Yes, it's another entry in my series of posts about guitars I (or in this case, others) have spotted in MST3K movies. Thanks to all who recommended I take a look at *The Deadly Bees*.

This very brief guitar appearance is made even more interesting to me by the band that’s featured playing them. So buckle in: this is a long post. **If you want a tl;dr**: band interesting, guitars harder to identify, I should get out more.

 

At the start of the movie, we get a short performance from a British band called The Birds *\[pic 1\]*. And probably like a lot of other people, I assumed this was some writer/director’s attempt to seem “hip” and “with it” by pulling together some fake “beat combo” to kick off the movie, and giving them a name like another contemporary band. Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that The Birds were, in fact, a real band. Seriously, imagine my surprise. Do it. Now.

 

They formed as teenagers in Middlesex in 1964 as The Thunderbirds, but when they found out another local band had the same name, they shortened it to The Birds, unaware that in the same year a band in California had formed with a very similar name. They got gigs, released some singles, made some TV appearances, and shared top billing with The Who in their early days. Unfortunately for them, in 1965 that California band, The Byrds, hit it big. Their manager attempted to sue The Byrds when they first toured the UK, but lost. The Birds carried on until 1967 but started leaving one by one as success eluded them.

 

One of those members, the guitarist in the white jumper (“sweater”) with a dark moptop *\[pic 2\]*, was a young lad called Ronnie Wood. He left to join The Jeff Beck Group, then not long after formed The Faces with some bloke called Rod Stewart. After they broke up, Wood ended up in some oldies band from the ‘60s that’s still performing. Probably just pub gigs, I expect.

 

Anyway, onto the guitars. That young Wood bloke is playing a **Fender Telecaster** with a custom paint job *\[pics 3 and 4\]*. The Telecaster (and its single-pickup twin, the Esquire) was the world’s first mass-produced solid-body electric guitar, launched in 1950 as the Broadcaster, before a copyright dispute forced a name change the following year. It’s basically the OG modern electric guitar and has been in uninterrupted production ever since, with the basic design pretty much unchanged, although Fender (and their budget brand Squier) have made countless variants, with different pickups, hollow bodies, aesthetic changes etc. Copies have also been made by hundreds of companies, from boutique luthiers to Temu hack jobs.

 

The standard Tele is renowned for its versatility, with the two pickups and tone control giving everything from bright and twangy to warm and mellow. It’s therefore been used in every genre imaginable, from country to metal and everything in between, and at one stage or another by almost every professional guitarist. Famous guitarists who’ve stuck to Teles for most of their careers include Keith Richards, Bruce Springsteen, Joe Strummer, and Andy Summers. My personal favourites are Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt of Status Quo *\[pic 5, opening Live Aid to a global audience of 1.9bn people\]*. Because of them my first electric guitar, which I still own nearly 25 years later, was a Squier Telecaster.

 

The other two instruments are more difficult to pin down. The bass player has a lovely semi-hollow bass that we only fully see in the long-shots *\[pic 6\]*. The body shape, pickup type and location, hardware etc. all point to a single production line in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Unfortunately, that line turned out two almost identical models: the Gibson EB-2; and the Epiphone Rivoli. Gibson and Epiphone had been rivals for decades, until the family which owned Epiphone decided to sell up to Gibson in 1957. For the first decade or so, Epiphone production moved to Gibson’s factory, and they were treated as a sibling brand, turning out guitars of equivalent quality that were often closely related to Gibsons, and could be offered through existing Epiphone dealers, increasing their overall market share. Later, however, Epiphone would be converted to Gibson’s budget brand, making low-cost versions of Gibson instruments in various Asian countries. In recent years they’ve started making higher-quality and unique offerings again, manufactured to a much higher standard in Asia and the US. I’ve got a few myself.

 

Anyway, Gibson introduced the EB-2 in 1958, then the near-identical Epiphone Rivoli the following year. Both were short-scale – that is, the playable length of string between the bridge and the nut was shorter than standard, at 30.5”. Standard/long scale is 34” (or thereabouts). Pretty much the only visual differences between the two were the headstock and pickguard. The Gibson had a simple, arced top to the headstock, while the Epi had a more ornate “scroll” shape, and the Epi pickguard had the brand’s distinctive rounded E logo, similar to the € symbol. And it’s this that allows me to say with reasonable certainty that this is an **Epiphone Rivoli** *\[pic 7\]*.

 

Production of the Rivoli ended in 1970, but was revived briefly in the 1990s with reissues made in Japan. Since then, though, fans of this gorgeous instrument like myself have waited impatiently for its return, yelling angrily at clouds. Famous users of the Rivoli have included John Entwistle (The Who), Chris Dreja and Jimmy Page (The Yardbirds), and Adam Clayton (U2). But to me, its most iconic use was on the recording and video for “Town Called Malice” by The Jam, with the song’s Motown-inspired bass riff played by the effortlessly cool Bruce Foxton.

 

Now onto the last guitar. This one took some effort to deduce, and still I can’t be 100% certain. The easy part is that it’s a Rickenbacker. This is obvious from the shape of the pickguard, the control layout, and the white arced panel on the front of the headstock (called a truss rod cover), which always bears the Rickenbacker name.

 

Rickenbacker are an American company synonymous with ‘60s guitar music. The fortunes of the company hinged on the day a young guitarist walked into a music store in Hamburg in 1960, looking to buy his first American guitar. There, he bought a 1958 Rickenbacker 325, the specific guitar having been hauled around trade shows for two years without finding a buyer. In February 1964, 73 million Americans saw John Lennon playing his purchase with The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. Rickenbacker could see the commercial potential of pushing this brand association, and gave George Harrison a prototype 12-string guitar, the 360/12, the jangly sound of which would go on to inspire the folk-rock genre (particularly The Byrds – yep, we’ve come full circle). They later gave Paul McCartney the first left-handed bass they ever made, a 4001S, making that model instantly iconic too. They’ve introduced very few new models since the ‘60s, because demand for the old models is so high that they’ve been on pretty much permanent backorder ever since.

 

The guitar used here *\[pic 8\]* belongs to the 600 series, shown by the shape of the upper horn of the body, often referred to as the “crested wave” shape. At the time, the only models offered in that range were the 615 and the 625. The 625 was slightly fancier, with binding along the edges of the body, and three finishes offered, while the 615 was without binding, a more rounded edge to the body, and only came in one finish. The rounded body edge and lack of body binding here indicates that this is a 615… sort of.

 

The 615 was chosen by Rickenbacker to be sold in the UK through their distributor Rose Morris with the model number 1995. Sales were very poor, and most of them ended up being shipped back to the US to be resold there. So most likely we’re looking at a **Rickenbacker 1995 or 615**, although the two were technically identical anyway *\[pic 9\]*. See the level of pedantry us guitar nerds can get into?

 

The one finish that this model was offered in was Fireglo, a red-to-yellow graded finish that’s synonymous with Rickenbacker. And the one shown here is blue, a colour they wouldn’t offer on any guitars at all until after this movie was already in the can (film- or trash-: you decide). The most likely scenario is that Rose Morris refinished the guitar before delivery, something they did occasionally on request. Whoever ordered it may have just wanted something that stood out. That custom colour would probably make it a very collectible item nowadays, assuming it was done professionally. Hopefully it’s still out there somewhere, being played by someone.

 

Now, I must be off to tend to my hives. I don’t keep bees; I just suffered an allergic reaction to this shitty movie.

 

*\[Feel free to suggest any other guitars in MST3K movies I should look at. I’ve already done entries on The Skydivers, Eegah!, Girl In Gold Boots, The Horror Of Party Beach and Track Of The Moon Beast, as well as a Rifftrax side-step into Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare. Unfortunately, the guitars in Miami Connection are so 80s and generic I can’t identify them.\]*

The guitars of MST3K: The Deadly Bees.