Non-Rev in my neck of the woods

[Dave W]

Looks promising.

[birdie]

i like it!!

[Barklessdog]

Great price. Funny looking purple??

[godofthunder]

 Yeah it's a black /purple

[Freuds_Cat]

I have no idea if this is current but here is another. Bit far away from you Scot and insanely expensive at Aus$8,000 but interesting to look at nonetheless.

http://www.vintageandrare.com/product/Gibson-Thunderbird-5-1965-Sunburst-4773#



1965 Gibson "Thunderbird 5" Ex. Sammi Yaffa (Hanoi Rocks), Bjärne Fräberg(The Nomads) Super cool bass, No breaks!!!! W/Flightcase...
65.000sek / €5.820,-

[godofthunder]

 Thanks for posting that thankfully it is a IV I am in the market for a II.

[Dave W]

I have no idea if this is current but here is another. Bit far away from you Scot and insanely expensive at Aus$8,000 but interesting to look at nonetheless.

http://www.vintageandrare.com/product/Gibson-Thunderbird-5-1965-Sunburst-4773#

...

Am I missing something? Why is this a "Thunderbird 5"?

Looks beat-to-shit. Why the ridiculous price? Nice that there are no breaks, but that doesn't justify the price. Is Sammi Yaffa a celebrity? He has never been well known even to other bassists and Hanoi Rocks never had commercial success.

[uwe]

Dave: Saying the Hanoi Rocks "had no commercial success" beckons the question whether you know a Finnish band with more success. Abba and Roxette were Swedish and Aha Norwegian. It's a bit like saying  that The Velvet Underground were less important to rock music than the Beach Boys because they had less success. People who want to own a bass by Sam Yaffa don't care about his record sales, they want to own a piece of history. Which with Yaffa also includes the New York Dolls (last two studio albums) and his own brave project Mad Juana which defies the description stadium rock. Yaffa is the guy playing the acoustic guitars in those vids.






To people who like music in that netherworld of punk, rock'n'roll and glam, the Hanoi Rocks were nothing short of iconic and a blueprint to a lot of later bands (none of them with the depth and inherent cool of the Rocks). The Rocks were carying the banner: At a time when it was unfashionable to like Mott the Hoople, they wanted Overend Watts as their producer. When everyone looked New Wave, they grew their hair long and wore leopard skin spandexes without ever being mistaken for Iron Maiden.

(featuring a raucous TBird sound btw)

The tragic death of their - Brit - drummer at the hands of drunken Vince Neil curtailed their career. At that point they were actually going somewhere, Bob Ezrin having given them a lavish production on Two Steps from the Move. Bands like Guns & Roses and Mötley all admit that they were an influence, visually and musically. And Michael Monroe's new album - with Sam Yaffa on bass - gets great reviews currently.



And besides Monroe has covered a song from another great band which never went anywhere either. So there! 





Hanoi Rant over. You can have meant (and mean) something in rock'n'roll and still not have been a commercial success. Especially if your drummer dies on your first large scale American tour. Where is George Carlston to come to the rescue when you need him?

[Dave W]

Geez, six videos in one post?    What's next? Starting posts with "As we all know,..."?  

They may be iconic somewhere. In the US? I don't think so. I know very little about glam rock, so I could be wrong, but I never even heard of them back in the day.

Now to my simple mind, Motorhead and the Ramones are examples of iconic bands that never had much commercial success. Not Hanoi Rocks. And if you ask 100 random bassists to identify the names Lemmy, Dee Dee and Sammi, you know who would finish last.

You can have meant (and mean) something in rock'n'roll and still not have been a commercial success.

Of course. I just don't think that applies to the value of this bass.

[Nocturnal]

 What's next? Starting posts with "As we all know,..."?  

Of course. I just don't think that applies to the value of this bass.

I was/am a huge fan of Hanoi Rocks, but the price for the bass is waaaay out of line IMO.

[OldManC]

Where is George Carlston to come to the rescue when you need him?

I was/am a huge fan of Hanoi Rocks, but the price for the bass is waaaay out of line IMO.

When I saw Dave's post earlier today I thought about it for a second and realized that, for the purposes of this thread, he was right. I love Hanoi and most of the offshoots that have kept rolling all these years. I even spent half an hour shooting the breeze with Sam around 1988 in Salt Lake City when his band (Jetboy) opened for Cheap Trick. He seemed genuinely touched that someone not only remembered him from Hanoi but professed to be such a fan. I still have his old phone number around here on a ticket stub...

Sam Yaffa is kind of a big deal to me but I know I'm one of very few in the larger scheme of things. That being said, I wouldn't buy that bass just because he owned it. Now if it had belonged to Arthur Kane... 

[uwe]

If anything, the New York Dolls were less successful and popular than the Hanoi Rocks! In the midseventies, the Dolls were laughing stock in the serious rock press - I know because I was one of the few who had both their albums (cut off sleeves as they sold so poorly) and liked them. Only the (overplayed) McLaren connection and Johnny Thunders' UK career made it cool to like the Dolls in hindsight. I remember inerviews by Stephen Tyler and Morgan Fisher (Mott the Hoople) were both made excuses for liking them due to the Doll#s lomited musical capabilities. Pre-punk that was a big issue. Make no mistake: I love the Dolls. Back then and today.

The Hanoi Rocks were a cult band, but a popular one in the circles of their and affiliated music. If you love Sam Yaffa and what he stood for, you might want that bass. It is most likely the only reason for buying it as there are better condition TBs for the same or less money around. I'm no celebrity instrument collector at all, but if you are than a bass of Sam Yaffa isn't the worst place to start. And it certainly looks like it has been honestly gigged all those wasted years.

[Freuds_Cat]

Of course. I just don't think that applies to the value of this bass.

I was/am a huge fan of Hanoi Rocks, but the price for the bass is waaaay out of line IMO.

+1

but then, I dont and will never get the whole "this bass was played/owned by (insert prefered iconic bassist)