This 1978 Kramer 350B belonged to the owners of Fanny’s House of Music, Pamela Cole and Leigh Maples.
The story of this bass starts in 1974 with Travis Bean, a colorful Californian experienced as a machinist, motorcycle racer, and rock ’n’ roll drummer. Bean believed that the stability of aluminum was going to revolutionize guitar design. He found a business partner in Gary Kramer, and Travis Bean Guitars began manufacturing high-end guitars and basses selling for around $1,000, which was quite a sum in the ’70s. The instruments had aluminum necks and a distinctive hollowed-out “T” shape in the headstock.
Kramer and Bean dissolved their partnership in 1975, but Kramer dreamed of his guitar company becoming the biggest in the country. Using the knowledge of guitar production that he gathered working with Bean, Kramer believed he could improve on the Bean design by placing wooden inserts to the aluminum necks. This not only reduced the instrument’s weight—addressing a common gripe about Travis Bean guitars—but also made the necks feel less cold to the touch. The T-shaped headstock was also substituted with a simpler “tuning-fork” design, which prevented it from being mistaken for a Travis Bean guitar and further reduced the weight. In 1976, Kramer Guitars sent out their first product brochure featuring the 350G, 450G, 350B, and 450B—two guitars and two basses.
After the dissolution of Gary Kramer and Travis Bean’s partnership in 1975, Kramer modified the design of the company’s guitars, substituting the hollowed-out-T-shape headstock with one that resembles a tuning fork.
Photo by Madison Thorn
This particular 350B belonged to the owners of Fanny’s, Pamela Cole and Leigh Maples. They recalled seeing the Travis Bean instruments when they started playing, and having one of these early Kramers was a nod to their musical adolescence. Even though relatively few Travis Bean instruments were made in the ’70s, this anecdote is not totally surprising given the instruments’ high-profile adoptees. That list includes such rockers as Roger Fisher of Heart and Peggy Foster of the Runaways, musicians from two groups that can be found among the many photos on the walls here at Fanny’s.
“These elements, combined with the wooden inserts on the neck, are what make playing this bass feel like playing a bass, as opposed to a spaceship.”
At nine pounds on the nose, this bass is no heavier than the average Precision Bass and is certainly a testament to Gary Kramer’s commitment to weight relief. It has Schaller tuners, a hardtail, top-load bridge, and a fretboard made of ebonol—a synthetic material named for its similarity to ebony. Because of the way ebonol is made, it has a tight, faintly visible grain structure. These elements, combined with the wooden inserts on the neck, are what make playing this bass feel like playing a bass, as opposed to a spaceship.
The pickups are another interesting feature as we make our way south. First, they are embossed with the Kramer logo of the period, which—calling all font nerds!—is a little reminiscent of an elongated take on Herb Lubalin’s 1970 typeface Busorama. The pickup is a single-coil, and the pickup height is adjusted from the back of the guitar. Placed in the middle of the body, it has a unique tone that is not overwhelmingly beefy, and not too bright either.
This model’s hardtail, top-load bridge has accumulated some rust over the years.
Photo by Madison Thorn
These early Kramers had another advantage over the Travis Bean Guitars: They were considerably more affordable. The 350B retailed for $499, and along with the 450B (and later, the 250B and 650B) proved to be a star of Kramer’s lineup. By the early 1980s, Kramer basses were outselling guitars four to one. In 1981, Kramer switched to producing wood necks, which kept production costs low and broadened their appeal to guitar players. The rest is history, as Kramer went on to become an iconic guitar brand of the 1980s.
A forked-headstock bass might not be for everyone. Perhaps you prefer not to have eagle-eyed members of the audience coming up to you inquiring, “What the heck is that?” after your show. But if you’re jonesing for a bit of American vintage-guitar history that doesn’t require you to fork over all your dough, these early Kramers are certainly worth a look.
Sources: Assorted Kramer ’70s and ’80s catalogs, Axeology.com, GaryKramerGuitar.com, Vintage Guitar, TheMusicZoo.com, Reverb, Guitar.com, VintageKramer.com.
We’ve featured loud rigs. We’ve stood strong in front of Matt Pike’s octet of Oranges, been washed over with waves of volume from Angus Young’s nine Marshalls for AC/DC’s “small gig setup” in an arena, trembled from J Mascis’ three plexi full stacks, and even withstood Bonamassa’s barrage of seven amps at the Ryman, but nothing prepared us or compared to the Godzilla-rising-from-the-Pacific roar that is Sunn O)))’s auditory artillery. And it’s more than the sheer sight of 14 amps and 16 cabs or the dishing of deafening decibels; it’s the interplay of these characters and their conductors.
“The third member of the band is the amplifiers!” laughed Greg Anderson in a 2014 interview with PG. “We use vintage Sunn Model Ts from the early ’70s. They’re a crucial part of the show. I’ve got more amps than I have guitars.”
Stephen O’Malley takes a more metaphysical outlook to the connection between him and the thundering Model Ts. “My philosophy is that I’m just part of this bigger circuit of the instrumentation,” he says. “You have, of course, the amplifier valves, the speaker, effects pedals acting like different and various voltage filters, the air in the room, and the feedback generated from all this equipment, so who’s in the band is immaterial.”
We learned more about O’Malley’s perspective when, following a 90-minute drive southeast from Nashville to Pelham, Tennessee, and a short descent into The Caverns, the Sunn O))) guitar tag team welcomed PG’s Chris Kies onstage for an amplifying chat. O’Malley details his signature Travis Bean Designs SOMA 1000A, while Anderson explains how a broken guitar led him to his beloved Les Paul goldtop. Both pay homage and reverence to the eight Sunn Model Ts that form the band’s foundational tonal force, and explain why the LM308-chip Rat influenced their Life Pedal collaboration with EarthQuaker Devices.
Special Silver 25th anniversary edition of the V.3 Life Pedal
Sunn O)) Official Website
Brought to you by D’Addario XPND Pedalboard.
Silverburst Slugger
This is Stephen O’Malley’s signature Travis Bean Designs SOMA 1000A that he co-designed alongside Electrical Guitar Company’s Kevin Burkett and late luthier Travis Bean’s wife, Rita Bean. Burkett revitalized the brand in the early 2010s with the guidance of Rita and Travis’ longtime business partner Marc McElwee.
First off, just like the original TB models, these feature a single piece of 7075-T651 aluminum alloy that runs the length of the guitar’s backside that makes up the headstock, neck, and the rear half of the body. Its scale length is 25.5", the neck radius is 12", and it has a brass nut set for the band’s use of A tuning. The handwound high-gain TB humbuckers are built to Stephen’s specs. The build includes CTS pots, Sprague caps, and Switchcraft hardware. The silverburst finish covers a koa body.
Stephen’s thoughts on the collaboration: “Being honored with a signature model is great, but the bigger achievement or accomplishment is having an interaction with Kevin and the Bean family, who produced an instrument we’re all proud of.”
Strong T
Here’s the standard eye-catching T headstock and brass nut featured on all old and new Travis Bean instruments.
Stephen’s Specter
This transparent devil is an Electrical Guitar Company Ghost that has a 1-piece aluminum neck that covers backup duties for O’Malley. Fun fact: this has the same pickups in it as Steve Albini’s high-output single-coils in his Travis Bean Designs TB500 signature. They are RWRP (reverse-wound, reverse-polarity) to reduce the 60-cycle hum.
Greg’s Lucky Goldtop
While touring with Boris in 2008 or ’09, Greg’s main 1989 Gibson Les Paul goldtop endured a neck fracture. On their next day off, he wandered into the nearest Guitar Center and walked out with the above 2005 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe. It originally had mini humbuckers, but Anderson felt they were “thin-sounding.” So, he swapped them out for a set of DiMarzio P90 Super Distortions, that are actually humbuckers housed in P-90 enclosures for replacements that don’t require routing. He loves the violent output and grind provided by the P90 Super Distortions.
Sonic Protagonists
“The amps are certainly the main characters of the band,” concedes O’Malley. The main protagonists for Sunn O)))’s sonic saga are the eight Sunn Model T heads they set onstage. (Six are on and plugged into, while each member has a dedicated backup.) Stephen mentions in the Rundown that he prefers lower-wattage speakers, but when requesting backlines or renting gear from SIR, they can’t be too picky with the vast amount of cabinets they need. O’Malley runs his Model Ts and ’80s Ampeg MTI SVT through either 4x12s from Sound City or Fryette. The silver-panel Ampeg SVT-VRs flanking both ends of the semi-circle, are being slaved by each member’s MTI SVT, and that signal is hitting their matching Ampeg Heritage SVT-810AV cabinets outfitted with 10" Eminence drivers.
Stephen O’Malley’s Pedalboard
“My concept in playing this music for tone involves many, many, many different gain stages that are all intonated differently depending on the pitch of the sound. There are slight shades of color saturation or grain as if it’s a paint—the shorter bandwidth color gradation or the density of the paint.” All these subtle sweeps of saturation, sustain, and feedback are enlivened and exaggerated with Stephen’s pedal palette. His current collection of slaughtering stomps include the band’s most recent collaboration with EarthQuaker Devices (Life Pedal V3), an Ace Tone FM-3 Fuzz Master, a Pete Cornish G-2, and an EarthQuaker Devices Black Ash. For subtler shadings, he has a J. Rockett Audio Designs Archer.
The EQD Swiss Things creates effects loops to engage the FM-3, G-2, or the Black Ash. In addition, he runs a Roland RE-201 Space Echo through the Swiss Things, too. O’Malley uses the Aguilar Octamizer as a “fun punctuation that comes on once in a while. It abstracts the guitar into minimalist electronics [laughs].” The custom Bright Onion Pedals switcher keeps the amps in sync with phase controls and ground lifts. A Peterson StroboStomp HD keeps his Travis Bean in check. Off to the side of the board is a Keeley-modded Rat that initiated the band’s core sound, plus a Lehle Mono Volume. (Stephen is a Lehle endorsee.) This circuit includes the heralded LM308 chip and was the basis for their partnership with EQD and the Life Pedal series.
Space and Time
Elevated off the stage floor and secured by a stand are O’Malley’s Roland RE-201 Space Echo and Oto Machines BAM Space Generator Reverb.
Greg Anderson’s Pedalboard
“To be honest with you, I try to keep it pretty simple now because I love pedals and have fallen down a lot of rabbit holes with them, but I found myself troubleshooting and having more issues than my sound warranted. When I started with this band, it was just a Rat and tuner pedal, so I try to just bring what I need,” says Anderson. He found a potent pairing with the EQD Life Pedal V2 acting as a boost and running into a vintage Electro-Harmonix Sovtek Civil War Big Muff that creates a “powerful, chewy, ooze” tone. Like O’Malley, he also has a custom Bright Onion Pedals box and an Aguilar Octamizer set to unleash a “ridiculous, beating, fighting, chaotic, sub-bass sound.” An Ernie Ball VP Junior handles dynamics, a Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner keeps his goldtop in shape, and an MXR Mini Iso-Brick powers his pedals.
A conspicuous aspect of Travis Bean instruments was their open headstocks, with the opening mimicking a letter “T.”
A number of garden shed prototypes later, Travis Bean Guitars went into full production in 1974, building around 3,700 guitars and basses before calling it quits in 1979. Bean built a set of revised prototypes in the late ’90s, and aluminum guitar revivalist Kevin Burkett of Electrical Guitar Company recently teamed up with McElwee to offer a new line of Bean guitars, which launched at the Winter 2017 NAMM show.
A view of this TB1000A’s back reveals the depth of the aluminum neck, which extends to the guitar’s bridge. That gives these guitars their distinct resonance and ringing tones.
During the initial run, the most notable Travis Bean endorsees included Bill Wyman and Keith Richards, as well as Jerry Garcia, who played a TB500 model with a built-in effects loop from 1976 to 1978. In more recent years, these guitars have been further championed by noise-rock titans like Steve Albini and the Jesus Lizard’s Duane Denison, along with denizens of myriad heavy sub-genres like doom and stoner metal. Stephen O’Malley’s work with Sunn O))) is a good example of the gargantuan, pulverizing tones that heavy players can wring out of these guitars.
The tops of these guitars were made with Hawaiian koa. This appears to be a particularly well-figured example. Block inlays similar to a Les Paul Black Beauty accent its rosewood neck.
Recent decades have also seen the rise of a tight-knit online community that views these instruments as the finest guitars ever made. Their reputation and mystique have continued to expand, which, combined with the ongoing popularity of heavy music (and perhaps the financial maturation of its adherents), has pushed prices on vintage Beans higher and higher. Against a backdrop of a generally static vintage market, Beans have risen steadily. The average sale price of a Bean in 2014 was around $3,000. So far in 2018, prices have averaged $4,700, with the most coveted models selling for considerably more.
This guitar’s humbuckers are anchored with mounting bolts accessible from its back, so no screw heads are visible on the front. They’ve historically appealed to a range of guitarists that includes both Keith Richards and Ron Wood of the Stones, Jerry Garcia, Stephen Malkmus of Pavement, and Colin Newman of Wire.
Today’s featured guitar is a TB1000A, or Artist, which was listed by the Chicago Music Exchange earlier this year. The Artist model was the higher-end counterpart to the standard TB1000S Bean model and was distinguished by its carved Hawaiian koa top, and block inlays in the style of a Black Beauty Les Paul Custom. The body shape on both models actually evolved some in their original run. The horns were made a bit larger in mid 1977, and the body made a bit thinner the following year. Originally, this model would have retailed for around $1,395, which would have made it one of the most expensive guitars on the market in 1977. These days, we’re seeing Artist model Beans sell for closer to $6,000, with more pristine specimens going for more than that.
Sources for this article include The History and Development of the American Guitar
by Ken Achard, Grateful Dead Gear: The Band's Instruments, Sound Systems, and Recording Sessions from 1965 to 1995 by Blair Jackson, and the invaluable Travis Bean fan site, at travisbeanguitars.com.