Well people out there in the LBO, here goes...
This is a story of an instrument that I have mistreated over the years and is only an
honourary T'bird, though I will await reaction to this point and will happily shift or delete this post if there is a strong negative reaction, which is possible, once you see her...
First off, I'm new to this sort of thing, although I hit the big
five-ohh later this year...
The names Ken (
oh really...? I thought that was just a pseudonym, like "Klinikly Eb-Norml Sukka" or sum sutch fing) I live to the south-west of London, though I would prefer to be living on the West-Coast of Scotland, but that's off topic... These days I'm married with a lovely
super-smart teenage daughter (not
proud-dad-syndrome, just the truth) and all the usual bills to pay, do the
day-job thing and
strive towards the first book publication (Military History, re Chindits and Burma WW2 - family links; and also Sci-Fi styled after Robert Scheckley meets Douglas Adams
with a twist of Mr PKD and...
slightly left-(star)field), so keeping the day-job will be a requirement, anyway (
unless I can do a Iain (M) Banks, if you-know-what-I-mean)...
... and... I've recently come out of
retirement after the guitarist from a band I'd played in 21 years ago, err, last one I played with, actually... err, truth be known, kinda-ish... give or take a month or so-ish, calls up out of the blue with a late
mid-life crisis, and now 4 rehearsals down the line and 2 more to go until our reunion gig (
a genuine Surrey Village Hall thing - no one of note... no head-lines here...) for the drummers 50th, here I am...
Now, everything has had to be done on a budget (ie.
skint, and if that means
bugger all to you people
over the pond read
gawd-damned broked down an' busted here) and my instruments were mostly mothballed (read
rotting in the loft/attic here) so a bit of rush work was required...
I have been a bass player (electric since mid '75) since standing on a stool at school in 1969 to get up to the neck of an upright - now I am aware of some reticence out there to fretless players, but I do play both, dubiously... Now to qualify my insert here, I
am a Gibson owner - and have been for over 30 years now- a 1978 RD Artist, de-mooged and fretless and modified and quickly put back together, owned from new (£750 including HP -
OHH YOU SEE AITCH spells OUCH...! when bought in '79 - work that out by todays prices when you earn less than £40 p/w +ot and I payed her off in 9 months!) I'll possibly post about that if this generates interest as it has had some mods, to say the least... and (off topic?) a '73 SG Special with a pair of mini hums and a Bigsby (2 settings - off or
KILL...
) - I know it has six strings, but I've heard this
vicious rumour that bass guitars come in more than four-string flavours and are not Hagstrom's these days, kinda out-of-the-loop here...
Now back to the subject matter... I had a post on the Vintage Amps BB site (I am lucky to be the owner of a non standard 1970 DR103 called a "SWITCH" and wanted to know more, so it was a nice surprise to discover she was something out of the ordinary) from Chris P (CC of the NBPC - he knows who he is...) enquiring about a reference to my T'bird, and invited me over, so here I am, and
here lies the BEAST...
The case hides the contents... err, don't ask about the cab, or why she "sloshed" when taken out of "mothballs"... ohh, and ignore the bird feeders, and the several tons/tonnes of sunflower husks, as that's off topic...Now then, now then, first off, Mr Peter Cook is still very much in the business (has a shop on the outskirts of London) but I do not think he does much construction work on a major scale, though I may be wrong, and I believe he was a bass tech for Mr Entwistle including some bass lutherianism - go look up the cover of The Who By Numbers and then do your research -
the instrument was real - he made a number of Precision hybrids with Gibson hardware for him, amongst other stuff, and one of his works for Mr Entwistle was auctioned off for in-excess of $30,000 a few years back - If you want to know I can provide the links... he used to be the set-up specialist for all UK Gibsons during the '80's, which is another (
very tenative) link... - mine will not reach those lofty heights,
and is unlikely to ever be offered up...
I bought her 3rd hand in '78 and I believe that she was born in '72 - originally she had all gold-plated hardware and a beautiful cherry red finish which this picture does not do justice... Gibson bridge and tail, Schallers and 2 Peter Cook Custom pickups that mirrored T'birds...
Here she is, mostly in original condition, (seen with the RDA) and a very nasty DiMarzio Mud replacement...The
damage laid a toll to her bodywork and hardware... get used to that, I am a trifle clumsy...
First, I managed to kill the neck pup and thought a
nice DiMarzio EB replacement pup would be just the thing,
which turned the instrument into a microphone, but controlably so; tried a Badass bridge (only removed during recent rebuild), broke a Schaller (
when it passed gracefully through one of my 1969 Celestion Rola 30w's in my Marshall 412, which to this day has remained a 312, but that is another story), which I rebuilt with standard chromes utilising the
goldwings, then I killed the bridge pup and fitted an EMG Select (same as the pup's in my Hohner Jack; not a Gibson, nice player, a
very nice player,
especially at the price), which was
far too trebly, in the bridge slot and junked the DiMarzio - Now, whilst between bands in '84 I decided to re-spray her and give her back to some form of respect, very minimalistic - one pup and one volume control...
Looked kinda cool in the case...
did I forget to mention the (mock) fur lined case...?
... PUBLIC INDECENCY ANOUNCEMENT ...
Any of you of a nervous disposition, please go no further...
You have been warned......
... then the jack socket played up and I converted to DI type, whatever they're called, things, but not wired in a standard fashion, so I can't buy standard leads (
why not make life hard for myself...?) and then when February 2009 rolled round I needed to give her an urgent overhaul - Out came the EMG and in went the bridge pup from the RD, which had been broken in an accident (that
word again...) that broke the pick-guard and the supports, so I had to rout-out the body to make a
friction-fit for the pup, and finally restored her old T'bird hardware, and here she is, as of last Friday...
I warned you... don't blame me if you've just blurted your coffee/tea/beer/schnapps/bourbon/19 year old supadedoopa rare malt all over your keyboard and screen...
..and from another angle... is there a posting for the most offensive instrument on this site...?
a close-up of her hybrid Schallers with her new T'bird symbol... err, a pair of pewter ducks, actually, truth be known...
the view from the back... - the red/white sticker is off a transit case for a Boeing 747-100/200 autopilot system - "Ah luv the smell of Aviation Kerosin in the mornin'..." sorry, did I wander off there...?
basking in the garden on a glorious London slightly grey day...
T'bird and Firebird body profiles looks good from this angle, regardless of their origins... I may upset a few people but I just don't get NR bodies, they just look wrong... just a personal opinion, but if someone out there wants to put me right and let me have one to try, for maybe a decade or two, mid sixties wiould be nice...Now for playability... I was told that the neck profile is much like a pre CBS precision,
now I know that may be a dirty word here, but... and
chords quite beautifully (
did he say "chords...?" fretless, and chords, on the same post...?
utter heathen...) which I can-not use to full extent in the present line-up - used to play a lot of quite loud stuff and liked to fill-in as I mostly played in 3 piece or 3+vocals, I
distinctly remember being
thrashed by Lemmy at the Cambridge Corn Exchange in '78, I also vaguely remember someone describing one outfit as "
jazz-metal" once... err, did I wander off there...? Ohh, and she does not suffer
T'bird Droop as significantly as the
Real-Thing, but I would be hard pressed to want to trade, no matter how good or rare...
Gibson instruments...? I was an Alice Cooper fan (bought Schools-Out from new) and a big Dennis Dunaway fan, and although he ended up playing Jazz bass I was hooked by his EB3L on "LITD", and loved the
Gibson BIG FAT VISCERAL Sound that
Jack Bruce and
Felix Pappalardi had. My first electric bass was a nasty thing called a
Grenn (bolt on neck with an
EB2 style body and a floating bridge, which did not last long (broke it... oops - RIP Grenn - I only have the name plate and one pic for a memory - great for "
Guitar-On-Amp"), the day I bought her there was this
all gold and cherry red in the setting sunlight moment, but as the
Peter Cook T'bird was £200 she was beyond my available readies... a year later I was in the market for a new instrument and the same shop (in Hounslow, near Heathrow, London, long gone... the owner used to play in a Who tribute band, may still do, but would be as old as the originals now... a great guy, most helpful when I started out...) had a white EB2 for sale for £250... I enquired, but as my limit was £200... I went home to grovel to my dad for the extra £50 but when I went back a chap by the name of Bruce Foxton (played for some beat combo or other) had nipped in and bought it, and was on Top-Of-The-Pops with it about a week later... oh well, I would have probably wrecked it anyway... but in the mean-time, the
Peter Cook Custom had come back in at £180 -
ES-OHH-ELL-DEE - 3rd hand and with a
wait till they getta load of this case...
T'birds...? well, the RDA was a 2nd/3rd choice at the time as I could not find a new T'bird or EB3 (couldn't buy 2nd hand on the "
never-never" in those days), but when I played her... well, that's another story...
For some strange reason, Mr Dekker thought this may create an interesting story, hence my posting, and that is probably more than enough posting for a newbie...
For now I will sign off and see what happens... you will either go for this or not, so see if I care...
Regards from a darkened Reevesland Upon Thames in the UKps nearly forgot - a three piece thru neck with an ebony board, MOP inlays and Gibson fat frets...
just in case you wanted to know...?
pps
Thrashed by Lemmy...!?
at pinball...!
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...) - as for finishes, sometimes it's great to play a relic just because it is a relic, regardless of the condition - anyone can have a perfect looking instrument - my only concerns re instruments are a) does she play well and b) does she sound good - I fully understand esthetics, but...