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Thunderbird Club

#96,961
Haji said:
I mentioned a while back that I had another bamd going. I got a call from Jon, a drummer friend that also sings, plays bass and guitar, and probably other stuff too. Anyway, he asked if I wanted to do a 90s cover band, which sounded fun. Since we're just south of Nashville finding a guitar player was fairly easy...although we lucked out on that point. So we're working up covers with Jon playing drums and singing. He just wanted to play drums, so we started looking for a singer. Over three months we had 18 people express interest in the gig. We set auditions for 9. Not one of the nine who wanted auditions showed up, or even called to cancel. Just didn't show. After the 9th failure, I get a call from Jon that he'd rather play guitar and sing than drum and sing, so we swapped his drums for a PRS, 5150 III and cabs. We were expecting another long process to find a drummer. Since he looked for a singer, I took over looking for a drummer. I posted the ad on Friday. 7 drummers hit me up about the gig within a couple hours. One could audition on Sunday and already knew the songs we were auditioning with, and has a website with other projects on it. He was a little early for the audition and nailed the songs...and he's fun to be around. Three months with nobody following through on vocal auditions, and finding the killer drummer took hours. Funny how that works.
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I guess that's a drummer you better not fire. Just blame the bass player and stop there. Being one of us, we all already know you can handle that, no sweat.
 
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#96,962
Gaolee said:
Both have their quirks. I find a T-Bird to be more ergonomically correct for me than anything designed by Leo or derived from those designs. I also find other Gibson designs more ergonomic than the competing Fender style design. Oddly enough, I don't get along with Les Paul shapes all that well, even though I really like ES335 and similarly shaped guitars. Consistency isn't a virtue, and being a freak is virtue.
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It's why both kinds exist. Being an artist I've never been one to slam friendly "freaks" - it's an endearing compliment among friends and admired creative people. Now, the freaks that are in the world doing grossly, deliberately negative things - that's on the opposite end of the spectrum. I have always considered uber-guitarist Nels Cline a freak (of nature) as he's in a field of his own. Jaco was a freak. There are many levels of 'freakdom' and some are only perceived as such because of where the labeler is situated on the scale of square</>freak. :D
 
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#96,963
Haji said:
I mentioned a while back that I had another bamd going. I got a call from Jon, a drummer friend that also sings, plays bass and guitar, and probably other stuff too. Anyway, he asked if I wanted to do a 90s cover band, which sounded fun. Since we're just south of Nashville finding a guitar player was fairly easy...although we lucked out on that point. So we're working up covers with Jon playing drums and singing. He just wanted to play drums, so we started looking for a singer. Over three months we had 18 people express interest in the gig. We set auditions for 9. Not one of the nine who wanted auditions showed up, or even called to cancel. Just didn't show. After the 9th failure, I get a call from Jon that he'd rather play guitar and sing than drum and sing, so we swapped his drums for a PRS, 5150 III and cabs. We were expecting another long process to find a drummer. Since he looked for a singer, I took over looking for a drummer. I posted the ad on Friday. 7 drummers hit me up about the gig within a couple hours. One could audition on Sunday and already knew the songs we were auditioning with, and has a website with other projects on it. He was a little early for the audition and nailed the songs...and he's fun to be around. Three months with nobody following through on vocal auditions, and finding the killer drummer took hours. Funny how that works.
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Drummers and bass players are the foundation of a band in more ways than one! :thumbsup:
 
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#96,965
7A4316A5-BAE8-4D07-8B10-814C10B18F85.png
7A4316A5-BAE8-4D07-8B10-814C10B18F85.png Had to put this here, watching Rocky and saw his sweater. Gotta love the THUNDERBIRD’s!!
 
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#96,966
JIO said:
You say "easy to manufacture" like it's a bad thing. How about efficient industrial design. Yes, you touched on a couple of key points defining the two makers philosophies. LF set out to create a professional, serviceable instrument for an actively gigging (financially conservative) professional musician. He designed it based on actual player feedback and repairability which was a meat & potatoes approach that appealed to professional musicians. These musicians were not collectors or hobbyist - they were supporting themselves and their families playing bass. So in his intent - LF was immensely successful.

Conversely - Gibson hired an industrial designer (who wasn't a player) to create a stylish "look" for their Firebird guitar & Thunderbird bass and the result, regardless of 'old world' construction and techniques (which Gibson was known for) was a bass that had many design shortcomings. They "out cooled" the conservative alternative but history has shown that in the end - a Fender bass was more professionally used/more recorded than any Gibson bass. Generalities about what stringed instruments should or should not be are a product of brand camp devotees and have no legitimacy other than as opinion. I agree that a T-bird is a work of successful visual design, but as a life-long owner of one (and die-hard player of them) - they fell short functionally in ways that no Fender bass has.
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Please assume everything I type here should have IMO in front of it. I recognize my opinions are just that.:)

As a young man I spent a year learning guitar repair and luthiery from an “old school” builder (Michael Dunn). Among the design features of Fenders, he found it amusing that a guitar builder would not angle the headstock and then screw on metal retainers to create a string angle over the nut.

I own and gig a number of FSOs including a Pbass with flats, a Pbass with rounds, a JBass with flats, and one that actually says Fender on the headstock - a JBS with pressure wounds. They work well, and they are tough.

But I really prefer the design features of my Gibsons and GSOs.
 
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#96,967
Count Bassie said:
After doing it for years, and figuring you've got it figured, you just never can tell.
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So true. And, I haven't been part of a from-scratch start up band for about 25 years. Nashvegas is also very cyclical. A few years ago, every guitar player in the world wanted to move to Music City, and they were killing each other for gigs. The shortage of drummers caused the same situation. Hasn't really happened with bass players to the same degree, so even Nashville's Worst Bass Player can get a gig.
 
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#96,973
PillO said:
The strap is on backwards, fretting the g string would be a bitch, and the pickup covers the a and d strings only. Did he/she at least set it up with low action? :D
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Yeah.... no.

TBH I found it eye catching and amusing so I guess it works as an art piece.

Personally, I would prefer as a 2 string - E A ; that would improve the functionality ( I don’t expect that was a huge requirement ).
Besides I only use E A. :laugh:

(joking, but only a little)

The next room had a model of a foal/yearling laying dead on the floor. The eyes looked real enough to be quite off putting. I assume it is a statement on our drought... but I don’t know for sure what it was about.
 
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#96,978
Inky13 said:
Is it available north of the border? For a macro, it’s not the worst example of a cream ale. I’ll take it over Bud, Coors or Miller.
Not that I’d drink those even with a gun against my head.
P.S. I enjoyed the horrified reaction.
P.P.S. O.K. Maybe if it was free.
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No, my buddy's dad has a farm in the southern tier, and I spent a week there. Granted I was 15... 21 when I tried it, and wasn't exactly ice cold.... but that's besides the point.
 
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#96,979
Haji said:
So true. And, I haven't been part of a from-scratch start up band for about 25 years. Nashvegas is also very cyclical. A few years ago, every guitar player in the world wanted to move to Music City, and they were killing each other for gigs. The shortage of drummers caused the same situation. Hasn't really happened with bass players to the same degree, so even Nashville's Worst Bass Player can get a gig.
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I'm moving to Nashville just to prove you wrong....


:laugh:
 
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