sumlin wrote:It says
BLUE MOSRITE GUITAR
B52s guitarist Ricky Wilson played Rock Lobster, Dance This Mess Around and many other of the band's early classics on this guitar as the group toured extensively.
This instrument was also featured on the lyric sheet of their 1979 debut album.
Ricky's unorthodox approach to the guitar is evidenced by the missing strings. Ricky strung his guitars with either four or five extra thick strings instead of the usual six and he also devised a different tuning for almost every song the band created.
Collection of Linda J. Wilson
I found a quite close up pic but I can't post it as something's up with the coding for the forum at the moment. The pic shows the paintwork is badly crazed, the pickguard has browned around the screw holes, the knobs are as they were (one original, one that looks like it's off a TV) and it's strung with 5 strings at the moment.
I can't see for sure but it doesn't look to have a serial number...
Thanks. The guitar looked battered even by the time it was photographed for the first album cover, In that photo you can see it's missing a knob and has duct tape on it to hold the strap on. It didn't have a rusty pickguard then though.
sumlin wrote:I've had a pretty varied musical life so far, played with a lot of truly unusual musicians, guitar orchestras, improvised stuff, punk rock etc and lots of it in strange tunings but rediscovering Ricky's playing a short while ago re-inspired me like nothing else. He plays exactly what's needed to uniquely convey his musical viewpoint - which just happens to be totally excellent.
Ricky did play parts that I had no idea were being played until I listened closer. "Rock Lobster" is (or was, if they fixed it) not charted properly on guitar for the video game Rock Band 3, there are parts missing in the last few minutes.
- Austin