1977 Spector SB-1 with Model P pickup
According to Gene he met Stuart Spector, then just an upstart luthier working out of a small Brooklyn shop, during the Destroyer sessions. "I just had a guy named Stuart Spector build me one with a longer neck. The body is completely original but based on the concept of an old Gibson Melody Maker. It has a twin horn, small body, with one DiMarzio pickup." (Guitar Player, February 1979) The shape of the bass was indeed completely original in that it was custom shaped but it wasn't an original design. At the time Spector only had two model bass guitars, the SB-1 and the SB-2. They both had the same body shape and the number only refered to the number of pickups. According to the Spector web site "Gene Simmons of mega-group KISS commissioned several Brooklyn Era SB-1 basses from Stuart in the late 1970's. Some of the modifications included a special gloss black paint job with white binding along the sides of the body. Stuart shaved down the normally bulbous horns of the SB-1 into points."
The SB-1 had a laminated maple neck and the body had walnut sides (as did the headstock). It came with either a DiMarzio Model P or a DiMarzio Model One pickup and Gene chose the latter. The bridge was Gene's favored Leo Quan Badass which was, as per usual, hidden behind a Fender P-bass bridge cover. Spector used brass nuts but it's hard to see if that was the case on Gene's SB-1. The controls were one volume and one tone with a mini switch which controlled the phase of the pickup coils. Gene would ultimately have two SB-1 basses and the first—which I will refer to as Spector no. 1—appeared in time for the CanAm Tour in support of Love Gun. Personally I think this belies Gene's claim that Spector had tried to sell Gene on a bass as early as Destroyer. Spector's design was set, he built what he built with only modest alterations to fit KISS's image, so there's no reason that it would have taken more than a year for the bass to make it on stage. Especially once we see all the other basses Gene tried over the course of 1976.
Anyway, the Spector no. 1 story is as long and twisting as that of the Custom LoBue so in order to be able to refer to the various versions we need a naming convention. We start here.
As mentioned above, Gene's SB-1 had a custom high-gloss black finish with wide white trim on the sides. The original knobs had been replaced by an unknown pair of silver knobs and the mini switch had been removed (more of which later). Most importantly, and not something Spector did, Gene had a Schaffer Vega wireless transmitter built into the bass. As we will see in the vast majority of photos from this tour when the output jack is visible, Spector no. 1 was never plugged in. (And there was no transmitter anywhere on Gene's strap.)
Whenever I mention this in any context, there is immediate pushback simply because most people have never seen a built-in transmitter and can't quite get their heads around the concept. To these people there simply has to be a cable going out to a separate transmitter. (Never mind that Angus Young had a Schaffer-Vega transmitter built into one of his Gibson SG shortly after Gene and Paul did it.) Thankfully we have the exception that proves the rule as it were. On one of the very first dates of the tour something went wrong with Gene's wireless transmitter and he was forced to go old-school and use a regular cable. The cable is very conspicuous in the photos below. And for the rest of the photos I will present here, you will not see a cable again.
Gene was completely uninterested on subtlety and the ability to switch the phase of the pickups coils wasn't useful in the context of the KISS live experience. But it appears that Spector delivered Spector no. 1 with the mini switch and that Gene's tech removed it and simply covered the resulting hole by various pieces of tape. This is not always visible since they prudently chose a small square of black tape, but under some lighting conditions and angles it can be seen.
Since the paint job of Spector no. 1 was different from the standard SB-1 (which had no paint job at all) but the maple neck was still exposed, the paint job featured a sharp point right at the neck joint and the back of the headstock was only finished on the walnut sides which left the maple part of the top of the headstock unfinished as well, a look I've always thought was a little odd.
Spector no. 1 looked exactly the same throughout the CanAm Tour as these photos from the last two weeks of the tour will attest.
For some reason—and it was probably convenience for the techs—both Gene and Paul moved towards a more standard use of wireless transmitters for the 1977-78 Winter Tour in support of Rock and Roll Over. Gene even chose to use a cable for the promo photos shot during rehearsals. As seen below, this was a short-lived period when there was no piece of tape that covered the hole left by the mini switch. This was obviously fixed once the tour began, although not always as well as one could hope.
Apart from the use of a cable and external transmitter, the specifications of Spector no. 1 remained the same for the early part of the tour.
But in time for the run of four sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden in mid-December, the knobs had been changed. Gone were the non-descript silver knobs and in their stead came classic speed knobs.
For some idiosyncratic reason, Gene then changed the knobs again. The last known use of the speed knobs was in Chicago, Ilinois on January 15, 1978. A few days later in Detroit Gene had switched back to the original Spector knobs which he had never used live before this. I have to admit that I find it curious that Spector no. 1 went through so many knobs while Spector no. 2 would retain the silver knobs for a long time.
Towards the latter part of this tour Gene's tech seems to have moved away from the piece of tape towards something that looks more like a black version of Vite-Out. Or maybe I'm just mistaken and that's a worn piece of tape we see in the photo from Japan below. Note the wear that had started showing at the edge of the body below the bridge cover. As usual Gene's costume was putting his basses through their paces.
When KISS made their (somewhat) triumphant return to the stage in 1979, Spector no. 1 was there and it looked much like it had when we last saw it in 1978. Same DiMarzio Model One pickup, same Spector knobs, and lot of nicks along the edge of the body.
Gene's tech had also returned to (or just continued) the use of a small piece of tape to cover the hole left from the mini-switch as these photos show.
And then, in time for the second show in Richfield, Ohio, Spector no. 1 sported a different, black Model One pickup. (The Model One wasn't built so that you could just switch the pickup cover so this was a brand new pickup.) I can't really think of any reason why you would change pickups like this unless there was some problem with the original nickel cover pickup, especially since there were other changes afoot.
If one were so inclined one could argue that the pickup change was an initial step in a larger change to Spector no. 1, but that doesn't make much sense. (It is obviously possible that the next set of changes weren't planned when the pickup was changed.) At the end of August 1979 there was a planned break in touring—the last photo I have of the original paint job is from August 18, the second-to-last show before the break—and when they returned to the stage on September 1 the bass had a whole new look. Gene had Steve Carr re-finish the bass all black, including the back of the neck, and in the process the small hole left by the mini switch had been filled. Carr had also inlayed Gene's makeup visage on the headstock.
And that's how Spector no. 1 looked for the remainder of the Return of KISS Tour.
The promotion/touring in support of Unmasked began as The Return of KISS had ended. Spector no. 1 was used for the photo shoot at the Palladium and for the later show that presented Eric Carr to the KISS world. And when the European Tour began in late August in Italy it was used throughout the shows in Rome and Genoa.
And then... nothing. It's as if a switch had been flipped, as far as my photo collection is concerned Spector no. 1 simply disappeared and Spector no. 2 became Gene's go-to bass for the remainder of the tour. It's one of the most interesting switches in the history of Gene's basses. Spector no. 1 was still—for all intents and purposes—the same bass that he had used for three full tours and functionally there was virtually no difference between no. 1 and no. 2. If Spector no. 1 had ridden into the sunset here I could kind of get it, but it wasn't on the bench for long. (In touring terms, that is. In actual time it was sidelined for quite a while.)
As 1982 drew to a close and KISS got ready to mount their 10th Anniversary Tour, Spector no. 1 returned after a moderately long hiatus. The time off was partially due to the lack of touring for (Music From) The Elder, and partially because of Gene's preference for Spector no. 2 since September 1980. But for this tour Spector no. 1 returned with a vengance and it had a whole new look as seen below.
In the interim Spector no. 1 had gotten a ton of modifications. Most obvious is that the DiMarzio Model One had been replaced by a Music Man bass pickup. (The large plastic frame around the pickup was because the Model One was larger than the Music Man.) This was actually a passive pickup but Music Man combined it with active electronics. The Butterfields auction book claimed that Gene started using a Music Man Stingray in the studio starting with Creatures of the Night, and all the modifications here suggest that he wanted a Stingray sound from Spector no. 1. You'll note that the original tone and volume knobs had been removed—you can see the holes have been filled—and the new knobs, of which there are now three, are suspiciously similar to those on a Stingray. The third knob ended up where the output jack used to be, so the output jack was moved to the side of the bass.
In one of those odd twists that are all over the history of Gene's basses, Spector no. 1 was the overwhelming favorite during the entire month of January. And then it seems to have been completely absent during the entire month of February while Spector no. 2 took over.
But then Spector no. 1 once again became the true darling throughout the month of March. One wonders if there was some issue that befell it or if it was just one of Gene's whims. Spector no. 1 was also part of the last gasp of the makeup era when the band traveled to South America for the first time, but the available photos suggest that it was just a backup. Most of the photos and video show Spector no. 2 and the Kramer Axe.
The original plan in 1989-90—apart from starting the tour much earlier—was to go back to basics. They had been forced to dig up a few oldies in Japan in 1988 to fill the playing time needed for a TV special. That led to a lot of older songs during the club gigs that summer, and then Paul mined the back catalog for gems during his 1989 solo tour. Coupled with the runaway success of Smashes, Thrashes & Hits it became evident that classic KISS was commercially viable. The decision was made to put together a massive setlist of oldies. And if the songs harkened back to the glory days, why not bring out a few vintage instruments? French entertainment program M6 visited the band during music rehearsals at SIR and we got to see a couple of guitars we hadn't seen in a while. Paul proudly displayed one of his original Ibanez PS10 and when the band launched into "I Stole Your Love", Gene sported the good old Spector no. 1.
Even though Spector no. 2 was used for the Spring Break show in Galveston, Texas in March, when the "proper" warm-up gigs began in April it became obvious that Spector no. 1 was back for real. The Music Man experiment from 1982-83 had been abandoned and the pickup had been switched to an EMG humbucker. It's not immediately obvious since it is almost impossible to spot in photos, but the plastic frame was still the same. In a few high-resolution photos one can see the cutout for the two adjustment screws of the Music Man pickup. It was, however, mounted upside-down relative to how it had been during the 10th Anniversary Tour. (And during the main Hot in The Shade tour, the top of the EMG was taped down.)
Since the Stingray electronics were no longer needed the controls had been simplified. Only the volume knob remained and the output jack had moved from the side and taken up residence where the Stingray Treble knob had been. The hole left from the removed Bass knob was filled which meant that the bass now had three very visible patched holes. To complete the "classic" look there was a re-applied white binding which appears to only have been white strips of tape. (There are gaps in the binding in some spots.)
Some time between the last warm-up club gig in Reseda, California and the tour dress rehearsals in Lubbock, Texas Spector no. 1 got studded. (We know this because William Hames was on hand to document the band's instruments during the rehearsals.) We really shouldn't be surprised. The photos from the shows in April are of a bass that had been beat almost to death. In addition to the three (!) patched holes previously mentioned, the finish was worn down to the bare wood in a lot of places. So Gene's tech removed the temporary binding and simply studded the entire front which covered up most of the blemishes. But the patched hole left from the Stingray Bass knob was still visible.
Spector no. 1 wasn't used a ton on the tour—the two Pedullas carried this tour—but it got a fair bit of use. It wasn't used for a specific part of the show though. Sometimes it was brought out for the middle of the show starting around "Fits Like a Glove", other times it opened the show, and still others it wasn't used at all.
Spector no. 1 then surfaced briefly in 1992 for the video to "Unholy". Based on the few photos I've seen it still looked like the mkVIII Hot In The Shade incarnation. But then, when it was part of the Convention tour in 1995 it had suddenly gotten a P-style EMG pickup. (Since this was never used on stage it doesn't get a "mark".) The convention tourbook was a detail-oriented fan's nightmare and, unfortunately for my neuroses, Spector no. 1 was the worst of the lot. Not only was the bass mirrored in the picture, it was consistently described as a "Spectre", and the text claimed that it was the first "Spectre" bass ever made. The convention museum description wasn't much better, calling the bass a "custom made prototype Spector bass guitar 1979".
As far as we know Spector no. 1 hadn't been used on stage since 1990, so the change of pickup is a little odd. Gene may simply have felt that he wanted Spector no. 1 to match the pickup configuration of his new Punishers—which he seems to have gotten relatively late—but we really don't know. Either way, it was a lot of work to have done on an instrument if it wasn't intended for use. Since they basically just switched one EMG for another there wasn't any problematic wiring or anything, but the shape of the new pickup required a new plastic plate that would fit.
When the time came to re-create classic KISS for the Detroit Rock City movie in 1998 Gene chose Spector no. 1. It was later lot 1126 in the Butterfields auction and has changed hands a couple of times since then. (It's a shame some owner has "fixed" the back of the heel and removed the screw-in loop.) In a lot of the auction photos we got to see a plate that covers the entire back of the bass. I would love to know what's under that cover, because there has to be some traces of the built in wireless transmitter under there...
