Gene Simmons Axe-Bass

[raymondo]

I found out the other day that Gene Simmons' axe bass looks very similar to my creation, which was actually a lead guitar.
Here's the rub: I made mine 2 years before he did.
I have made a web page to tell the story.
www.twoshortplanks.org/axeguitar

[pacojas]

sue him before he sues you!

[Smokin' Toaster]

Leave him alone if you know what's good for you... his tongue is longer than yours!

[kris pung]

So um what's the your point?

[JumboFriendly]

Link no work. Me no care.

[FrankenIbanez70]

Unless you've patented it and sued him and won millions of dollars and have an non-404'd link proving it, Whats the point of the post?

[raymondo]

kris, the point was it felt like I was being accused of copying his design, when I was told.
In fact nobody has copied anybody. The same Idea sprung up in two places. I wouldn't be surprised if there were another dozen similar independent designs.
Good advice there Smokin Toaster, which is why I've wiped it.
Life is unfair.
Thanks for your comments all.

[THand]

I think he has said people already called guitars axes, but since no one had patented it, so he did..thinking he could one day make money off of it, and he has. Same thing with the money bag image.
He never, to my knowledge anyway, claimed an axe guitar was an original idea...just an obvious one, since the term was common...and he was the one smart enough to find a way to turn it into money.
Your situation is something that interest me though...even looking throughout history, we see similar ideas in art, and architecture springing up at the same time in totally different unconnected cultures at the same time.
It's like there is some sort of synchronicity, or some creative muse that strikes at different times and places..and usually one person/group gets credit.
I'd bet ya a candy bar, that before the Beatles made it, there were several white boy bands playing Little Richard and Chick Berry tunes...and it's very unlikely that Elvis was the only white boy singing rock n' roll either..
Even in technology, how many who grew up watching Star Trek knew we would all have something like Home computers and cell phones and something like the web when we grew up? I did....and I imagine several thousand more knew it too.

[raymondo]

That about sums it up THand. I was 17, and a student when I made my AXE guitar. I knew guitars were called axes, and I didn't have enough wood for a normal body. That's why it got created. At the time, nobody was impressed with the concept. I quite accept that it only has a value because of Gene's name. I didn't even know that anyone else in the world had an axe guitar till last week. I'd seen adverts with KISS in their makup, but to this day I can't say I've heard a single track of theirs. Mine has languished in the garage loft for years, out of sentiment, but following a mouse infestation, I cleared it all out, along with the axe.
Its a shame I feel I can't tell the story, for fear of being sued.
There is one design flaw, I discovered after building it. The AXE is pretty damn impossible to play sitting down.

[Buxtehude]

Long live the axe!!!

[THand]

I actually had one of the original Kramer Axe "guitars" that Gene commissioned along with the basses. I sold it because I was hard up for cash at the time, and you are right, it was impossible to play sitting down...also with the aluminum neck, it neck dove pretty bad.
I still have the original Dimarzio pup (I may have put EMG's in it), but I wish I still had the guitar.
Not my pic, but it looked exactly like this including the signature and numbers:

Before it came into my possession, I called the Kramer factory and verified the serial and sig. The only other one they knew of at the time (1988) was owned by Rick Neilson of Cheap Trick. They had cancelled production due to a fire at the factory.
I say it "came into my possession" because I didn't actually buy it. I had won some kind of contest outta dumb luck at a Belks dept store, and won $5000 worth of jewelry...not much of a jewelry guy, so I went to the music store in Macon Ga and talked to the owner and said "how do you like my watch( it still had a $500 price tag on it)? I'll give it to you for that guitar". He said sure, no body liked Kiss any more and he would never be able to sell that thing, lol.
I bet I'm not the only one regretting letting that guitar go.