60's Starfire II bass with The Smile (Thom Yorke)

[mellowgerman]

Happened to see the thumbnail for this new performance video and the dual-Bisonic Starfire immediately caught my eye. Looks like '67-'69, going by the harp bridge, suck-switch, and the smaller pre-1970 headstock. I believe Johnny Greenwood (guitar guy here and also in Radiohead with Thom) has come up in discussion here as being a Starfire bass fan, but this is the first time I've seen Thom Yorke with one... though I'm not Radiohead super-fan, so haven't seen many videos of these guys. Anyway, always fun to see a Starfire bass pop up in a video! The link below should take you right to the 8min 50sec time-marker when the bass gets tagged in.

 

[mellowgerman]

Sidenote, this one reminds me of the vintage Starfire which I believe we've seen up for sale a couple of times, where the tip of the headstock had been sawn off to make it fit in a smaller than ideal case. Hypothetically this could be the one but I don't recall if it was a SFB-1 or SFB-2, nor what finish it was

 

[Norrissey]

The band "The Smile" on NPR Tiny Desk. This is a side project of Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. In the third song Thom Yorke plays some beautiful stuff on a vintage Starfire II (I think?) bass.

 

[lungimsam]

It’s vintage, or else Guild just started making relic-Ed reissues!!
5 quick giveaways are the small shaft tuners and the receding headstock edges, the olde fashioned truss rod cover, the metal push button switch on the body, and the highly desirable silver triangle-ish, conical-ish toggle switch tip. I learned about these on LTG!!

Point of interest: his low e string is from a different set than the other strings in his stringset.

I bet someone on this forum could tell the exact year! I think it is 1966-69, but I can’t get a closer guess than that.

 

[walrus]

Posted here earlier:

https://letstalkguild.com/ltg/index...ith-the-smile-thom-yorke.214989/#post-2062782

walrus