HW: Lemmy's six-string

[Doug Pearson]

Hey Keith,

On Thu, 21 Mar 2002 18:49:31 -0000, Captain Bl at ck <starfield at SUPANET.COM>
wrote:
>Yes, Lemmy played the Hopf on Greasy Truckers and on the later Silver
>Machine video, there are quite a few pics around of this - if you want one,
>email me off list.  In fact, he'd been in the band quite a while by the
>time of Greasy Truckers.

... yeah, almost six months (not sure why I was thinking more like 2 or 3
months - maybe because Simon King had been in the band for less than a week
at the time).

>The Rickenbacker 4000 is pictured on Space Ritual and in just about every
>other Hawk-photo of Lemmy  -  its red on the cover (this was before the
>paint job),

Hmmm ... I still can't tell what color it is from the cover (at least
the "Flying is trying is dying" panel) ... too washed-out from the
lightshow.  I can only tell that it's *some* color (as opposed to white or
natural).

>with two pickups - the second one has been added  - you can
>tell if you look at the position of the four knobs, the alignment
>isn't the same formation as on a standard 4001.

!! Damn !!  You are correct!  I had no idea.  Actually, the formation of
the knobs is still the same as a standard 4001/4001s (vaguely trapezoidal)
and I stared at that for quite a while before figuring out what the
difference was - it's that the alignment of the trapezoid is completely
different (on a standard 4001/4001s, the top side of the trapezoid is
parallel to the top edge of the pick guard, under the bridge pickup, but on
Lemmy's, the trapezoid is essentially perpendicular to the top edge of the
pick guard, as if rotated 90 degrees).  The non-standard (Gibson) neck
pickup is a bit more obvious.

>Regarding the Gibson, he alternated between this and the Ricky on the later
>1974 and '75 tours  - apparently he liked the sound of the pick-ups.

He liked the sound enough to put one on his 4000!  (Although 70s-
manufactured Thunderbirds used a different pickup than 60s-manufactured
ones.)  Thanks for the info ...

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com