The Last Bass Outpost

I first saw The Scorpions in 1977 with Uli Roth in a small school gym hall  - that was a time when they were better known in France and Belgium than in Germany, they were touring Virgin Killer. Then again with Michael Schenker (a short stint before he went AWOL again) on the Love Drive tour in the early eighties. And now again tonight on their (sold out) farewell tour. Full closure so to say.

Why am I writing this here? Because I finally found a pic from that 77 tour through small clubs and halls were Francis Buchholz is playing what I remembered all these years, but could never find a confirmation of:






Memory had tricked me into believing it was a Grabber, but, hey, I was close!

www.gibsonbassstore.com

We should extend an invitation.

Welcome - albeit some 120 years late! - to the Communist club!!! 

 
"Germany has Europe's oldest universal health care system, with origins dating back to Otto von Bismarck's*** Social legislation, which included the Health Insurance Bill of 1883, Accident Insurance Bill of 1884, and Old Age and Disability Insurance Bill of 1889. As mandatory health insurance, these bills originally applied only to low-income workers and certain government employees; their coverage, and that of subsequent legislation gradually expanded to cover virtually the entire population."


*** A commie if there ever was one, just look at his pic:



Not to be mistaken with this guy though:

Ze Ripper II (I really do need to clean up my office more, Mark would you be my rubber chamber maid?   ):


Pups look just like in the days of yore:


Another reassuringly familiar sight, ze völüte:



Huh, unfamiliar? Natural maple body, yet no maple board?! But Comrade Ernesto's benevolent gaze says all is well ...


It will join ze herd, row of honor of the fat-bottomed girls:


In twos, meine Herren, Grabber Blue and Grabber II (it rhymes!):


Grabber Fretless (most likely aftermarket mod, the fin certainly isn't a Gibson one, sounds like a million bucks though) and old style, big body Ripper (rescued from verdisgris after a prolonged cellar stay with the pre-owner):


Eighties Ripper and mid-seventies fretless Ripper with alder body (the more observant of you will notice that the fretboard was extended to double octave length and the cutaway henceforth deepened, all done so tastefully I never even noticed until I had bought the thing!):


Two G-3s, seventies and eighties ultimate run version with ebony board:


Ze Gödfäther of all Rippers, a prototype, plus two Epi Ltd Ed GRipp3rs in the back, left is prototype with sleeker bevelling, right is series model, the end result looks rather like the very first Rippers, perhaps intentionally so, perhaps because less bevelling is less cost:

I had no idea:

"How long have you been playing Gibsons?


My first electric instrument was an EB-3 bass guitar, which is now called an SG bass. I’m a huge Cream fan, and Jack Bruce was a hero of mine, and he played a cherry ’60’s EB-3; one of the pickups is a humbucker, which provides a unique sound for a bassist. I started out on a used one in the late ’60s, eventually sold it, and years later found another. I own a ’67 EB-3 that’s been on KISS records and other records. I love playing bass, and I played bass on quite a few KISS tracks besides playing on my own stuff."


http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/bruce-kulick-0303/

My fretted 2007 "Guitar of the Week" Les Paul Money Natural Satin Flametop always had a fretless lurking in it. Some fretted "sleepers" do. Being the klutz I am   or because of some inner voice commanding me to do it, I conveniently gouged out the trussrod nut when I tried to remove it to enlarge the needlessly tight cavity. That is when I learned the hard way   that 1. Money basses feature a biflex trussrod that goes both ways (utter nonsense if you ask me, as if a long scale mahogany neck bass without any strengthening hard woods - like on the early WALs - could ever be too straight under the pull of bass strings) and 2. the nut of a biflex trussrod is welded on to the thread and cannot be removed. But you can sure mess the allen cavity up nicely while trying, jawohl mein Herr!!! Money bass owners read this carefully and don't do as I did!!!

I'm getting carried away, am I? Where were we? Ah, yes, now I actually had a good reason to bring the bass to my luthier with the gouged out nut.   His helpful and inquisitive "Didn't you know that biflex nuts are welded on?"   aside, he was good enough to not only put in a regular one-way truss rod, but also cover it up with a toothless piece of his sacred stock of Brazilian (Rio) rosewood which he secretively hoards. And here are the results (and yes, it does sound great, all blurry but with tonal focus and a double ocatve neck to do silly things with):









Exotic woods: A view of maple top, in between walnut "tone plate", maho back and Bazilian rosewood board.



Another great plus is the peace of mind this modification has given me. Given the fact that the blue Money bass (pictured on the left in the first pic above) also features an albeit invisible walnut tone plate, the fin was deplorably the only material difference to the natural satin one, which of course was in direct and grating conflict with my "I do not collect for fins"-mantra. A fretless Monkey is something entirely different though, I am absolved!!!  

Looking at it now it seems to be one of the few cases where gold hardware would actually make sense and look better with the woods. Gold is just a more organic and warmer tone to chrome.

http://www.epiphone.com/default.asp?ProductID=326&CollectionID=12



 

Dave will say: "Better than Dusk Tiger."


We had a thread on the Triumph II before, in case you want to refresh your memory:

http://bassoutpost.com/index.php?topic=2757.0

Nothing new or exciting about this, but it's well-done and tasteful, they are genuinely enjoying themselves too. And Trower's hendrixy (I know he's tired of hearing that) guitar complements Bruce's work perhaps even better than Clapton's style of today does (I know it's popular to knock Clapton for everything post-Cream or at least post-Layla here, but I'm not among those, he could have made bucketloads of money heading a power trio in the seventies, but chose the bluesy songwriter route which was not that commercial at the time).

Bruce sings his quirky, hardly commercial vocal melodies extremely well on this.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgidBkqP4SM&feature=player_embedded#