Once Gibson figured out that one-piece necks weren’t commensurate with producing a cheap instruments they started producing the Grabber with a scarfed neck which basically means that the headstock is a separate piece that’s glued onto the neck. Gibson obviously understood this and the 1974 patent application of the Grabber shows this ”straight” headstock.) The photo below is from Evansville, IN 74-12-31 and shows that the headstock of Gene’s main Grabber wasn’t angled at all. (Having a neck in one piece and an angled headstock would require a bigger piece of wood to produce the neck. Having the neck in one piece while keeping costs down also required that the headstock was straight rather than angled back as Gibsons usually had and both of Gene’s Grabbers had this. This ”skunk stripe” is clearly visible in photos of Gene from the time and to make this point perfectly clear the photo below is from the photo shoot by Fin Costello that produced the actual cover of Alive! Look at the auction photos of the Mendoza Grabber again. However, for the earliest Grabbers the neck was still produced in one piece and the truss rod added from the back which left it with a ”skunk stripe”. In order to do that Gibson introduced its first bolt-on neck on a bass guitar. The whole idea of the Grabber was to sell a cheap bass of decent quality. The Mendoza Grabber was most certainly NOT the bass used on the cover of Alive! and a number of things prove this. When it comes to history Gene has his head up his ass. I have tried to find more photos from this 2012 eBay auction but none have surfaced so far.
Photo below which show Gene with the Mendoza Grabber comes courtesy KISSopolis which reported on the auction. 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.” Most recently I had Gene sign, take a picture and authenticate the bass. I sent the bass to the Gibson Custom shop to have the headstock restored back to its original condition. Next, the bass was sold at auction to a big KISS collector in Florida. Mark painted the headstock black to look more ”Twisted” for his band. Gene gave/sold this bass to Mark Mendoza of Twisted Sister…at that time the band was called the ”Dictators”. The bass was Gene’s main guitar in the early days with KISS and even used on the ALIVE! album. ”This is Gene’s personal stage played Gibson Grabber bass from the 1970’s. 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:
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. (Mark would certainly never have worn that makeup with The Dictators!!) Top photo courtesy photo courtsey Heritage Auctions. Top photo below is supposed to be from Mark’s first show with Twisted Sister on 78-12-10 in Piscataway, NJ so the bass was evidently used in Twisted Sister even though Mark moved on to a Music Man Stingray soon thereafter. 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.
Gene simmons grabber bass full#
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. 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.
The veracity of this particular part of the story isn’t really my concern. Note that this 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”. 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 (and notarized on ). 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). Unfortunately we need to go through this to highlight how little KISS – and Gene in particular – sometimes care about their own legacy and, equally importantly, how little they reliably remember these days.
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