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Thunderbird Club

...and The Smothers Brothers, Shindig, Hullabaloo, Where The Action Is, Ready, Steady - Go, Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, (the Monkees) and Soul Train. Plus Glen Campbell's show, Jimmy Dean's show, Heh Haw, and Porter Wagner/Dolly Pardon show. I probably missed a couple.
Don’t forget The Midnight Special, one of my favs in the 1970’s.
 
Word quickly spread throughout the lands of a magical new and beautiful guitar and bass born from fire that could threaten the Fender stranglehold. The mighty Fender ogre Ceebee Ess instructed his finest lawyers to craft a lie about the Firebird and claim it was stolen from the land of Fender. Gibson being very afraid of Fender redesigned its guitar but in a swipe of defiance they claimed the new design to be not backwards like Fender guitars, and the new Gibson was called the Non Reverse.

Seeing that Fenders best attempts to destroy the success of the Fire and Thunderbirds had failed, the mighty ogre summoned his witches warlocks and spell binders to conjure up a curse that would instead confound guitar and bass players and cause a great vail to cover their eyes and ears so that they would not see or hear the truth but instead constantly repeat rumors and untruths every time a Firebird or Thunderbird is mentioned.

:) Fun interpretation... but.., frankly Gibson and Fender, along with Gretsch, Guild, Rickenbacker et al were all just selling guitars/basses. Gibson guitars where actually more similar to Guild, Gretsch, and Rickenbacker guitars. Leo Fender introduced something different (solid body/detachable neck) and they all followed (eventually). Fender had no fear of Gibson basses (or any other brand for that matter) because most pro's favored a Fender bass and it defined '50s-'60s music. So that was one of a few reasons the 'lawsuit myth' didn't make sense. Gibson's bean-counters reading the bottom-line lead to discontinuing the R and to create the NR, and ended production of both for about 5 years. It was simply that not enough of them were being sold. Nothing romantic about that. ;)
Hey, don't get me started on the “Gibson and the Bean Counter Stalk” fairytale. :laugh:
 
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View attachment 4714157
My first Thunderbird! It came to me post-mod with Lollars, Babicz bridge and Hipshot Ultralights.

I picked it up on a whim. So far, I've gigged with it, playing metal, rock, blues and country. It has delivered in every setting! While maybe not as articulate as my Stingray, and not as fat & warm as my P or J basses, its got voice all its own -a killer mid-growl that really asserts itself in the mix!
Sweet!

And our very own Marshall will take a look at the drum kit lurking behind your amp and find it to be the correct color, at least for his purposes.

Don't tell anybody that you can play all that different music on a Thunderbird. It's our little secret in here.
 
Um, gosh. Some spare parts and a bandsaw are a fine source of inspiration. It's kinda great, but not $950 worth of kinda great. An original mudbucker is worth, what, $150 or so these days? Less than that? I don't know. Whatever the pickup is worth is what that bass is worth.

thats generous…. Minus disposal fees and shipping costs. The epiphone neck is ok but I don’t do bolt on.
 
View attachment 4714157
My first Thunderbird! It came to me post-mod with Lollars, Babicz bridge and Hipshot Ultralights.

I picked it up on a whim. So far, I've gigged with it, playing metal, rock, blues and country. It has delivered in every setting! While maybe not as articulate as my Stingray, and not as fat & warm as my P or J basses, its got voice all its own -a killer mid-growl that really asserts itself in the mix!

Beautiful!
Happy to add you to the club - just let me know :)
 
Um, gosh. Some spare parts and a bandsaw are a fine source of inspiration. It's kinda great, but not $950 worth of kinda great. An original mudbucker is worth, what, $150 or so these days? Less than that? I don't know. Whatever the pickup is worth is what that bass is worth.

Other than EB basses and in '75 the RI'd T-bird, there weren't that many Epiphone basses in the '70s -

early '70s Epi ET-280 ss
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upload_2022-6-7_17-51-13.jpeg
 
Word quickly spread throughout the lands of a magical new and beautiful guitar and bass born from fire that could threaten the Fender stranglehold. The mighty Fender ogre Ceebee Ess instructed his finest lawyers to craft a lie about the Firebird and claim it was stolen from the land of Fender. Gibson being very afraid of Fender redesigned its guitar but in a swipe of defiance they claimed the new design to be not backwards like Fender guitars, and the new Gibson was called the Non Reverse.

Seeing that Fenders best attempts to destroy the success of the Fire and Thunderbirds had failed, the mighty ogre summoned his witches warlocks and spell binders to conjure up a curse that would instead confound guitar and bass players and cause a great vail to cover their eyes and ears so that they would not see or hear the truth but instead constantly repeat rumors and untruths every time a Firebird or Thunderbird is mentioned.

:) Fun interpretation... but.., frankly Gibson and Fender, along with Gretsch, Guild, Rickenbacker et al were all just selling guitars/basses. Gibson guitars where actually more similar to Guild, Gretsch, and Rickenbacker guitars. Leo Fender introduced something different (solid body/detachable neck) and they all followed (eventually). Fender had no fear of Gibson basses (or any other brand for that matter) because most pro's favored a Fender bass and it defined '50s-'60s music. So that was one of a few reasons the 'lawsuit myth' didn't make sense. Gibson's bean-counters reading the bottom-line lead to discontinuing the R and to create the NR, and ended production of both for about 5 years. It was simply that not enough of them were being sold. Nothing romantic about that. ;)
Buzzkill... :laugh: