1984 Guild SB-602 Pilot Bass B/W Zebra

I walked by this bass for two days, stopping on several occasions to check it out. I can't explain the gut feeling or "the call" to buy it- I just became obsessed with the instrument until I could stand it no longer and marched myself over to the seller with these words reaching him before I did: "I'll take it." And, my friends, that was that.

When I got back to the shop, I spent an afternoon listening to a varied splash of Rock released in the '80s and the better the music got to me, the harder I worked on the bass. Of course, the zebra graphics are the first thing to grab your eyes, but that near-fatal blow to the back of the head would be the exceptionally rare Kahler bass tremolo. Look up the words "hell yeah" in the dictionary and you'll see a picture of me laughing out loud while doing a low "E" dive bomb on this bass. I. Did. Not. Want. To. Put. It. Down. After playing it for what seemed like forever, I knew what I had to do and folks, my vision was clear.

I went and stood in front of my closet. My eyes rose to the very left-hand corner of the very top shelf, where sat a tote labeled "Ray's crap." You can guess who wrote that and when she walked by and saw what I was staring at, she stopped and said, "Oh no you're not. You are not pulling that stuff out again." Without breaking my stare in the slightest, I whispered, "Oh hell yes I am."

With the determination of Robert De Niro pulling all that metal gear up the hill in "The Mission," I got my stepladder, took that tote down, and headed for the shop. The first thing to come out was my 1984 Motley Crue "Shout at the Devil" t-shirt from 1984 (They were an opening band at the '84 Monsters of Rock concert in Nuremberg, Germany.) Next out was a pair of acid-washed Levi's with a now-ridiculous waist size of 30". I retrieved several red and blue bandanas and lastly, the worn pair of lime-green spandex booty leggings (I swear to God these things were "in" back in the day.

The sad truth and reality of my situation were quickly revealed no matter how fired up I was in spirit. I couldn't even get a leg in the blue jeans, much less my friggin 'waist and the Crue shirt only came down to about three inches above my bellybutton. The neon green spandex? Almost dry-rotted and there was no span left to the dex. They just tore. With a heavy sigh, I tied a couple of bandanas around my right ankle (like I used to do) and picked up this Pilot. The poor old mirror reflected my pain of the years gone by, but this lasted only a moment because, with this bass strapped over my shoulder, I was reminded of a time when giants walked the earth and if you were to be considered worth even the tiniest of damns, you had better be able to hold your own with Whitesnake's "Still of the Night." And, I mean well...

To find a Pilot in this original condition these days can be a rare-ish kind of thing, but to get a killer set of factory graphics and a bass Kahler to boot? Well, there just can't be very many of these basses hanging around anymore, now can there? The bass is clean and the zebra stripes are striking- there are some surface scratches on the front and back of the body, but you'll have to turn the bass into the reflection of an overhead light to see them. We really do have a nice survivor here, my bass brothers! The case is in very good condition and has also been detailed.

Some basses are work to play, some are a little fun and then there are those rare few that are a sheer joy. This bass is absolutely the latter and is guaranteed to bring a smile to your bass face. Please take a look at the photos, let us know if you have any questions and as always, we thank you for stopping by!