The Last Bass Outpost

Kelly Holland -former lead singer of Cry Of Love- has three blogs on his MySpace profile with a whole bunch of great band names

Party Gras
The Four Nick Haters
Debutane
This Just In Timberlake
All Worked Up
The Squee Gees
The White Lies
Peking Inuendo
The Deal Sealers
The Big Shots
The Other Half Of The Dance
Two & Fro
Shitzen Giggles
The Dragon Drops
Gin & Catatonic
Bubonic Plaque
Vick Sin
Mommie's Salami
Disgusto
Pseudo Wrestlers
The Heck
Sue Veneer
Sin Or G
Doubting Thomas
Rock A Feller
Metopia
The Ramparts
Ray Gene Hardin
Incomplete Stranger
The Killing
Andrew Barrymore
The Deal
Way Cool Sr.
Sir Lee
Gunt
Fauxm
Away Sis
Heard Of Buffalo?
Caution To The Wind
Apple Python
Kangaroo Paul
The Crazy Onions
Kittie Porn
Oblivious Newtron Bomb
Beelzebubba
Bombs Away
The Dewey Decibal System
Death Row Tull
Auntie Social
Monkey Zuncle
Atta Boy
The Rapture
The Vidiots
Orangatango
The Spice Of Life
Itsy Bitsy Spider
ProzacX's for eyes
Cow manuver
Crust
Up & atom
The present
Being crosby
Wits end
Mr. tea
Ulterior votive
Yohimbe crazy
Before & after
Gently used
Manipyoulater
Septemberland
Conan the librarian
Sobbing in the lobby
Betty's confetti dispersal engineer
When we return
A mean ol' acid
Ipso facto
You are here
V-8
Far flung
The molly bolts
Punch
Agnes
Ben awhile
Wear & tear
Dick's hat band
Harry eyeball
The screamin' mimi's
The happy campers
Moron that later
Purple nurple
Pamela & her son
Edgar Allen's potential
Angry kazoo sex
Jerk of all trades
Orez
Milwalkie talkie
The lipstick pick-ups
The drums
Faux on the flow
Mastermind
The speeding bullets
Johnny cashmere
Smilin' bob
The chase
The tone knobs
Moose knuckle
The fansThe horrible heffalumps
A million miles an hour
The pounding
Greased thunder
The big one
David's bowie knife
The sparks
Trouble maker
Looney Ben
Gorey hellalooya
The happy pills
Electric chairs
Latina turner
Push play
Incense & peppermint
Patsy's decline
My rear instincts
Jack's white knuckles
Hip hugger
The hells
Oliver clothes off
Tori Amos scares the living shit out of me
Me so ornrey
The stun guns
The skinny
Private defectives
The thunder gods
Cremé de la scum
Loud & clear
Band substance
The knock-down drag-outs
Djörk
Galactic acid trip meter maid of honor thy father & mother f***er
Budda''s pest
Mobile holmes
Gooder
A bit much
The lewd brick haters
The cut
Magic Wanda
Torn assunder
Tightie whitie
Idaho not you
Rut row
The ta da's
The big to-do
Mr. wonderful
Cooligan
Devil may not care
Above & beyond
The right brothers
James bondage
Wild life
Thath wald
Playtapuss
Kiss on the hoo-ha
Notes of musk
Chords of vanilla
Rock em sock em robots
The nicest assholes you'll ever meet
The pulse
Pretty ugly
The thunder thieves
Play-doh

From what he told me, there were some guitar models that didn't get a name tag until the final stages of production.  You didn't know ahead of time whether a guitar was going to end up a Gibson or Epiphone. 

I can't imagine that story you heard was about the electric guitars an basses.
When you start building an electric  guitar or bass, one of the first things you do is define the shape it's going to be. So Gibson/Epiphone would have to choose which templates for the body and headstock they were going to use right at the beginning.
Most Epiphones had totally different body shapes and headstock shapes than their Gibson brethren.

I guess it could be possible the body shape of some of their semi-acoustics could end up on either a Gibson or an Epiphone. But the moment the neck had to be glued in, they knew exactly if it would be a Gibson or an Epi.
There's no way they shaped the headstock after the entire instrument was completed.

I had no idea Charvel was into building this kinda of basses.
I think it's pretty cool!

Charvel Surfcaster on Ebay

Looks like he did it once or twice before.
Except not for the money part I bet.

The Punisher comparison is flawed. Gene plays that bass all the time and saw to it that his (probably Fernandes-built) series was the same he played. He never claimed though that the Punishers sold by him had been pre-played or stage-used by him. And they didn't cost a king's ransom either.

Wrong.
http://www.gsaxe.com/

The Axe and Punisher bass you could buy in stores for about 500 dollar was being sold for 5000 (!)dollar. Fans get (got?) a chance to meet Gene after a show and buy the bass he took off stage. Sweat and fake blood included.

They should've said we fired him because his solos were awful crap!

But the whole story about him selling a guitar (he never really used) to a fan for more than what it cost in a store...
Isn't that exactly what Gene does with his signature basses? 


And about him never signing the contract; maybe that was a wise decision. Or else he would have been in Gene's stranglehold for life 

Looks like someone installed an impedance transformer.

Nice looking Les Paul Bass.

I've never found the weight a problem. It balances very well.