What is Pete Willis playing in this video?
- Thread starter Securb
- Start date
Chris Pile
Well-known member
Joan Jett has one, too. Gibson Melody Maker modded with humbuckers.
Larson-JoanJett.jpg (1677×1086) (newyorker.com)
Larson-JoanJett.jpg (1677×1086) (newyorker.com)
Didn’t even notice that and it looks like there’s a crown on there. Now I HAVE to know.
Man, I love the first 2 albums. After that...
LLL
New member
Yep - after they fired Pete, it was an eventual change to pop rock starting with Hysteria.
St_Genesius
New member
This one is sort of close: wider than MM headstock (though narrower than an LP), with an inlay. Wraparound bridge. Wrong pickups and no branding, but it potentially reinforces the idea of it being a MM clone.
https://jakewildwood.blogspot.com/2020/08/1970s-hot-rodded-melody-maker-matsumoku.html?m=1
https://jakewildwood.blogspot.com/2020/08/1970s-hot-rodded-melody-maker-matsumoku.html?m=1
St_Genesius
New member
Is there ever a point where we can get a sense of the strap attachment point? The Gibsons attach to the back of the body, while most of the copies attach to the base of the neck.
Nevermind: it's attached to the upper horn, which is different from either, but a common enough mod to both.
Nevermind: it's attached to the upper horn, which is different from either, but a common enough mod to both.
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weepingminotaur
Well-known member
Hysteria isn't all pop-rock, though. And that change was as much about Mutt Lange as it was anything else.
But of course, I'm one of those people who prefer their Pyro/Hysteria stuff to the early material, which wasn't bad but to me nothing particularly special. In any case, the Willis/Clark era is quite different from Clark/Collen or Collen/Campbell. Always fun to look at the contrasts. Almost like they're different bands.
St_Genesius
New member
Sure, there were some bangers but overall...meh.
Securb
One of Jerry's Kids
I saw them open for Ozzy on his first US tour with Pete. They were like a freight train powerful, fast and heavy.
weepingminotaur
Well-known member
I respect Clark's legacy as much as anyone, but saying he wrote most of their music is just incorrect. He wrote more in the early days (so did Willis and Rick Savage, actually), but as his alcoholism progressed and the band lineup changed, a lot of the music started to be written by Collen, Joe Elliott, Savage, and Mutt Lange. On Hysteria, Clark wrote "Gods of War" and contributed parts to other songs, just like the other band members and Lange. But the album was a super-collaborative process. "Pour Some Sugar On Me" was Elliott-Lange for the most part. Savage, Clark, and Collen each came up with different parts of "Hysteria."
As for Clark's alcoholism, they had given him time off to get himself together in the months before he died, because his drinking had made him functionally unable to contribute to the band. Willis, by contrast and to hear the rest of the band tell it, was a mean drunk. Clark wasn't mean or confrontational; he just quietly drank himself to death. Very sad.
idsnowdog
Imperator of Indignation
People have described him as having a Napoleon or small dog complex. Get him boozed up and he starts barking at everything bigger than him.
