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Thunderbird Club

Yep. One reason I am still a klutz with a pick. I swore I would learn all Clash songs with a pick. But others did punk/new wave finger style so really, why couldn’t I? I am trying though.
When I was playing 6 nights/week(75-82), I'd play mostly fingerstyle with some tunes using a pick for more punch or speed. Now, due to aging and rust, the pick is rarely used and by the end of a tune my right hand feels like a foot.
 
Thunderbird in Action pic from my gig last night:

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At least some of us spend a little less time on classified sites and eBay. Kijiji is big in Canada I spend too much time on there with the added downside of spending too much money as well....

But people seem to post 10k dollar basses here anyway so that’s not exactly helpful... a 57 Strat might be the most money I’ll ever spend on an instrument.... can’t think of a really expensive old bass.... maybe the EB 2....we all say we won’t until we actually play something and we’re hooked... anyone who doesn’t know why you would pay sooo much more for an “old” guitar has never played one and or is deaf and can’t feel their hands and is blind....
I have an EB-2. It came my way in an odd way in the very early 1980s, when anything made by Gibson was dirt cheap, except.maybe Les Paul's and then not absurd. Pre CBS was a big deal then as now, but you could buy 1970s Fenders by the barrel full for cheap. The EB-2 was my only bass for a very long time. I had a gig bag for it, no case. It survived just fine somehow.

Meaning that EB-2s have a special place in my life, or one does anyway. That said, a good playing early '60s Thunderbird II would be worth a bit to me. For absolutely no practical reason. Taking it to dive bars would be a bad idea. But then I do not take the EB-2 out much any more either.
 
Not to mention: wrong knobs, wrong case, wrong trussrod cover, worn logo. Has no clue how different the bodies are between a 60s Reverse and a Bicentennial which weighs about a pound more. Also manages to get crap tone out of a II-no mean feat.

Asking $2k more than I paid total for my two unbroken '64s less than a decade ago. No thanks.

I noticed the knobs and case, but how is the tr cover wrong?
 
I suck at finger style all I can play is a pick and I wonder how people play punk finger style? So I have to give her and everyone else huge props for playing punk finger style! Someday I hope to be able to.
Jim Bescott in the KTels was amazing. This video has the added bonus of the Dishrags dancing in it:

It didn’t take long for the Ktel corporation to threaten them and they changed their name to the Young Canadians.
 
I suck at finger style all I can play is a pick and I wonder how people play punk finger style? So I have to give her and everyone else huge props for playing punk finger style! Someday I hope to be able to.
I suck at playing bass with a pick. Punk is how I started out. Go figure.
 
Speaking of dive bars, I played my VP at one last night with a heavy rock trio.
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The drummer was a sub that I had never met, but the kid has skills! During a guitar change, I started playing a funk riff and it turned into a long impromptu jam. I love playing in the moment like that and feeding off each other.
I got many compliments on the VP’s tone.
 
Very late to the party, but just got my Gibson Bass Book in the mail. Love it so far! Not only does the author do great, detailed work, but you can tell it was a labor of love of the artform. Can't wait to finish it, but I'm sure this will be on my coffee table for a long, long time.

Gibson Bass Book coolness...............Dang, I need to make another trip to Frankfurt. :woot:

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I've played some old basses that were dogs, and I've played some that were stellar. Likewise I've played some new basses that were dogs and some that were stellar. I find that age isn't as much a factor in determining a good bass as is a good mixture of luck and skill.

When the right neck is put on the right body and wired with all the right components and finished with the right hardware by a craftsman that has the right skills the odds increase exponentially that you'll have a bass with all the right stuff to be that killer bass everyone wants. Luck frequently comes into play with mass produced or assembly line instruments like Fender or Gibson. Skill comes more into play in the boutique offerings like Lull, Pedulla and Alembic.

I suppose it's possible that some of that "mojo" we frequently attribute to vintage instruments might be a result of a higher percentage of artisans working in the Fender and Gibson shops back in the 1950's and 1960's. Maybe they had the time and skill to note variations in different components and make decisions on the fly as to which part to put on which bass for best results. Conversely, in today's age of minimized variation from component to component and increasingly automated processes where ideally the end result is to create nearly identical finished products there might be less opportunity to conjure up that special bass with new age mojo. But that's just pure speculation on my part. YMMV
I would add to what you posted with this: the wood in vintage instruments was already older than what's currently harvested. It just vibrates differently, which is why Yammyhaw spent many millions of dollars developing technology that "artificially ages" their woods. If you look at a very old piece of wood, be it neck or body, you'll see much more layers to the grain. It was already older before it was harvested. The neck on my 1988 Charvel and my 2014 Sterling are night and day in terms of how much tighter the grain of the wood is, even though they're both maple with a rosewood fingerboard. New in 88 the Charvel was roughly what the Sterling is new today, but the Charvel came out of Matsumoku in Japan and the Sterling from some random factory in China.
 
I have an EB-2. It came my way in an odd way in the very early 1980s, when anything made by Gibson was dirt cheap, except.maybe Les Paul's and then not absurd. Pre CBS was a big deal then as now, but you could buy 1970s Fenders by the barrel full for cheap. The EB-2 was my only bass for a very long time. I had a gig bag for it, no case. It survived just fine somehow.

Meaning that EB-2s have a special place in my life, or one does anyway. That said, a good playing early '60s Thunderbird II would be worth a bit to me. For absolutely no practical reason. Taking it to dive bars would be a bad idea. But then I do not take the EB-2 out much any more either.
I remember those days. Those 70's 7enders just weren't very good compared to the older ones that were still readily available, and the newer stuff from smaller companies in the States and Japan. I'd take an 80's Ibanez Roadstar II over a 70's Bumper every day of the week; they were better in every way.
 
STOP LOOKING AT ME SWAN!

I don’t remember any radical feminist that early on....high school at least. Craziest one I knew liked to argue with me about how terrible men including myself are.... listen to me challenge her reasonably..... then eventually, sleep with me. I think arguing just got her off. She made some sense for sure but some of it was just wild wild nonesense. Radical Feminism can start to border on Paranoid Schizophrenia... no no no not all men are out to get you....just the ones in the government.... and Walmart

I haven't tried that approach, arguing with radical feminists..........
Not a politics related reply, just, oh, as usual, nevermind.
 
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