RARE BIRD: 1972-73 Gibson "EB-Caster" L9-S

[Steve DeRosa]

One day in early 1973, I paid a visit to Brooklyn's "Music Row" on Kings Highway - at that time the home of no less than five full-line music stores, anchored by the then-flagship Sam Ash operation on the corner of Coney Island Avenue (where Mama Rose still ran the cash register) - with the hopes of scoring a reasonably-priced bass...

While scouring the bass racks at the newly-relocated Milton Arfin store, I came across what appeared to be three oversize Telecaster wannabes among the usual Fender/Gibson/Guild/MIJ fare - one black, one walnut, and a fretless sunburst, all boasting the newly-updated monsterbuckers and 3-point bridge associated with the '70s Gibson EB-Series basses...

I thought the design was rather out of the ordinary in a cool way, but as a financially-strapped college student they were unfortunately well out of my price range...

Apparently their aesthetic and sonic merits (the latter very similar to a couple passive double P-pickup Fenders I've heard, but with that "woof" only a Gibson seems to get) were appreciated by a couple of the local players; by the time I had enough cashflow to swing a layaway (remember those...?) the only one left was the fretless and, although I played upright in high school, I really wasn't interested in a fretless electric for the sort of Laurel Canyon-influenced country-rock, neo-trad folk, and proto-New Acoustic my trio was playing at the time - big mistake...

An updated version would be released in short order, initially under the L9-S name (not L6-S as in the Reverb ad copy) but better known as the Ripper (early ad/catalog copy bears both designations), with a more P/J-Bass--like body profile and a pickup complement that never really appealed to me...

For years I searched for the whereabouts of a fretted version - had supposedly-knowledgeable store owners and bass-playing friends/associates tell me no such thing ever existed, in terms ranging from businesslike politeness to colorful Brooklyn invective - and then this beauty turned up in my FB feed this morning...

No longer interested - my '07 SG gets me just about all the tones I need on a lighter, short-scale platform (and I have a Pedulla P/J and Ibanez 5-string for the rare occasions when/if I do need something different) - and couldn't afford it right now even if a was, but if you're looking for the true "missing link" in Gibson electric bass history (with its juxtaposition of retro-even-in-its-day and forward-looking features) this is it, and you'll likely never see another one on the market...

Vindication is wonderful...



everb.com/item/69946800-1972-gibson-l6-s-bass-prototype-ripper-grabber-singlecut-sunburst

[L50EF15]

Wow! The sound must be Jack Bruce taken up to 12!

And let me add that as a denizen of Kings Highway (farther up, near Bedford), the Brooklyn history lesson is much appreciated!

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by L50EF15

...let me add that as a denizen of Kings Highway (farther up, near Bedford), the Brooklyn history lesson is much appreciated!

I also know that area well: my father was a patient at Kings Highway Community Hospital long before it became the place where people went to die (by causes natural or otherwise - speaking from direct experience which I can't get into here - and from what I've read the current Maimonides affiliation hasn't helped the situation much), had both a college bud and an ex-GF who lived in the apartment buildings in the vicinity; BTW as faculty advisor to my school's Social Studies Club (our focus was on local history, with a particular emphasis on Southwest/South-Central/Southern Brooklyn) I used to make sure to route the bus past the Wyckoff-Bennett House whenever we went on a class trip to Brooklyn College - and one day if you've got the time I'd be happy to explain in detail why Nostrand Avenue abruptly widens from two to six lanes between Kings Highway and Gerritsen Avenue, and once again south of Avenue V to the Belt Parkway...