1975 Gibson Marauder, as made famous by Thurston Moore

It's not just Jazzmasters and Jaguars for Thurston Moore.  But it's always going to be something edgy.  And Gibson's Marauder with its Flying V headstock, plate-mounted controls, and humbucker/single coil combination ticks all the boxes.  Check out the phenomenal change in tone between those pick-ups!  

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"Marauder (n): a person or animal that goes from one place to another looking for people to kill or things to steal or destroy."  Makes you wonder what type of player Gibson were targeting in the mid-Seventies.  They certainly marketed it as a big rock guitar - "an evil power machine".  Kiss' Paul Stanley stood front and centre of their advertising.  Not sure how long that relationship lasted, given Paul's penchant for using a Marauder as the guitar to smash up at the end of each show.  I suppose any publicity is better than no publicity.  But it was really the edgier players that made it their own: Thurston Moore, his bandmate Lee Ranaldo, Johnny Ramone, Pete Shelley, Josh Homme.  Guitarists playing at the edge, playing thick, and fast.

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Marketing aside, the choice of name may have been triggered by a fight response to the Japanese brands that were eating the very lunch that the established US giants had enjoyed up until the 70s.   There may have been lawsuits, and Gibson may have won the odd pitched battle, but the truth is that the Japanese guitar makers were coming up with models that were winning the war - on quality, and definitely on price.  You get what you give - it was Gibson that sowed the seeds for this Japanese invasion with the move of all Epiphone production to Japan in 1970. 

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 Enter the Marauder, one of Gibson's early responses to the competition.  A budget model, with lower production costs, but still proudly a USA Gibson.  The Flying V headstock and bolt-on neck may have you thinking this was just a rehash of other parts.  But it's a lot more than that.  The originals come with two Bill Lawrence designed pick-ups, specially crafted for the Marauder - a potted Super Humbucker at the neck and a potted Single-Coil at the bridge.  A previous owner has taken that one stage further and replaced the neck humbucker with a 70s T-Top.  Honestly, I've never yet heard such a dramatic difference in tone between a neck and bridge pick-up.  All the warmth of a classic Gibson humbucker to the cut and twang of, yes, a Telecaster.  The Gibson and Fender camps can put down their placards for a short armistice.  This guitar meets them in no-mans-land.

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To Sonic Youth fans, it's known as the "Expressway" guitar, the one Thurston played on 1986's Expressway To Yr. Skull.  If you're new to Sonic Youth in their early ground-breaking years, this is the song for you.  With a hypnotic drone outro that must have been the inspiration for many a shoegaze band to follow.  The story goes that Thurston got the guitar from bandmate Lee Ranaldo, used it for the recording, a few live shows, and then it was stolen in December 1986.  Only to turn up again, stripped down and beaten up, in 2006.  For most of us, that would be a big deal.  But knowing Sonic Youth - and the lab experiments and tortures they put their guitars through - it may have looked exactly the same if they'd had the guitar for that 20 years ;-).  Not so this one.  In great condition, and plays beautifully.  Has to be heard to be believed!