• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Thunderbird Club

#58,143
dukeorock said:
On the Kiss thing...I just thought it was funny I split for a few hours and that was the main topic when I got back. Didn’t mean to dis any band.



I’m aware of it happening...never done it myself.



I don’t think anyone was getting into a serious discussion about dogging anything. I agree with what you’re saying though. If there’s a band we don’t like or get, it can be more fun to find out why someone else does like em than to just say ‘it sucks.’



Who does that? I’m not strictly speaking a Kiss fan, but I thought it was a pretty great gimmick they came up with and I thought Gene was a cool bass player. Came up with great parts. Detroit Rock City comes to mind
Click to expand...

As far as I've read somewhere, Gene didn't come up with the bass line for Detroit Rock City - Bob Ezrin did that...

Also Gene struggled quite a lot with that particular bass line to get it right...
 
  • Like
Reactions: PillO, Count Bassie, RedVee and 2 others
#58,144
hillerup said:
As far as I've read somewhere, Gene didn't come up with the bass line for Detroit Rock City - Bob Ezrin did that...

Also Gene struggled quite a lot with that particular bass line to get it right...
Click to expand...

Wouldn’t be shocked. Still pretty cool:)
 
  • Like
Reactions: theFixer, RedVee and hillerup
#58,145
dukeorock said:
Those are great examples of great musicians in the punk thing. Sid V often gets mentioned as THE example of punk musicians not being able to play. Ever listen to the Pistols record? I think it’s really good. Sid didn’t play on that record. Sid was brought in specifically because he couldn’t play but fit into the ethos John Lydon was cultivating. He wanted the band to blow up, then quickly blow up the band. It worked and we still talk about it.
Click to expand...

All bass work on the Sex Pistols debut album was done by their original bassist Glen Matlock - Except the track "Bodies" which was done by Sid, and later overdubbed by Steve Jones as Glen Matlock refused to return for the recording. "Bodies" was also one of two songs on the album, which Matlock didn't co-wrote...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Gaolee, theFixer, Korladis and 4 others
#58,146
image.jpeg
bylar13 said:
Also Mike Watt, who played a Thunderbird.
Click to expand...
My bad. Kings X never entered my mind. Not my cup of tea so I plead ignorance, but I did groove on Sonic Youth for a little while. Mostly that Dirty album? It's got a sock puppet on the cover......
I digress.
No pics. No bass. So here it is.
Happy to report that Thomas at ZZounds customer service has promptly shipped out a replacement Korg tuner next day air, so they're back in my good graces once again.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Gaolee, theFixer, Mike.C. and 13 others
#58,147
Had breakfast at The Arcade, in Memphis. Famous old diner, kinda neat if you enjoy the threat of heart attacks. Went to a local bookstore that was awesome. Lots of great books about local music. Nearly got a cool book on the garage rock scene, which was huge (and largely ignored) here.

This looked really neat...
073D02E2-9867-449F-8464-81BA0BA67AFD.jpeg

Looked promising, but turned out to be mostly sheet music. Pretty sure I don’t need sheet music to learn Soul Man though, so I bought this...
4C784FCB-639A-4553-92EA-DFA1DF567F05.jpeg

Not a Memphis band, but they did my favorite record of theirs at Ardent studios in Memphis with Jim Dickinson and Alex Chilton. Plus the author is from Memphis, so...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Gaolee, theFixer, PillO and 9 others
#58,148
StraffordMike said:
View attachment 2856822
My bad. Kings X never entered my mind. Not my cup of tea so I plead ignorance, but I did groove on Sonic Youth for a little while. Mostly that Dirty album? It's got a sock puppet on the cover......
I digress.
No pics. No bass. So here it is.
Happy to report that Thomas at ZZounds customer service has promptly shipped out a replacement Korg tuner next day air, so they're back in my good graces once again.
Click to expand...

Congrats!
 
  • Like
Reactions: theFixer, JJR58 and RedVee
#58,149
StraffordMike said:
View attachment 2856822
My bad. Kings X never entered my mind. Not my cup of tea so I plead ignorance, but I did groove on Sonic Youth for a little while. Mostly that Dirty album? It's got a sock puppet on the cover......
I digress.
No pics. No bass. So here it is.
Happy to report that Thomas at ZZounds customer service has promptly shipped out a replacement Korg tuner next day air, so they're back in my good graces once again.
Click to expand...


White Thunderbird = THE BOMB on stage.
People will notice it from across the room - No FSO with flats and a tort guard is even close!
 
  • Like
Reactions: StraffordMike, Gaolee, dieselman and 10 others
#58,150
ProgressiveDoom said:
Gimmicks turn me off bigtime regardless of the musicianship. Ive never been able give Slipknot or Gwar a fair shake just because of the way I feel about gimmicks. The 80's hairspray metal movement made me violently ill as well, I surrounded myself with my people, punkers, thrashers and hippy offspring. Never turned on a radio and stayed clear of all bars unless they promoted the underground scene. I remember embracing the grunge movement just to help the hairspray movement die.
Click to expand...

The gimmick is in the eye of the beholder. Four guys in ripped denim and leather all using the same (fake) last name is as much a gimmick as four guys in spandex and makeup. The counterculture is as much a gimmick as the establishment.
 
  • Like
Reactions: marko57, Gaolee, theFixer and 6 others
#58,152
theFixer said:
Everybody has a “gimmick”. The gimmick is the thing that makes each person, or band, or “act”, unique. Look at the Ramones. Black leather jackets, worn-out jeans, Chuck Taylors, bad haircuts, dark aviators, everybody’s last name is “Ramone”... total gimmick! Ed Sheeran takes the stage with an acoustic, a loop pedal & a microphone. In an overexposed, overstimulated world of blinky lights & electronic impossibilities staring at us all the time every day... even THAT has become a gimmick. People like David Bowie have the ability to come up with several different ones over the span of their careers. Think of the gimmick like a fisherman casting a bait. The only fish that’ll bite, are the one’s that are attracted to it. Obviously excessive makeup, platform boots, & monster costumes won’t get the hook in YOUR lip;)
Click to expand...

I hadn't even seen this and pretty much wrote the same thing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: theFixer, hillerup and dukeorock
#58,153
ThunderbirdMax said:
Do you know what's creepier than Christine Sixteen ? Goin' Blind on their Hotter Than Hell album. "I'm 93, you're 16"
Christine is one of my favorite KISS songs. One of the only video footage of Gene playing his modded bicentennial Tbird is on this song during the 1977 Largo show.
Click to expand...

He uses it onstage in "Kiss Meets The Phantom" also. When I saw them at MSG in '77, it was on a stand off to the side.
There is a guy here in NJ that allegedly has that Thunderbird, or at least that is what he was told. I had it in my hands some years back, and it was one very beat Bicentennial with a HUGE Model One-sized routed cavity, and a missing pickguard, IIRC. Oddly, the reason I was at his house was to buy a used Model One...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Gaolee, theFixer, PillO and 8 others
#58,154
lowend1 said:
The gimmick is in the eye of the beholder. Four guys in ripped denim and leather all using the same (fake) last name is as much a gimmick as four guys in spandex and makeup. The counterculture is as much a gimmick as the establishment.
Click to expand...
I worked with the Ramones four separate times when they played the Whisky. They'd always sound check in regular jeans, the torn ones were strictly for the gig. Gabba Gabba Hey!
 
  • Like
Reactions: vandoorn, GBassNorth, Gaolee and 12 others
#58,155
lowend1 said:
The gimmick is in the eye of the beholder. Four guys in ripped denim and leather all using the same (fake) last name is as much a gimmick as four guys in spandex and makeup. The counterculture is as much a gimmick as the establishment.
Click to expand...
I would agree that this is what happens when things become commercialized. The manager of the Sex Pistols knew it ("selling the swindle"). I was thinking more about 70s arena rock becoming what was saterized in "Spinal Tap" (e.g., "Smell the Glove" or "Stone Henge"). I brought up punk as to it's attempt at being more of a musical/pop culture "recalibration" of sorts - not so much as a social and political statement; although, they were important. It was more the ethos of the "artistic" statement. It was a bit like Dadaism and pop art movements - challenging convention. But sooner or later, most artists get tired of starving and the mass marketing of gimmicks and personas takes hold. And much of this took place in a day where major label record execs ruled.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: theFixer, hillerup, PillO and 5 others
#58,156
lowend1 said:
He uses it onstage in "Kiss Meets The Phantom" also. When I saw them at MSG in '77, it was on a stand off to the side.
There is a guy here in NJ that allegedly has that Thunderbird, or at least that is what he was told. I had it in my hands some years back, and it was one very beat Bicentennial with a HUGE Model One-sized routed cavity, and a missing pickguard, IIRC. Oddly, the reason I was at his house was to buy a used Model One...
Click to expand...
I saw Gene's '77 onstage in Buffalo NY in '77 off to the side with the fire extinguisher, it got zero stage time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Gaolee, theFixer, hillerup and 4 others
#58,157
lowend1 said:
He uses it onstage in "Kiss Meets The Phantom" also. When I saw them at MSG in '77, it was on a stand off to the side.
There is a guy here in NJ that allegedly has that Thunderbird, or at least that is what he was told. I had it in my hands some years back, and it was one very beat Bicentennial with a HUGE Model One-sized routed cavity, and a missing pickguard, IIRC. Oddly, the reason I was at his house was to buy a used Model One...
Click to expand...
It would be cool if you could document his bass!
 
  • Like
Reactions: GBassNorth, theFixer, hillerup and 5 others

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back