No Nikki - no reintroduction of the TBird in 1987, simple as that. We should be grateful. And I do believe that the guy - whether you like Mötley or not, but Sixx AM sure shows his songwriting potential more - knows the dif between a well-sounding and a not so well-sounding bass within a few seconds after having laid his tatooed hands on it. After this many years in the business, you just know something like that.
When I saw him last with MC, his bass sound was excellent, mean and mighty. Not at all like the mix of a tech who works for a bass player that doesn't care about his sound, quite the contrary.
For the record: I think Vince Neil is a dumbass and MC overrated. But Herr Sixx is underrated and deserves better as regards recognition.
As regards Gibson's lack of consistency - was it ever different even in the past? I believe there to be a lot of love-blind nostalgia, plus we are much more educated and critical about our instruments today than, say, thirty or forty years ago. As the former guitarits of Deep Purple once said: "They built good and bad guitars back then just as they do today." And while a bad fret-job, orange peel, a truss rod cavity that doesn't allow real access (just saw that on a new Midnight bass
) are all inexcusable (for the price), I haven't had a new Gibson bass in ten years that sounded "bad" in the sense that this specimen sounded no good while another specimen would have sounded much better. Basses are made of wood, no two will sound the same, but lack of pure sound is not Gibson's issue (unless you don't like the sound of maho set neck basses). Everything else pretty much is.
