Kim Thayil's white S-100 poster/article

Thunderface

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I bid on and won this Guitar World poster of Kim Thayil's white S-100, and just picked up a cheap frame and framed it. The poster was actually a Guitar World article by Alan Paul.

KTWS100.jpg


Here's what the article says:

An 18-year-old Kim Thayil bought his first Guild S-100 at a Chicago music store in 1978, choosing it because it was fairly light and cheap ($250) and clearly a step up from his main axe at the time, an Encore Strat copy. The young guitarist didn't know it, of course, but his relatively casual decision led indirectly to the birth of grunge.

"I pretty much developed my style around how that guitar played," Thayil recalls. "It turned out to lend itself really well to detuning, and to play well below the bridge, which became an important part of my sound -- I get a ghostly effect by striking the low E down there.

"I used that S-100 through the early years of Soundgarden. It survived a lot of thrashings, but I finally broke it in 1990 in Denver. I threw it on the ground and the wood around the nut got crushed. Our next stop was Lawrence, Kansas, where we found a luthier and took in my guitar, along with one of Chris [Cornell]'s and Jason Everman's bass -- they had also gotten smashed in the same week. The guy looked at my nut and said with disgust, 'I can't fix this! What is it with you people from Seattle? Last week, I had a band called Nirvana in here with their broken guitars. Don't you people have any respect for your instruments?' We were like, "F*** you.' We weren't trying to break guitars, but we play with a lot of passion and energy and anger and joy, and we didn't really worry about it.

"But I was seriously bummed out -- it was my favorite guitar and I didn't know how to replace it. Then a friend said that he had a guitar just like it in his closet and I could have it. It was disassembled -- a bond and a neck and a bag full of hardware -- so I took it to Steven's Strings in Seattle where they put it together and painted it white. This is it, and it's been my main guitar ever since.

"It was pretty much the only guitar on Badmotorfinger [A&M, 1991] and I used it a lot on the next two, as well [Superunknown (A&M, 1994) and Down on the Upside (A&M, 1996)]. I don't take it on tour anymore because I want to preserve it, so I use new Guilds. Actually, the S-100 was out of production for a long time. Believe it or not, they put it back in production after a cover story of me in Guitar World [June '93], because they got so many calls asking for it. They told me that I single-handedly resurrected that guitar, with an assist from Guitar World. Now, that's a weird thought."

The cover in question was actually from June 1992.

GWJune92.jpg


And he was again on the cover of Guitar World, with one of his reissue S-100s in December 2010.

SGW.jpg


Plus an inside shot...

Garden.jpg
 

matsickma

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Re: Kim Thayil's white S-100 poster

Great story. To bad Keith Richard never appeared in the early 1960's on the cover of magazine with his custom or modified M65 Freshman with Dearmonds. In fact their were a number of opportunities for artist to display their Guilds to unsuspecting youth. John Fogerty had a early M75 Bluesbird along with his brothers Starfire. Many more examples that just don't come to mind right now.

M
 

fearless

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Re: Kim Thayil's white S-100 poster

Great article, thanks for posting. What is his later guitar? It looks like an early re-issue and either an orange paint job or natural with a poly finish.
 

Pwal

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Re: Kim Thayil's white S-100 poster

Great story! I had that June 92 Guitar World. It's gone now, but I was totally into grunge back then, mostly Soundgarden and Alice in Chains.
 

Thunderface

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Re: Kim Thayil's white S-100 poster

I picked up a recent issue of Guitar Legends magazine that was all about the "Big 90s." It was veritable feast of grunge, although its kind of a scam because they just repackage old articles from the past issues of Guitar World, but still, all those 90s bands in one place is kind of cool.

http://www.musicdispatch.com/product/viewproduct.do?itemid=77770143&lid=33&promotion=1350001&

One thing that struck me about the Thayil S-100 poster article is that he says he bought his first S-100 for $250 back in 1978, and we're probably all thinking, "wow, an S-100 for $250!" But if you adjust for inflation, that $250 S-100 would cost $862 today, which is more or less the going rate for a used S-100.

Fearless, here was the original discussion on the recent Guitar World article ...

http://letstalkguild.com/phpBB2/vie...252093&hilit=Soundgarden+Guitar+World#p252093
 

fronobulax

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Re: Kim Thayil's white S-100 poster

Thunderface said:
One thing that struck me about the Thayil S-100 poster article is that he says he bought his first S-100 for $250 back in 1978, and we're probably all thinking, "wow, an S-100 for $250!" But if you adjust for inflation, that $250 S-100 would cost $862 today, which is more or less the going rate for a used S-100.

A few years earlier but
[url=http://www.letstalkguild.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=11434&hilit=thanks+mom said:
In this post Fronobulax[/url]]List price was $350 and I paid $233 on April 27, 1972
in reference to a 1971 JS II bass.
 

caseygree

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Re: Kim Thayil's white S-100 poster

Our next stop was Lawrence, Kansas, where we found a luthier and took in my guitar, along with one of Chris [Cornell]'s and Jason Everman's bass -- they had also gotten smashed in the same week. The guy looked at my nut and said with disgust, 'I can't fix this! What is it with you people from Seattle? Last week, I had a band called Nirvana in here with their broken guitars. Don't you people have any respect for your instruments?' We were like, "F*** you.'

Ah, good ol' Lawrence KS luthiers. And to think, the repairman in question could have made quite a name for himself at least giving it a shot! I'll have to see if I can figure out who it was--and if they're more inclined to fix a broken headstock 20 years later :)

nice throwback post, Thunder.

casey
Lawrence KS
 

adorshki

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Thunderface said:
Actually, the S-100 was out of production for a long time. Believe it or not, they put it back in production after a cover story of me in Guitar World [June '93], because they got so many calls asking for it. They told me that I single-handedly resurrected that guitar, with an assist from Guitar World. Now, that's a weird thought."
GREAT anecdote! :D
 

tele4tone

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Re: Kim Thayil's white S-100 poster

caseygree said:
Our next stop was Lawrence, Kansas, where we found a luthier and took in my guitar, along with one of Chris [Cornell]'s and Jason Everman's bass -- they had also gotten smashed in the same week. The guy looked at my nut and said with disgust, 'I can't fix this! What is it with you people from Seattle? Last week, I had a band called Nirvana in here with their broken guitars. Don't you people have any respect for your instruments?' We were like, "F*** you.'

Ah, good ol' Lawrence KS luthiers. And to think, the repairman in question could have made quite a name for himself at least giving it a shot! I'll have to see if I can figure out who it was--and if they're more inclined to fix a broken headstock 20 years later :)

nice throwback post, Thunder.

casey
Lawrence KS

Haha was Mass Street Music around then?

Jeff
 

bluesypicky

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Nice pics TF... I gotta admit I have a little bias for the NB finish, but the white is cool too.
Reminds me I have to post some of my own eye candy now.... 8)
 

Thunderface

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Thanks. If it had just been a poster, I wouldn't have posted it because that would be like "hey, lookee what I got," which works when you're talking an actual guitar but not so much when you're talking about a photo of a guitar. Since there was a story attached to it, I thought it made more sense to share it.

I'm amassing a small S-100 art gallery here, what with the S-100 spread from Guitarist magazine, the pages from the 1975 Guild catalog, the S-100 Carved article from Vintage Guitar magazine and now this Thayil poster.
 

adorshki

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Thunderface said:
I'm amassing a small S-100 art gallery here, what with the S-100 spread from Guitarist magazine, the pages from the 1975 Guild catalog, the S-100 Carved article from Vintage Guitar magazine and now this Thayil poster.
You need to find you a copy of the #1 Guild Gallery, Richie Havens on cover. Nice photo of Kim inset on p. 33, about 3-1/8"x4-1/2". If I could scan it I would, but it's kinda small so I don't think resolution would be that great anyway.
 

hansmoust

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adorshki said:
You need to find you a copy of the #1 Guild Gallery, Richie Havens on cover. Nice photo of Kim inset on p. 33, about 3-1/8"x4-1/2". If I could scan it I would, but it's kinda small so I don't think resolution would be that great anyway.

This one from the 1997 Catalog is much better:

KimThayilS100_1.jpg


Sincerely,

Hans Moust
http://www.guitarsgalore.nl
 

Thunderface

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Doh! I had forgotten that I had that one, too. I have a copy of that Guild ad, too. Right now it's behind a print of the S-100 DeLuxe page from the 1975 catalog. Geez, this kind of makes me sound like a Guild S-100 stalker, doesn't it? :oops:

The only think I don't like about that particular shot is that Mr. Thayil is wearing a dark shirt and jeans and you can't really see the guitar all that well. It would have worked better visually if he were playing one of his lighter-colored S-100s.
 

Thunderface

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'77 S-100

That's the green one? Looks black in the ad I have. But it does look greener in the photo in the 1997 catalog that Hans posted.
KimThayilS100_1.jpg
 
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