Look on the back of the first B52's album and there is Ricky's blue Mosrite in full glory (either a Ventures II or a Mark V) with his standard string set-up, playing only four strings; (third and fourth string missing).
He also often played with five strings; (no third or G).
Here are some of his open tuning string (song specific) configurations:
(X: represents no string)
Strobe Light: DADXBB
Rock Lobster: CFXXFF
52 Girls: EADXBB
Private Idaho: EBDXBB
Party Out of Bounds: BADXG#C#
Dance This Mess Around: CFXXFF
Wilson is reported to have once stated "I just tune the strings till I hear something I like, and then something comes out...No, I don't write anything down I have no idea how the tunings go."
Wilson died in 1985, and in my opinion the genuine sound of the B52's passed with him and his wicked cool tunings and Mosrite vibe.
Mosrite American Made Guitars
NO GUITAR COLLECTION IS COMPLETE
WITHOUT A MOSRITE GUITAR
Mosrite is an American guitar manufacturing company,
Originally based in Bakersfield, California in 1952. The same year as Fender
started. Today it does all of it's American Manufacturing In Las
Vegas, NV. Imports are strictly Japanese by Japan's best guitar factory
"Tokai". Founded by Semie Moseley, Mosrite guitars were played by many rock and roll and country artists such as
Jimi Hendrix, The Ventures, The Ramone's Tommy Tedesco, The Strawberry Alarm
Clock, Davie Allan, Kurt Cobain, Joe Maphis, Buck Owens, Larry Collins, Buck Trent, Nick McCarthy, , the MC5, Iron Butterfly,
Dottie Rambo. Arthur Lee Love, Fred Sonic Smith, Ricky Wilson, Kayama Yuzo, and Kevin Shields.
Virtually everyone who is anyone has owned a Mosrite at some time in their life.People like Brian Wilson of The Beachboys, Jimi Page, Duane Allman. Roy Buchanan. Larry Gatton, Rick Springfield, & hundreds of well known musicians (Too many to list) have all been captured by the allure of the Mosrite guitar. During the 60's The Mosrite Fuzzrite was the creme de la creme of distortion devices.
In the 60's a Mosrite was priced at approximately double of a Fender Stratocaster. The cost of all the integral parts of the Mosrite forced the price up. The Vibramute tremolo is far superior to the Bigsby or the less expensive units that most companies like Vox or Rickenbacker were using at the time. Jimi Hendrix had two Mosrites. Jimi would commonly smash and burn his easily replaceable Fenders but the Mosrite's were treasured and well taken care of. The doubleneck from Spanish Castle Magic is today on display at the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.
Moseley was an innovator and was constantly coming up with improvements and upgrades, the competition simply produced the same products over and over. Due to Moseley's lack of focus the company was never as profitable as his cookie cutter competitors. Semie was a visionary and he liked to get involved with the design and production of new models. Some of his ideas like the Brass Rail model never got off the ground simply because it was too expensive to manufacture, it was not competitive.
A friend of Moseley, a singing preacher named Rev. Ray Boatright, was deeply impressed with Moseley's guitar designs, and put up front money for Moseley to found his guitar company. In gratitude, Moseley named the company by combining his and Boatright's last names. It is generally pronounced "MÖZE-right.
Mosrite guitars were known for innovative design, beautiful engineering, very thin, low-fretted and narrow necks, and extremely hot (high output) pickups. Moseley's design for the Ventures, known as the "Ventures Model" (later known as the "Mark I") was generally considered to be the flagship of the line, but all of his guitars bore his unmistakable touch. Mosrite also produced an unusual double-necked guitar, which was the type favored by Collins and Maphis; this design was also used by Nick Nastos, lead guitar player for Bill Haley & His Comets, during 1968.
NO
GUITAR COLLECTION IS COMPLETE
WITHOUT A MOSRITE GUITAR
The Famous Buck Owens Red White & Blue
Guitar
Was Originally Made by Semie Moseley
Was Originally Made by Semie Moseley
inspired by Transafixion...http://transafixion.com/2013/03/23/b-52s-rock-lobster-live/
