Storied Gibson Thunderbird bass for sale -one careless owner

With Dead Skeletons at the longest soundcheck in the world in Cartaxo-2014 mebbe -phot. Jon Saemunder

I know I’ve been talking about selling this bass for years, to the point where you might be thinking,”Oh, there he goes again”. It’s kind of funny how many times I have been so close to parting with it and somehow, something happened or I got a stroke of good and bad luck that stopped me, or sent me in another direction or into another band. That isn’t happening this time nor do I want it to.

With Spritualized in 1990-photo Tom Lawrie

This is the bass that I played for most of my thirty-odd years playing music. Some of them were very odd.

Here it is in the first Spiritualized video

Occasionally I didn’t play it. I might have borrowed the odd one, here and there, but this was my work horse, my battle axe, and the instrument I played with three left hands nearly thirty years ago. 

Spacemen3, Spiritualized, Spectrum, BJM, Dead Skeletons… and about thirty other bands and projects you might not have heard of too. 

It was used for recording … Recurring, Live in Europe 89,, the first Sonic Boom album, Lazer Guided Melodies, Aufheben, who killed Sgt Pepper. I toured it with all of those bands listed above and it’s well documented in video and photographs 

Here are a couple of live shows it was used for

I bought it in late 1988, for an upcoming Spacemen3 tour, from City Music in Birmingham, which was up on Colmore row, just off  the Queensway.  That day …I’d walked round every guitar shop in Birmingham with my five hundred pounds, looking for the right instrument. I played Music Masters and Fenders, and Rickenbackers, of different vintages and colours and none of them grabbed me. I didn’t know what I wanted, but when I walked into that little shop and saw that 1976 Gibson Thunderbird up on the wall, I knew it was my bass before I even touched it. I’d never seen a Thunderbird  before and I didn’t know what it was, but it was certainly compelling.

It wasn’t just just the look of the thing, it was the vibration. It’s a long scaled, oddly noble and weird looking thing, carved out of the rainforest, and strangely beautiful. At least to me. 

And so, I had it in my hands, plugged it in and started to play.  I couldn’t even tell you what it sounded like, because I was so caught up in the magic and possibility.The technicalities seemed beside the point. Technically speaking, there were no dead notes,  it played like it should and it vibrated From top to bottom. Most importantly and (perhaps, beyond the realm of the probable), it seemd like an instrument of divine retribution. 

I bought it …of course …without checking any others. Four hundred British pounds lighter, I was walking down the Queensway with my 1976 Gibson Thunderbird.

It was mine and little did I know how far I would carry it and how far it would carry  me. 

With spacemen 3 …fuck knows where or who took it. Soz

 I’ve tried to give it away, half-heartedly. I’ve tried to sell it. Half heartedly. 

I’ve played it wholeheartedly, in more bands and at more shows, in more places, than I can count.

I’ve carried it and bled on it. Ive sweated pints over it. Ive hallucinated round it and I’ve swung it round my head like a beserker

Don’t worry, I’ll give it a good clean.

It was fairly heavily featured in my book “Playing the bass with three left hands” published by Faber and Faber in 2016. Here you’ll find me narrating the chapter about when it was taken to pieces and I was tripping my face off.

If it was love at first sight, then it was certainly an epic affair.

Thirty one years. That’d be a pearl wedding anniversary if it’d ever made an honest man of me.

But essentially, me and this bass don’t owe each other anything anymore and it is time we two should part. I hold no sorrow in that and neither should you .

I don’t play in bands anymore …my ringing ears just won’t take it and I’m mostly good with that too. I don’t want to keep this around as an ornament and somebody else can probably look after this bit of history better than I can. It’s way too heavy for me to carry, and most of what I own I carry these days.

That’d take a while to explain too. 

With Bjm in 2008 in New York. Photo -Mary Martley

After that little bout of nostalgia and fetishisation …down to the business.

I’ll be selling this in the same way I sold that  box of cassettes and the original Natty Brooker paintings that I recently passed along to new owners - via private email auction. All interested parties will be notified of the bids via email and, at the end, the winner may remain anonymous or not, as they prefer. There will be a package of items  included with the bass which will help to serve as provenance …and I will be including a handwritten certificate of authenticity. 

If you are serious about owning this guitar …please send me a message via email through here, with the title “bass sale”, and I will include you in the bidding. If  you are not serious about owning it, please do us both a favour by not wasting our time. 

I expect to have the sale and auction completed by the end of November at which point, the winner  will  arrange shipping or collection of the guitar either from me or from a third party to be agreed by us both.

If you have any questions about the sale, or the guitar, feel free to ask.

Please pass this on to anyone you think might be interested 

Thanks for your time 

Will Carruthers

2020