The Last Bass Outpost
Gear Discussion Forums => Gibson Basses => Topic started by: Blackbird on December 22, 2014, 08:19:41 AM
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Ah yes...FINALLY!
(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o108/thunderbird33/AA4G5037-1000_zpse2f65c11.jpg) (http://s118.photobucket.com/user/thunderbird33/media/AA4G5037-1000_zpse2f65c11.jpg.html)
(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o108/thunderbird33/AA4G5034_zps882bc380.jpg) (http://s118.photobucket.com/user/thunderbird33/media/AA4G5034_zps882bc380.jpg.html)
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Lookin' Good! Congratulations.
I think you, Uwe and I are the only owners of them here - I like mine quite a lot :)
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Pretty! Nice finish color on that one!
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That was always a purdy bass and it hasn't lost it.
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Looks great!! Congrats!!
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wow thats beautiful
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OK I gotta ask, 'cause you guys would know, what IS that thing behind the bridge? What is it for?
And it is a pretty bass, is it made of maple, or is that a veneer on the top?
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OK I gotta ask, 'cause you guys would know, what IS that thing behind the bridge? What is it for?
And it is a pretty bass, is it made of maple, or is that a veneer on the top?
You're gonna think I'm making this up.........
It's an Opti-Grab, (it's named for the device Steve Martin invents in his movie "The Jerk") designed by Nikki to hook his pinkie finger into as he prefers to play with a pick very near the bridge. Like this.
(http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd306/veronicasteed/nikkisixx1_17298317.jpg)
As T Birds go I really like mine, of course I prefer something a little more gaudy so all it's bits have been chrome plated - Likely the only chrome Opti Grab in existence.
(http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd306/veronicasteed/1299181148.jpg)
(http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd306/veronicasteed/NikkiII004.jpg)
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That thing is the "opti-grab". Nikki hooks his pinkie finger through it when he plays to anchor his hand. The body wings are solid maple, the neck is essentially stock thunderbird IV. I always thought it would have been interesting if they had made a full maple neck version with a gloss finish. Really an attractive bass, but not that big a fan of the inlays.
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Oops..he beat me to it ;D
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NICE looking bass!!
...but that picture of Nikki using his Opti-Grab sure looks like a tendinitis inducing assessory IMO.
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NICE looking bass!!
...but that picture of Nikki using his Opti-Grab sure looks like a tendinitis inducing assessory IMO.
Maybe, but at least it won't do what the original Opti-Grab wound up doing. :mrgreen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaz2hxZLycY
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The position of that opti-grab is useless for me. If it was up at the E string, it would be GREAT for me. I tend to anchor my pinky finger around the G string when I play.
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I always thought it was kind of strange too, in the pic it almost looks painful.......
Then I saw how my pinkie lays in pretty much every shot of me playing live......
Not all that different.
(http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd306/veronicasteed/7CedarsLaborDay201311of93_zps2bd8bcbe.jpg)
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I always thought it was kind of strange too, in the pic it almost looks painful.......
Then I saw how my pinkie lays in pretty much every shot of me playing live......
Not all that different.
(http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd306/veronicasteed/7CedarsLaborDay201311of93_zps2bd8bcbe.jpg)
Upskirt shot! WooHoo!
I just reviewed my own picking position - er, my right hand position, er, where I put my pinky - oh hell, there's no way to make it sound right. The edge of my hand lays across all four strings, and anything that's not holding the pick is anchored to or around the bridge pickup (on a two-pickup bass). I lift up when I want the notes to ring.
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I just anchor my thumb on the side of the pickup. This allows me to use both pickup and bridge covers. I likes my chromy covers!
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Apparently his technique involved the Pinkie-Anchor long before he had the opti-grab. It always looked horribly uncomfortable to me.
(http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/n614/tlkroon/nigel_nikki_zpsc2334f9f.jpg) (http://s1142.photobucket.com/user/tlkroon/media/nigel_nikki_zpsc2334f9f.jpg.html)
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Whatever works. I can't imagine him using it if it were painful.
I never play that close to the bridge anyway.
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I can never understand playing that close to the bridge and wanting a BIG sound... the two are at odds with each other...
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I have to say I wouldn't mind owning one of those! It's a beauty, in spite of the signature! :P
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Whatever works. I can't imagine him using it if it were painful.
I never play that close to the bridge anyway.
Me neither. I can understand why people might want to for the piano rrring of it - I wouldn't need it for the anchor effect, I never anchor my hand -, but I find the tautness/stiffness of the strings there weird playingwise. And on a TBird, and then slung as low as Nikki has it, that is a really uncomfortable position to me too. But maybe it's a habit he picked up early on and stuck with it.
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Ah, a "pinkie rest". Would never have guessed that. THanks, guys!
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Apparently his technique involved the Pinkie-Anchor long before he had the opti-grab. It always looked horribly uncomfortable to me.
(http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/n614/tlkroon/nigel_nikki_zpsc2334f9f.jpg) (http://s1142.photobucket.com/user/tlkroon/media/nigel_nikki_zpsc2334f9f.jpg.html)
Is that the guy from Mott with him?
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Ah, a "pinkie rest". Would never have guessed that. THanks, guys!
Yup, assorted pinkies put to rest.
(http://a.abcnews.com/images/International/ht_yakuza_fingers_dm_130606_wmain.jpg)
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Is that the guy from Mott with him?
Yes. Nigel Benjamin was the singer in London when Nikki was in the band. Once Motley started their rise and were a big draw on the Strip, Lizzie (London's songwriter and guitarist) got a new bassist (pretty much a Nikki clone named Bobbie Blitz; even had a nice, white Thunderbird as well) and they tried one more time, but Nigel's style and personality clashed so much with the rest of the band that they never really went anywhere in that incarnation. Nigel thought his time in Mott made him a big cheese but nobody in Hollywood cared at that point (at least not we youngins).
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb9af0iN5dg
Here's the same band around the same time, but with a name change and a girl on vocals (who went on to front an all girl band called Precious Metal and other projects). I think this is after Motley started but before Lizzie tried again with Nigel, but I could have my timing wrong. It's only been 33 years. :mrgreen:
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Just another one of the 1,431 musicians in LA that at one point were a member of London ;D
In other news the next round of Motley Crue's farewell tour has been announced and Nikki became my hero for this interview...
http://wgntv.com/2015/01/21/motley-crues-nikki-six-has-a-special-message-for-justin-bieber/
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...
In other news the next round of Motley Crue's farewell tour has been announced and Nikki became my hero for this interview...
http://wgntv.com/2015/01/21/motley-crues-nikki-six-has-a-special-message-for-justin-bieber/
That was good! :mrgreen: Even better would be to invite him on stage then whack him with the 'Bird.
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Just another one of the 1,431 musicians in LA that at one point were a member of London ;D
So true!
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Come on guys, more of a cheap shot in my book. If Justin Bieber came to one of their concerts, liked it and asked to encore with them, I would hope for a grown up, collegial response. They are essentially in the same business. And they'd probably be flattered too.
I would have expected Nikki - whose music with Sixx AM sounds closer to Bieber's than to Mötley's in places btw - to have more style.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF29FwxuxEc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwXs7wM3-0E
Flipping the bird at a teen idol who could be his son, wow, what a culture-defiant, fearless and risque act ... :-X
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A marginally talented singer with bad tattoos and a huge ego who's only real talent is he's pretty and sells records...Yep, Bieber could probably replace Vince ;D
And what could be more "Metal" than a duet with the Biebs? I'm a Belieber!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNT22H2Odaw
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Come on guys, more of a cheap shot in my book. If Justin Bieber came to one of their concerts, liked it and asked to encore with them, I would hope for a grown up, collegial response. They are essentially in the same business. And they'd probably be flattered too.
I would have expected Nikki - whose music with Sixx AM sounds closer to Bieber's than to Mötley's in places btw - to have more style.
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Flipping the bird at a teen idol who could be his son, wow, what a culture-defiant, fearless and risque act ... :-X
Never been a Motley Crue fan but I'm with Nikki.
They're both in the entertainment business, all right -- Nikki Sixx as a musician, Bieber as a celebrity who makes young teenage girls wet their pants.
I was watching network news one night a few months ago when they aired part of a police interview with Bieber over one of his vandalsim incidents. His attitude made me wish someone would smack him between the eyes with a 2 by 4.
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What makes his vandalism worse than what The Who, The Doors or Led Zeppelin did (were reputed to have done). And since when is making little girls wet unmusicianly? That was a huge component in Elvis' and The Beatles' early success. The pot calling the kettle black: I don't believe that Nikki Sixx - of all people - was making a statement against youth vandalism when he flipped the bird.
I know next to nothing about Bieber, he might be a real asshole as a person, but the pantheon of rock and pop music is full of people who have behaved that way.
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For some odd reason the mentioning of flipping the bird reminded me of an unusual name I came across that amused my ex neighbour, who was Swiss-German... Spilfogel, whom he realised was an Anglisation of Spiel Vogel (spelling from memory) ...
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What makes his vandalism worse than what The Who, The Doors or Led Zeppelin did (were reputed to have done). And since when is making little girls wet unmusicianly? That was a huge component in Elvis' and The Beatles' early success. The pot calling the kettle black: I don't believe that Nikki Sixx - of all people - was making a statement against youth vandalism when he flipped the bird.
I know next to nothing about Bieber, he might be a real asshole as a person, but the pantheon of rock and pop music is full of people who have behaved that way.
Please don't use "rock" and "Bieber" in the same sentence. You may cause a breach in the time-space continuum.
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My daughter would quite enjoy the idea of Bieber being pelted with rocks...
Would that be acceptable...? :mrgreen:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4unBO2VSGvs
(her fave video for some time) ;)
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Uwe, sometimes, it is just necessary to call a spade a spade and no matter how much Motley built their fanbase in decades past on the same dumb panty-wetting tweenagers, who they are today is an entirely different monster, no matter how Nikki spends his other time. Like Metallica did by giving Motley and the LA scene the finger in 1984, Nikki is perfectly justified in throwing it at the marginally talented and seriously overrated upstart Bieber now, especially since the young-un has been VERY publicly spending his time trying to be an 80's rockstar in lifestyle. Let the little bastard start mainlining Jack Daniels and eightballs instead of hitting and then crying on strippers or passing out on weed and maybe he earns the right to pretend he's anything more than a bad marketing phenom. That little shit couldn't keep up with Lemmy, even in his current "healthful state" for a week: "Baby, baby, baby, ohh, I'm a whiny little spoiled twat"
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I'm not gonna start a Bieber fan club here! I always thought he had bad hair.
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well, in the spirit of the Nikki 541....here's a rough clip of her from Friday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN90mHvv7As (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN90mHvv7As)
harmony needs work...but the bass was bang on :)
Not my amp tho...some old GK with a 4x10 Traynor cab.....had a woofy thing going on...
Best to use computer speakers
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Looks good on you!