endure it) and his homeless-tramp looking buddy drinking vodka out of a Mountain Dew can kept commenting about how he wanted to have sex with a poor Epi Beatle bass. I know I was tired and irritable over heaving to come into work during the day for a benefits seminar that I can't afford even if wanted to, the only reason I was on that end of town during daylight, but those guys would have been kicked out, probably by me personally when I worked there. There was also some guy who didn't work there who kept coming in the room and then leaving every time I swapped instruments to watch me play but wouldn't talk to me; WTF? That store is just a corporate cesspool of suck now. Henry ought to visit. I think he'd like it.
