Grabber/G3 bridge. Photo courtesy flyguitars.com
The move to Gibsons during late 1974 and into 1975 was purely financial. Larry Harris had set up an endorsement deal which apparently specified that the band use Gibsons exclusively on stage in exchange for free instruments (see And Party Every Day p. 100). For Gene this meant that he took possession of (at least) two Gibson Grabbers.
Introduced in 1973, the Grabber was designed by Bruce Bolen and Edward Klein and was Gibson's first bolt-on neck bass. It had an alder or maple body, a bolt-on maple neck and featured a sliding pickup—you "grabbed" it to change the pickup position, hence the name of the bass. Under the bridge cover was a lightweight bridge that was a pressed metal design clearly modeled on the bridge on a lot of Fender's models. Quite unlike the Fender bridge the Grabber/G3 bridge could only be strung through the body which meant that it required extra long strings. (The bright "dots" one can sometimes see in photos are the adjustment screws heads rather than the ball ends of the strings.)
However, the very early instruments had a one-piece neck with the trussrod added from the back, very much like the early Fender Stratocasters. This meant that there was a very prominent skunk stripe on the back and the headstock wasn't angled. (The straight headstock can be seen in the patent application.) This meant that it had to be made from a relatively large piece of wood which was counter to making an inexpensive instrument. Soon enough the neck construction had changed to a scarfed neck with aa eparate fingerboard and an angled headstock. But the version of the bass that Gene got in late 1974 was the early one with the skunk stripe, both the red metal flake bass and the natural maple one. We have a veritable metric ton of photos from the early daays of the band and as of yet there are no photos of him with a scarfed neck, angled headstock Grabber. (An interesting aside is that the Grabber was the least expensive instrument in the Gibson 1975 catalogue, even cheaper than the Marauder that Paul smashed on a nightly basis from 1976 onwards.)
The Gibson Grabber first showed up in Gene's hand on November 30. Apart from the finish it looks to have been completely stock. The available colors of the Grabber is a little complicated. In the 1975 catalogue it's only available in the Grabber Natural Finish and in the shipping documents the instruments made and shipped in 1974 don't have any color designation, they're just the Grabber G1. However, in 1975 Gibson also shipped a number of instrument in ebony and wine red, the latter a beautiful clear varnish-type finish. Neither of them look anything like the deep burgundy metal flake that Gene's main Grabber had. (The wood grain never shows through the finish on Gene's Grabber.)
Even though the Grabber had arrived it didn't immediately become Gene's bass of choice and the LoBue still carried the load as Gene's number one bass through most of December. "[The Grabber] was a well built instrument that weighed a ton, [...] the body was too big and I couldn't move as easily with the thing. [...] I had two of them on the road with me, but I liked the sound of the off-red one." (Metal Edge Presents KISS, 1996) As seen below, in London, Ontario, Gene posed with the Grabber backstage but played the LoBue on stage. In Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the Grabber was stood in the same backup position the P-bass had previously occupied.
It wasn't until the very last days of 1974 that Gene, possibly at the behest of management, started moving more towards the Grabber.
At the start of 1975 Gene made an effort to abide the Gibson deal and for most of the shows he chose the Grabber as seen in the photos below. But here we have to discuss an odd little wrinkle. Everyone has seen the bootleg video from Winterland which means that everyone has seen Gene play a natural Gibson Grabber. It is exceedingly odd that that particular instrument does not appear in any photos. Not a single one, not even photos from that date. Gene also brings out the metal flake Grabber for 100,000 years at Winterland—one can see the sparkling of the finish during his blood-spitting routine—and as seen below we have photos of that bass from that date. Apart from that video it's as if the natural Grabber simply didn't exist.
Throughout the comparatively few shows in February and March, when they were spending the majority of their time in Electric Lady recording Dressed To Kill, Gene was still mainly relying on the Grabber. (See the 1975 section on the LoBue for a nice exception.) But apparently something about the Grabber wasn't quite to Gene's liking. Around this time, after the taping of the Midnight Special TV appearance, is when Gene's search for something very specific seems to start. No matter what Gene may say in interviews, the various instruments he's tried and modified over the years all point to the same thing: he wants a simple, no-frills instrument.
Some time in mid-April Gene had his first real modification done, removing the tone knob and having just a single volume knob. Initially this was done by leaving the output jack in place and moving the volume to where the tone knob originally was. The change looks probable to have happened by April 19 but it is undeniable on April 22. In the photo below we can even see the hole where the volume knob was originally. I've included the photo from April 24 since it's the last photo I have that (seem to) shows the output jack is in its original place.
But things apparently weren't to Gene's liking. Perhaps the output jack was to close to the bridge, perhaps the location of the volume knob didn't feel right, we don't know. Whatever the reason both the output jack and the volume knob were moved. The output jack ended up where the tone knob had originally been and the volume knob migrated back to its original place.
This version of the Gibson Grabber—just a volume control and the moved output jack—was used for three of the four shows that were recorded for Alive!. (The Gibson Ripper were also used for some of the recordings.)
After July 20 there were relatively few shows booked as the band needed to spend time in Electric Lady for overdubs and mixing of the live album. As far as we know the Gibson Ripper was the bass of choice for the handful of shows during the first half of August. The Grabber wasn't discarded though, it stayed on as a backup and was used intermittently for quite some time. Although it is rare it also shows up standing in wait on Gene's side of the stage as seen below.
Below are a handful of occasions when The Grabber actually made it on stage during the fall of 1975, the only ones known to me.
Early 1976 saw Gene relying even more on his custom LoBue and there appeared another backup. The Grabber gamely hung on but once the Les Paul Triumph showed up the Grabber's days were numbered—it probably didn't make sense to travel with three backup basses. The Grabber can be seen backstage and standing on Gene's side a couple of times over the first few months of 1976.
As far as I can tell the Grabber only made its way back in stage once during the spring of 1976 but, true to form, when it did it presented a minor wrinkle. On March 20, 1976, in Lakeland, Florida the Grabber shows up with the tone knob back on but where the output jack used to be. It makes pretty much no sense. But then again, based on the photos from this show it was a pretty non-sensical affair! Based on the available photo evidence this is the last hurrah of the Grabber. It most emphatically DID NOT show up for auction in the mid-2000s.
In 2007 Heritage Auctions had a 1974 or (more likely) 1975 Gibson Grabber that was used by Mark Mendoza in the band The Dictators in the latter part of the 1970’s (lot #22314). According to the auction this bass was given to Mendoza by Gene Simmons in 1975 and there is a Letter of Authenticity which confirms this dated 1994-02-16 (and notarized on 1995-10-31). The Letter of Authenticity doesn’t mention whether or not Gene had ever actually used the bass in question, it only says that Mendoza got it from Gene, but the Heritage Auction claimed that it had been ”owned and used by Simmons”.
The veracity of this particular part of the story isn’t really my concern. As the photos below show Menodza played a black Gibson Grabber when he was a member of The Dictators and it’s not at all far-fetched to think that the instrument was given to him by Gene. In 1975 the KISS/Gibson deal was in full swing, the band availed themselves of numerous free guitars—Paul has mentioned that that he hocked more than one because he needed money—and Gene probably received several basses that he never used on stage.
Some time 1977-78 Mendoza had the headstock finished black and an arrow-like metal plate added and it was this look the bass had when it came up for auction in 2007. The photo below is supposed to be from Mark’s first show with Twisted Sister on December 10, 1978, in Piscataway, NJ so the bass was evidently used in Twisted Sister even though Mark moved on to a Music Man Stingray soon thereafter. (Mark would certainly never have worn that makeup with The Dictators!!)
The problem with this particular bass starts when one person who then owned it had the headstock restored some time between the 2007 auction and a later eBay auction in 2012. This owner presented the bass to Gene who, via a signed Certificate of Authenticity, ”confirmed” that this was the bass used on the cover of Alive! To get this part right, here is how it was presented in the 2012 eBay auction:
”This is Gene’s personal stage played Gibson Grabber bass from the 1970’s. The bass was Gene’s main guitar in the early days with KISS and even used on the ALIVE! album. […] Gene gave/sold this bass to Mark Mendoza of Twisted Sister…at that time the band was called the ”Dictators” [sic.]. Mark painted the headstock black to look more ”Twisted” for his band. Next, the bass was sold at auction to a big KISS collector in Florida. I purchased the bass from the collector. I sent the bass to the Gibson Custom shop to have the headstock restored back to its original condition. […] Most recently I had Gene sign, take a picture and authenticate the bass. I have all the paperwork and documents to support the journey of this bass back to Gene including a most recent COA stating that the bass was used and pictured on the Alive! album.”
If we disregard the fact that Gene's apparent lack of a neck in that photo makes me question the veracity of the photo itself, when it comes to history Gene has his head up his ass. Literally. The Mendoza Grabber was most certainly NOT the bass used on the cover of Alive! and a number of things prove this. First of all, the neck. Gene's Gibson Grabber was one of the earliest built and it had the straight neck with the skunk stripe on the back. The Mendoza Grabber has the later scarfed neck—circled in the photo below—and no skunk stripe.
Second, the electronics. As you know by now Gene had the tone knob removed and the output jack moved "up" a notch as seen in the photo below. The Mendoza Grabber has the original Grabber electronics.
If, once upon a time, the Mendoza Grabber actually was the bass that appears on the cover of Alive!—and the timeline does not support that in any way, shape or form—can we even consider it the same bass these days? I mean, think of the differences between the Alive! Grabber and the Mendoza Grabber: it's a different neck, the body has been refinished, and the electronics have been re-wired. No, all these these facts paint a simple picture: Gene has authenticated the wrong bass.
The Mendoza Grabber is an instrument that has a definite place in music history since it was used in both The Dictators and the early days of Twisted Sister, but it is NOT the bass that was pictured on KISS Alive! I sincerely hope that whoever bought this bass via that 2012 eBay auction was a corporation like Hard Rock Café and not a collector/fan who has been duped by the fact that Gene can’t remember anything and, to be perfectly honest, doesn’t really care about his past instruments.
