The Last Bass Outpost

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#

I was in a music store today and the owner told me this, I'm passing it on without any warranties as regards truth content, but it might interest some of you:

- Gibson is broke. 200 million company value, 300 million debt.

- This has been mentioned here before: Peavey was interested in buying and is financially sound, but would not pay what Henry J. and probably the banks behind him demanded.

- Supposedly things turned bad when Henry J. had a messy divorce which ended with him having to give Epiphone to his ex-wife.

- Gibson has sold the name "Gibson" to a third party in an effort to generate cash already some years ago and now has to pay crippling license fees for anything it brings out under that name.

- Epi defaulted on the payment to Chinese producers last year and still hasn't paid.

Me? I'm waiting for that Custom Shop T-40 reissue!

John Gustafson is more known for his time with Episode 6, Quatermass and Hard Stuff, his singing on Jesus Christ Superstar, his Wal basses and the fact that he played the iconic bass line on Roxy Music's Love is the Drug (as well as is later work with the Ian Gillan Band, Gordon Giltrap,The Pirates and Rick Wakeman) than as a TBird player



but this 1964 TV show with the Mersey Beats also seems to make him an English TBird player prior to Glenn Cornick and Overend Watts. 1964 was real early for a band to be playing Fire- and T-Birds (they only came out in 63 in the US), especially for an English one (American products had severe import duties on them in England at the time).



I stumbled across this after having read from Martin Turner that he saw his first T-Bird not with Overend Watts (from which he got his first TBird, the one he still plays today), but with John Gustafson who was also a bass player role model for him.

You can see Gus sing a Twist and Shout rip off at 5.55.

More TBird action here, also from 1964:

I think this vid of Hot Tuna (with Jack playing a Gibson LP Sig, not his Epi) epitomizes what I mean when I say that the LP Sig has a fenderish overdrive in the upper frequency range that I just don't hear with the Epi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBks7V3SzJo&feature=rec-HM-r2

To me, most Epis sound like this here, not necessarily bad, but wholly different:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=der177k1kHM&feature=related

A more trebly sound still doesn't offer the same characteristic as the Gibson:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9K4LQ2Nh94&feature=related

Not even Jack gets his Epi to sound like that Gibson:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su9A2EMy4_w&feature=related

The Epi pups just don't have that upper range even though they might possibly deliver a more consistent signal in the lower range.

What a weird combo, what are inherently classic mahogany guitars put out with maple bodies and maple boards, but - wait for it - maho necks?  

"Both the Les Paul Studio Raw Power and SG Raw Power feature unbound solid maple bodies, with a traditional carved top on the former. This sturdy tonewood offers a clear, well-defined sonic response, as well as looking great with minimal cosmetic treatment. Their solid mahogany necks are topped with unbound maple fretboards, which are dressed with simple dot position markers, and graced with a traditional trapezoid marker at the 12th fret."

Never mind how Gibson isn't quite sure what wood they are really using on these:


"For the first time, the SG is available with a three-piece solid maple neck, topped with a maple fingerboard. With the world’s fastest-playing neck, the notes you play on the SG Raw Power are vividly clear, and chords are purely expressive. Play it and you immediately feel the difference between the SG Raw Power and any other SG. The maple makes each note literally jump off the fingerboard. The tone is snappier, the response quicker, and the clarity in unmatched."

 






While the natural models still have some appeal to me visually (kind of albino guitars!), once you get to the finned versions it looks plain weird and cheap in my eyes:






http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/ProductSpotlight/NewModels/the-new-raw-power-guitars-401/