Lick It Up World Tour tour book
Photos by Geoffrey Thomas
It would be interesting to know how Gene got his eye on Pedulla basses. After the game of musical bass chairs during 1975-76 Gene had pretty much settled on the Spectors and one Axe or another. There was really nothing to suggest he was dissatisfied with them. After all, Spector no. 2 was still in the rotation when KISS demasked in 1983 and would remain the clear favorite for quite a while. Based on the fact that Spector no. 1 disappeared for a couple of years in the 80s just as the Pedulla turned up it seems likely that Gene just felt that he needed a new backup bass.
The black Pedulla Gene got in 1983 was an MVP model with Pedulla’s standard Bartolini pickups. (Pedulla had ended up in the booth next to Bartolini at the 1978 NAMM show in Chicago which led to a lifelong collaboration.) The MVP standard active electronics had three controls—volume, pickup pan, and tone—but the instrument Gene got only had a single P-bass style pickup and two controls (presumably volume and tone). The MVP had a three-piece laminated maple neck with an ebony fretboard. The neck featured a brass nut and Schaller tuners. The body was usually made of flame maple sides but since this bass was finished black they probably just used “regular” maple. This version of the Pedulla was used for the tourbook photo shoot and the video shoot for Lick It Up. If you look closely at the photos in the 1983 tour book you can actually see the relief Bartolini logo on the pickups.
During the vast majority of the European leg of the Lick It Up Tour the black Pedulla is pretty much nowhere to be found but I think we can just chalk that up to Spector no. 2 being an indestructible workhorse. The Pedulla was part of the lineup that traveled to Europe though, and it did get on stage. The first photo here is less than clear but the body shape and lack of a pickguard suggests that it is the black Pedulla. The photo from Newcastle, England in October is also a little hard to make out but based on the headstock that is almost certainly the black Pedulla. (It's perfectly possible that it was used before this and simply wasn't photographed. Most photographers seem to have gravitated towards Gene when he was playing the Jackson Axe.)
Once the band returned to the States the Pedulla suddenly found more favor with Gene. It wasn't giving off main character energy—Spector no. 2 was still the undisputed first choice—but compared to the fall of 1983 the Pedulla got a lot more use. Since these are the first decent photos of the black Pedulla let's have a look at the modifications. Gene had moved to active EMG pickups in time for the 10th Anniversary Tour and it's not surprising that the Bartolinis in the Pedulla were changed to a P-style EMG. And, as per usual, Gene's standard bridge cover had been added. (It was conspicuously missing in the tour book photos.)
This trend of increased use continued once the Animalize Tour began. By the start of the European leg of that tour Spector no. 2 was looking a little worse for the wear and the Pedulla stepped in and took on a much greater role, essentially becoming Gene's number one. Below is a representative selection of photos from throughout the tour.
I’ve chosen this last photo to point out one good thing about the Pedulla: the headstock logo. The Pedulla and Spector no. 2 had deceptively similar headstocks. They were almost the same shape, and both basses had a brass nut and Schaller tuners. But thankfully the logos differed so much that it’s easy to tell them apart even in relatively poor quality photos. We don’t need to see any part of the body of the bass, we can identify which one it is from the headstock alone (within reason).
Once the US leg of the Animalize Tour began the Pedulla retained its position as the number one choice. One thing changed though. During the European leg Gene had worn various animal print sleeves on his right forearm. These were all soft and, in some cases, made of faux fur which didn't affect the body of the basses he played. Even though the black Pedulla was used nightly it showed no wear at all where Gene rested his right arm. For the US leg Gene got some good old-fashined studded armbands that you can see in the photos below. Granted, as the Steve Philips photo below shows they obviously weren't studded on the side towards the body, but the studs still hit the body of the Pedulla and it began to show some wear.
This wear got worse as the tour went on. The solution was, as always, a strip of tape. Throughout the rest of the tour we can—if Gene's arm isn't in the way—see a section of tape of varying width covering up the wear. Naturally the tape also took a beating from the studded armbands and there were times where the tape got worn off in the middle of a show. There was also significant wear on the back from Gene's studded codpiece. Much like the custom LoBue and the two Spectors before it, the Pedulla suffered for being the favorite and ended the Animalize tour with some real battle scars.
One thing that is easy to miss if one doesn't have access to high-resolution images (or if one isn't a complete lunatic) is that Gene tried the Dunlop Straplok for a while here at the start of the unmasked era. Paul had favored this for a while so it was probably easy enough to try. This was something that was added to the new basses like the black Pedulla and the Jackson Axe. The old, trusted No. 2 Spector seems to have retained its screw-in loop.
In 1985 Gene appeared with a white Pedulla MVP. Perhaps Gene felt that the black Pedulla would clash with the Asylum stage outfits' general "Vegas showgirl on drugs" look and that a white one was a better fit visually. Perhaps the wear and tear of the black Pedulla had finally taken its toll. Whatever the reason for the switch, once the band hits the stage in support of Asylum the white Pedulla was Gene's no. 1 bass. It was a complete copy-paste of the black version with the exception that this one appears to have been fitted with EMG's from day one. This bass was Gene's clear number one throughout the tour.
Only one thing really happens to this bass over the course of the tour. The white Pedulla originally had a Dunlop Straplok just like its black "brother". It seems to have been working perfectly fine for the black Pedulla throughout 1984 and 85, and it can be seen in the more high-resolution photos of the white Pedulla from the start of the Asylum tour. But some time in January it get replaced by Gene's old standby screw-in loop.
Even if the white Pedulla was the bass of choice there things were afoot and the Asylum Tour ended up being one of the tours when Gene used the largest number of basses. Like this red Pedulla that popped up out of nowhere in February 1986. There are precious few photos of this bass in my collection and none that show any real detail. I am, however, confident that these photos show a red Pedulla and not the even more elusive red Spector NS that also made an occasional appearance. To the best of my knowledge this particular bass was only ever used for this tour and it has been nowhere to be seen since.
For the photo shoots for Crazy Nights that produced the image on the back of the album sleeve, Gene posed with the white Pedulla and it looked more or less like it had done during the end of the Asylum Tour except that the bridge cover had been removed showing the customary Leo Quan Badass bridge. With hindsight we can assume that the "missing" bridge cover was in preparation for the re-finish it would soon get. As usual, Gene hadn't been able to just go all in on the sequins and pastels during the Asylum Tour so a couple of studded wrist bands (and the cod piece he apparently just could not live without) had caused some substantial damage to the white finish.
The new finish, which featured a reproduction of Gene's makeup visage with a snake-like tongue, was ready in time for the August 8, 1987 filming of the "Crazy Crazy Nights" video. There was also a semi-nude figure of a woman added to the headstock. (During that taping they also shot the "live" photos for the tour book and that's how we can date the new finish.) In addition to the new paint job the makeup face Pedulla also got the bridge cover painted black and the tone knob replaced by a chrome cover of some kind. Overall it didn't get much use during the US leg of the tour, the clear number one during that time was the Staccato.
There is a slight uptick in the number of photos of the makeup Pedulla during the summer, first at The Ritz and then during the Monsters of Rock shows in August but it's short and fleeting. There were the odd show here and there where the makeup Pedulla got called upon, but Staccato was still the go-to bass right until the end of the tour.
This is wildly conjectural since the black Pedulla had been away from the spotlight for so long, but I believe that it was re-finished with a dragon face motif at the same time as the white Pedulla got the makeup face paint job. Why do I say that? Because the dragon Pedulla first appears at that August 8, 1987 video shoot. (Due to the editing of the video, Gene plays both the Staccato and the dragon Pedulla.) And in that footage and still photos the dragon Pedulla is lacking the bridge cover which one would assume had been put back on if the re-finish had happened much earlier. Anyway, the headstock was also re-finished (although somewhat crudely) with a matching dragon claw.
One interesting thing about the dragon Pedulla is that, unlike the makeup face Pedulla, it still retained the tone knob. You can see it in the photos above and in the first photo below from opening night of the tour. Less interesting but still relevant is that this bass was not popular during this tour. As the photos below attest, and they cover pretty much the entire Crazy Nights tour cycle, it did get some use so it traveled with Gene, but so far these are the only known photos of it. Now, it's hard to tell but it looks as if there is only one knob in the photo from The Ritz. Then again, I could be seeing things.
The makeup face Pedulla began the Hot In The Shade Tour in the same condition that it had ended the Crazy Nights Tour: side output jack, chrome cover where the tone knob had been, and some noticeable wear to the black paint on the bridge cover. Some time during the summer there came a minor change. By August the circular chrome cover had been replaced by a square red cover. In extreme closeups it looks like it might have been a pyramid shape but in other photos it appears completely flat. So far the photo evidence doesn't allow us to narrow it down any further than that the change happens some time between late May—the chrome cover is still there in Detroit, Michigan on May 18—and early August.
If we look really closely at those August 3 photos there is some indication that the paint around the screw in loop had begun to peel. This might indicate that the thread was becoming stripped—that they tried to screw it further in to "catch" wood. At least that's a reasonable assumption considering what happened some time in August/September. As seen below the screw-in loop that Gene used to secure his strap had moved a little to the side. In high-resolution closeups one can even see the original hole.
Finally, something of a head-scratcher. As you can see in the photo from Charleston above the square red cover was still present and the output jack was on the side. But once we get to the final show of the tour just over a week later the output jack had moved to the front, to the position where the tone knob used to be. If there had been a catastrophic failure of the original output jack they could just have ignored this particular bass. After all, there was only a week left—a total of six shows—and Gene had two other basses he could use. Why perform this modification so late in the tour. Especially, as we will see below, when the dragon Pedulla had gotten that treatment months earlier...?
The dragon Pedulla started the tour with just a volume knob and the output jack on the side. Again we have wonderful high-resolution photos that even show the hole where the tone knob used to be. It's interesting that they chose not to cover up the hole on the dragon Pedulla when they tried various things on the makeup Pedulla. (Looking at where the hole was one would think that the same red cover used on the Jackson Axe would have been perfect here.) Some time over the last 15 months the dragon Pedulla had also acquired a new white binding as seen in the photos below.
Unlike the makeup Pedulla the dragon moved the output jack to the front some time in May or June. This was how the bass stayed during the remainder of the tour.
