Gibson Blackbird (Nikki Sixx Signature Model)



You'd better know who Nikki Sixx is. If not, he is the bassist and main song writer for Motley Crue. He is not just a bass player but an entity. He is fucking awesome. So he has always played Gibson Thunderbird basses for most of his music career but complained that the newer ones sucked and he wanted one that was just like the original one he had in the 70's. So Gibson let him design a bass and he based it off of the first Gibson T-bird he had. I read numerous interviews with him talking about the bass and I was sold. The main thing that sold me was that it had no knobs on it. Instead it just has an on/off toggle switch because "Rock and Roll is either on or off. There is no middle ground" quote Nikki Sixx. That is fucking awesome. I always turn all my knobs up all the way anyway. And I don't even know what all the knobs are for. I had to get it. This bass looks awesome, it sounds awesome, it is awesome. I mean, look at it. It took a while to get used to it. The body style that is. I had to adjust my strap for it cause it sits differently on your body and was a bit awkward for me at first but I'm rocking it now. I've played it the past few shows and will use it for the many to come.

So in purchasing it, I looked it up on ebay a few times and it always went for around a grand. I definately couldn't afford that and didn't need a new guitar at all but I like to spend and I wanted it so I sent one of the ebay auctions to Eric. He called me at work agreeing with me that it was awesome and we talked about the price and I told him that all the other ones I looked at went for over $850 and he asked me if I wanted it. I said yes. He asked if I really wanted it and again I said yes. Then he just clicked the "Buy It Now" feature. It was like $740.00. He put it on one of his new credit cards and I took my sweet time paying it off. It didn't even build any interest. Eric was my funds. He knew I wanted it. He was just as excited about it as I was. So I had it shipped to my work. It came in the deluxe case and that case was in a huge box. It was awesome. I was so thrilled to get it. The first thing I played on it was She by Kiss.

I've seen the chick bassist in the Donna's play it in their video for Take It Off and she played it live on Saturday Night Live. I saw a used one at Guitar Center that was pretty beat up and it was marked at $999.99. Typical for Guitar Center.