Date Posted: 08/14/2002 8:26 AM
Posted By: Chorks
Does anybody else lust after these basses as I do? After seeing one being played by the guy in McCartney's band, I needed to find out more about it. Luckily, the always-knowledgeable Walter Broes (thanks again, Walter!) sent me this info:
>-The hollowbody M85 has a 30 3/4 scale, maple body and mahogany neck and was made from '67 to '72, and was available with one (M85) or two (M85II) Hagstrom-made single coil pups.
-The solidbody version (what I think the McCartney guy was playing) was introduced in '72, made until '76, mahogany neck and body and same scale. These had the "new" Guild bass humbuckers, the one pup model being discontinued in '73.
These basses are the companion to Guild's original Bluesbird guitars, and went to solidbody around the same time the guitars did.<
So, does anybody else think they're as beautiful as I do?
Date Posted: 08/14/2002 8:58 AM
Posted By: dklsplace
Gruhn’s Guide to Vintage Guitars has pretty much the same info that Walter gave you.
Yes, they are beautiful instruments! Have you looked at the one's VintageMaster has? Is that actually a sparkle finish on the black one?
http://www.vintagemaster.ch/
Date Posted: 08/14/2002 9:12 AM
Posted By: Chorks
Thanks, Don! There are actually 3 M-85's there...all beautiful. Somehow, I see one of these in my future! ;-)
Date Posted: 08/14/2002 11:36 AM
Posted By: Walter_Broes
Hey Chorks,
You're extremely welcome, but I feel I should mention I got all that info from *miraculously* knowledgeable Hans Moust's Guild Book haha!
Date Posted: 08/14/2002 4:28 PM
Posted By: Chorks
Well, thanks to both you AND Hans, Walter!
Date Posted: 01/03/2003 2:17 AM
Posted By: Walter_Broes
I was browsing the inventory at Diamond Strings , no affiliation, but always some cool Guilds in stock (three aristocrats!), and came across this bass....too pretty not to post!
hollowbody M85 Bass
Date Posted: 01/11/2003 6:23 AM
Posted By: hansmoust
Hello everybody,
Well, here's another one in Emerald Green. Hope you enjoy that one too!
Hans
Date Posted: 01/11/2003 8:52 AM
Posted By: Chorks
Thanks for the photo of the stunning M85, Hans...someday, I'll just HAVE to own one, and with you and Walter tempting me like this, it'll probably be pretty soon!
Date Posted: 03/14/2003 11:00 AM
Posted By: mgod
Hi -
I've got 4 M-85s, picked over years. The one I've had the longest I got in '74. I'll put the long tedious story below. I recently wrote it up for the DudePit's Guild bass discussion forum - I'll heist it from there. About 12 years ago I got a black '70, had a Baddas on it which was changed some years back to a Wilkinson by Rick Turner. A couple years ago I got a 70's solidbody from Jay Pilzer, which I find fairly useless by comparison, but I'm working on that. And last fall from a ebay I got a badly refinished 68 off ebay in need of restoration, and that's with the guys at the Fender cusom shop so they can study it for a hoped-for resuurection of the old style M-85.
Needless to say, I love these things. And all pre-71 Guild basses.
Here's the URL, you can see pics of it there:
http://pub41.ezboard.com/fthedudepitfrm32.showMessage?topicID=142.topic
There were 3 custom instruments made by Guild in '68 for the Dead. This was for Phil. Top (spruce) and back (maple) are carved. The neck is a 3 piece running straight through the body, not touching the top or back until the butt of the instrument, where the bridge is sunk into it. I thought this was Owsley's idea (hence it appearing in the Guild Guitars book as a fact) but Mark Dronge tells me it was his, discussed in a limo ride from NYC to NJ w/Jerry, Phil and Weir.
Rick Turner meets the Youngblood's secretary in '69 shortly after his arrival in SF (where thru old pal Banana he meets Jesse Colin Young and does an inlay for him). She introduces him to Lesh who commissions an inlay on this fretless bass, introducing him to Bear and Ron Wickersham, and so Alembic is born.
Phil discovers he can't use the bass for some reason - maybe he doesn't relate to fretless. It sits at Alembic on Brady St. til '73 being used as a test bed for different electronic ideas.
July '73 - I am 16. I have just gotten my first Starfire, a sunburst '67 SF-I for $175. I am ecstatic but somehow disappointed. I do not sound like Jack. I have seen an M-85 and am thinking "Maybe I need something else!" I go to visit my oldest brother in Palo Alto from New Jersey and see a GP with an article listed on the cover "The Dead's Gear" and have in the last year gotten into them. I read article - an interview with RT all about Alembic. Next day I hop the train into the city, look up Alembic in a phone book and invite myself over. Nice people (the baby Micah is there too). I ask a bunch of questions but no RT - he is on his way back from a crafts fair in Bolinas showing the first Alembic "standard" guitar and bass - I am told to wait for him, he knows all. Speaker cabinets w/tie-dye all over the place. Instruments of all sort hanging up. The very first instrument visible is a blond M-85 with insane inlay and no strings. I am in love/lust/jaw hangin'. I am asking about it to anyone there. A nice guy named Sparky Razine tells me it belongs to his boss and he believes it's for sale. I sez "Oo's yer boss then?" He says, "Phil Lesh." And I'm thinking "Oh, @#%$. Well, that's that."
RT arrives. Couldn't be nicer and treats me not at all some kind of geeky long-haired teenager form New Jersey. He is excited that there is bass player in the shop (3&1/2 years already - I'm reeeaaaalllll good!). He has a bass he wants people to play and give him feedback on. Plus, while I'm waiting for him, everybody there is excited because the first JBL K151 in SF arrives and they mount it in a cab they have waiting and want to hear it. I am handed the bass, plugged into F2-B, Mac 2100 and K-151 in sealed box and told "Go man! Let's hear it!"
I am so blown away by the tone, the evenness, roundness and fullness that I don't even have a moment to feel on the spot. My 2nd thought is "So much for my Starfire..." I'm sure I gave Rick no useful feedback.
Eventually I get around to asking Rick about the M-85 and he tells me that Phil wants to sell it when Rick puts some kind of wiring back in it. How much? "Oh, probably $1000." Imagine $1000 then to a 16 year old. I leave, my head in the clouds.
Come September I'm back in NJ and the Dead play Philly. I follow the seats of the hockey rink back around the stage to look at the gear closer up. I see Sparky and yell hello. He recognizes me and asks "Did you ever get your bass?" I tell him I'm working on it and ask to come up there. He brings me onto the stage and we search around in different cases looking for Phil's SF. No luck. He says come back between sets. I try but stupidly go across the floor and never get there. (although once I break free from floor I go running up the arms of the chairs, slip and crack my sternum). After the show I go there again and he invites me back again and takes me backstage to meet Phil, who is leaning on a limo with two very buzzed teenage girls, all giggling. But do I let that stop me? Hah!
So I walk up, introduce myself and start throwing all kinds of questions about active electronics at him: What does he think of this idea or that idea? This probably only lasts a couple minutes - he's got some serious @#%$ going on and I know better than to wear out my welcome. As I'm walking away I throw a question back at him: "Hey! Whaddaya gonna do with that Bluesbird hanging up at Alembic?" He calls back: "I can't use it anymore. They can have it. You can have it if you want it!" I call "For free?" He says "Yeah! I give it you!" I just laugh and leave the arena.
My friends are waiting for me outside and it suddenly hits me and I tell them "I think Phil Lesh just gave me a bass..."
The next day I send a letter to the Dead Heads PO box and one to RT telling him what happened, admitting I'm embarrassed to bring it up but maybe he meant it and I'd be dumb not to look into it. 4 months later I get a letter from him telling he that he talked to Phil and yes, it's mine, but Phil wants me to come get it, rather than it being shipped to me.
This all resulted in some serious ostracizing for a bit. First I come back from SF, the first of us ever to go this mecca, yammering about Alembic to every musician I know. "Olympic? What?" Then I tell a few close friends that winter about the letter from RT and all of South Jersey having recently converted to Deadheads (they hadn't played our area from 68-72), it spreads like fire and everybody thinks I'm lying.
But eventually I get a call from Rick. It's ready but I owe $400 for the wiring parts and to Glen Quan for a finish he was never paid for. I find and send the money and my brother is coming east on business and Rick thinks that's OK - him handing it to my brother is the same to him as me flying out and him handing it to me. It's memorial day weekend and I'm on a canoeing trip up the Delaware but when I get back Sunday night - there it is. Beautiful, mine. My brother tells me that Jack was in the shop when he went to pick it up and says, "I hope you'll be playing that around here- that's a seriously karma laden bass." My brother tells him its for his little brother in New Jersey.
And as I started to use it I discovered why Phil gave it up. Gorgeous yes, but not so great sounding. But it was my fretless and I used it like that for many years.
In '88 when RT was at Gibson here in town I handed it to him and said " Rick - make this thing be what we know it can be please." And in '90 he calls me and leaves a message "Well, 21 years I've been working on this thing but it finally works!"
First thing he did was remove the pickups (they are both now in my original sunburst SF) and it could come alive acoustically). Then he dumped the bridge/tailpiece (it's brass blocks are on the SF too). He devised a new tailpiece/bridge with his own piezo pickups as the saddles and came up with a new string, a giant classical guitar string, non-magnetic, with a nylon core and bronze winding. Judge the sound for yourself: it's half of the Tuesday Night Music Club album. Most audible on "We do What We Can." From this RT developed his Renaissance line.
The first pictures were taken in '78, when it was intact. The other is from Larry Robinson's book "The Art of Inlay." Since then I removed the plastic laminate that covered the pickup holes. It sounds much better this way.
Date Posted: 03/17/2003 8:54 AM
Posted By: dklsplace
Great story mgod, & welcome aboard!
What I find especially promising...
...a badly refinished 68 off ebay in need of restoration, and that's with the guys at the Fender cusom shop so they can study it for a hoped-for resuurection of the old style M-85.
Date Posted: 03/28/2003 8:32 AM
Posted By: Chorks
Ooops, sorry mgod, I meant to respond but spaced it out! GREAT post...thanks for all the info!
Date Posted: 08/01/2003 3:23 PM
Posted By: BassGuild
What a story MGOD! That's a one in a life time type deal!
Hey I'm brand new to this forum. I'm working for a guy (Brian Bowdren) who specializes in Guild bass restoration, repair and replacement parts. He has published several articles on Guild basses and has ventured into making custom B.Bo bass guitars of his own design. His Butta' Bass design borrows heavily from the Guild Pilot and Fender Jazz Bass. I'll spare you the details but you can check us out and the Butta' Bass concept at
http://www.bassguild.com
We do try to keep Guild basses on hand at all times. Currently we have a B50, several Pilots and a Starfire. If we can be of any assistance on fact finding, guitar finding, parts, buying old Guilds, etc. Please e mail us.
I wish we had about 50 x M-85s, definiely one of the most beautiful basses around.
Mike
I specialize in Guild and custom B.Bo Bass guitars.
Date Posted: 08/02/2003 8:32 AM
Posted By: dklsplace
Reply to : BassGuild
I wish we had about 50 x M-85s, definiely one of the most beautiful basses around
No doubt about that!!! Weclome aboard Mike, very cool site!
Didn't Epiphone start a production bass that's pretty similar to the M-85? In appearance at least.