Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

The $1000 paintjob...

http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/msg/399168914.html

(I know this listing may not last...but that really is okay...truly...)

Nice color. Classless seller covers the back with a "GIT R DRUNK" sticker.

To bring back an old line I used to use:

He's got a lot of class. Problem is, it's all LOW!!

See, without the message on the back of the bass, he might forget the mission.

One of the Normal Bros.

"Ab" and "Sub"...

I gotta get rid of this song filter in my head.

I immediately thought of "Twin Sons of Different Mothers"!

Abby Normal?

What hump?

Anyway, here are some more vomitaceous, cretinous creations from a marketing director's cruellest nightmare:

And a famous one



Hover over the pic if you don't recognize.

These don't look much different than the 330 you did the Union Jack on. we all have our opinions...

Gee, thanks, Dale! Kindness is always appreciated and returned.

The bass looks like it's from the Sea of Monsters in Yellow Submarine.

I'm not saying quality, because you do finish work 2nd to none... But the concept is no different...people want what they desire from their imagination....A Union Jack or a Sharks Mouth..I personally like the P-41 Flying Tiger on the Upright DBL. Bass..fits right in with a Rock-a-Billy Swing Band. JMHO

Thanks for clarifying, Dale.

I draw a line between icons like the UJ and the Weller "WHAM!" on a guitar--which has precedents in both Brit Pop and Rickenbacker culture, and is to me therefore entirely appropriate, and badly-done (and overdone), copycat "art".

I won't get into a critique, because it would become long-winded to explain all the small points that make the images presented above, very bad graphics from a standpoint of both planning (design) and execution.

I say "copycat" because, as you know, Sara Ray has done (to my own knowledge) three very well-thought-out graphics which are also breathtakingly well-executed, on Gretsches. (Anyone not familiar with her art, google "Red Baron Gretsch".) Although they weren't the first of their kind, they are the best, and the difference between hers and the ones above, in both visuals and execution, is miles.

But you know what? Even her art guitars leave me cold in the end, because there's no connection between a guitar and war imagery.

I have a collection of books on WWII bomber nose art, and am a fan, BTW. Again, no connection with instruments that I can see or feel. To me, it's just inappropriate and can be seen as more cynical exploitation for $$$ if it's not well-done.

And that bass is the gawdawful ugliest thing I've ever seen, because it takes what was once a nice piece of wood and kills its dignity in the service of creating another piece of "cool cool daddyo, in crowd, past-that-never-was" flotsam. Terrible graphics, but no doubt a bunch of "rockabilly" (another after-the-fact musical term that's spawned a lot of mediocrity amidst the pure genius) people with less-than-astute critical sensibilities will bless it with their favorite adjective, "cool" , and think no more about it, because that's the ultimate and all-encompassing blessing word.

If an artist or craftsman is to give people what they want or their imagination desires, at least let him/her do something with thought behind it and quality invested. To do any less, cheapens the whole exercise and invites negativity, if we can tame our amazement and see this stuff for what it is.

Paul, you are filtering with your vast background - somebody wants and buys these instruments and in the end, that's all that really matters. They mean something to the purchaser/user.