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Thunderbird Club

#210,042
JIO said:
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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The 280 looks like the first bass I ever played. It was an Epi with two pickups and the Eip logo in the middle. and short scale. Played through an old Ampeg fliptop. Sure wish I had thought to try to buy that amp from the guy...
 
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#210,045
GBassNorth said:
Well, Once Upon a Time…..
In a land far far away, there lived a Giant guitar company called Fender. Fender ruled the guitar world with an iron fist and took great strides to crush any challengers to its throne. Now keep in mind Fender wasn’t always a monster, it started out with humble beginnings and the love and devotion of its benevolent leader - Leo the Lion Hearted. But as luck would have it, Leo fell upon misfortune and was over run by a one eyed ogre called Ceebee Ess. Ceebee took great pride in destroying anything it touched. It ravaged all the employees in its kingdom and displaced care and talent in its guitar making with speed and profit.

Meanwhile, in a land not too far from Fender lived a smaller kinder gentler guitar company called Gibson. Gibson made many great and powerful guitars that were loved in many lands. One fine morning the king of Gibson had a brilliant idea. He said to his loyal design team - go forth and find me a maker of great automobiles that we may employ him to do his magic and create a guitar that will be the envy of the world. Search they did, until they found Sir Dietrich, a designer of fine automotive steeds and renowned sorcerer in the lands of Packard, Lincoln and Chrysler.

Sr Dietrich, being the mighty sorcerer he was demanded that all previous guitar designs in the land of Gibson be thrown into a fire and burned. Then once the coals from the fire were white hot he reached in and pulled the new guitar design from the burning flames. It was unlike any guitar before it, sleek and svelte with wings made from mighty mahogany trees and a slim tapered neck. Upon witnessing the magic involved in the new guitar creation, Gibson proclaimed - from this day forward let this beast that has risen from coals and ashes be called the Firebird, and its bass brethren who speaks in a most thunderous voice shall be called the Thunderbird! We shall number them in a manner that will confuse and confound our enemies, a II for one bass pickup and a IV for two bass pickups and I, III and V for the guitars.

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.

To this day, if you mention Thunderbird basses to bass players the magic spell is invoked and they immediately reply - one trick pony, muddy sound, headstocks that fall off for no reason, poor workmanship, high cost and neck diving. Only those that actually play the beast can be freed of the horrible wicked rumor spell, and THEY will live happily ever after.

now close your eyes and go to sleep little PillO. Sweet dreams.

I dedicate this story to @JIO who helped defy the curse and spread the truth
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Next we want to hear the story of Les Paul and the Explorers!
 
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#210,049
icefly said:
Not TBird related: that wannabe Pb51 buildin' updates



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:thumbsup:

I'm partial to that style.
upload_2022-6-7_21-50-22.png


upload_2022-6-7_21-51-23.png
 
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#210,051
PhR75 said:
I recall reading that Jaimoe was the one who introduced Coltrane's "All Blues"* to the band and "Dreams" was loosely based on that. Jaimoe also used the trad. grip.

From wiki:
According to The Wall Street Journal, Jaimoe's "passion for jazz helped form the nascent Allman Brothers Band's improvisational approach, which incorporated blues, country and Western swing into a unique musical approach that nodded toward the Grateful Dead's West Coast explorations but never became as loosey-goosey."[4]

“Music is music, and there's no such things as jazz or rock ’n’ roll,” Jaimoe told the WSJ. “I wanted to be the world's greatest jazz drummer, and I thought rock or funk were too easy—then I got a chance and couldn't play what needed to be played. I had to learn, and music was everything to me.”

*Miles Davis' "All Blues". Shows how much I know about jazz...
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The whole Miles "Kind of Blue" album is really good, I think a lot of them were into it, one of them (Duane?) said it influenced their long jams.
 
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#210,054
Miles_ONeal said:
I don't know that they had two bassists playing on the same song together, but Ed did play some bass wit them.
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The whole story is at the link at the bottom, really too long to post here, I didn't read the whole thing either but Ed King played bass on a few tunes but not Incense and Peppermints.
The first bassist got fired (Gary Lovetro) but there were two for a while and the second was actually a songwriter,... long story:

"Gary (Lovetro) and I (George Bunnell) occasionally play bass at the same time, but it was only me doing special effects while he was playing a bass part. I would do funny things on the bass, and not use it really as a bass. I had a couple of different bass guitars, one with fuzz tone in it."

Whole story here:

Gary James' Interview With George Bunnell Of Strawberry Alarm Clock
 
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#210,058
dagrev said:
Detour ....
See a little bit of late 70s Matador going on here....


Skip to about 2:44




Back to our irregular programing.....
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Stealth57 said:
Reminds me of a 1972...

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:drool::drool::drool::drool::drool:
Vignale (Italian coach builder) at their best…….intentionally intended to compete with that very DeTomaso model…..prettier, faster (same 390 as in the original AMX) but also way more expensive to produce…..shame….oh well, cheer up…..;)
1480EFB8-363F-42C6-B08C-66C768C3CCCB.jpeg
 
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