Submitted by tyro on
Can anyone ID this 5 year old electric bass?
Photographed in 2012 on the UK tour of Japanese pop rockers Shonen Knife:
2012 OCT 08, Shonen Knife live at Birmingham UK © John Bentley / Arc Images 2012
The headstock monogram reads TS or ST. Thats a big round window-like cutout on the end of the peg head.
A Japanese maker with European distribution would make sense, but… I've spent too much time guessing stupidly.
Thanks for any clues!
Ritsuko Taneda bass
Submitted by guitar-list on
I think it is Ritsuko Taneda playing an Epiphone Toby Standard or Deluxe IV bass - here's another picture from the poster for their Belfast gig on the 2012 Pop Tune tour:
That would be it, thanks
Submitted by tyro on
I'm sure that's right on both counts — thanks for the quick comeback.
I wasn't familiar with either the history of Tobias or the Toby label of Epiphone, but the truth is obvious to see.
The Ritsuko Taneda profile page is definite about her model being a Deluxe IV and not a Standard, on what evidence I don't know.
I noticed that in the photos I've looked at, old and new, Toby branded basses have the Tobias logo backwards on the headstock. The only exceptions have been older Toby Pro models made in Korea.
In their own advertising, it's the Tobias "T" with the vine motif (the way it used to appear on Gibson-era Tobias basses)... and on the product itself the logo is flipped as seen above.
The company can't fail to realize the difference, so they must not care. Or maybe it solves a legal problem. I guess that's the difference between budget and boutique in a nutshell.
Toby Logo
Submitted by guitar-list on
I never notice that flipped logo - good spot!