Cobain Guitar Controversy

Terri Theodore of Canada.com is reporting that a businessman who thought he had a guitar belonging to late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain is suing a Washington state man for fraud.

The lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court claims Earnest "Guitar" Bailey falsely represented a left-handed Fender Stratocaster guitar as Cobain's.

Phil Gross, a resident of North Vancouver, traded his own six-string Gibson S.G. electric guitar for the guitar, believing it was used by Cobain in one of his band Nirvana's last concert tours before Cobain's 1994 suicide.

His plans to market the guitar at several auction houses were squashed when a famous British rock-collectibles auction house found out the claim was false.

Gross is suing Bailey for negligence and wants special and punitive damages.

Bailey lives in Gig Harbour, Wash., and was the guitar tech for Nirvana during the 1991-92 Nevermind Tour. The suit alleges a conspiracy to defraud.

Comments

[futurelegend546]

Kurt is an amazing guitarist. I really admire guitarist's who keep it simple but sounds FUCKING fantastic. Hes no slash but u have to love him. And i would trade my liver for Kurt's guitar just so i could have it.

[boxcarblink41]

^^^ tom delonge just like that. keeps it simple, but everyone bags him for it. and yet everyone loves Kurt even though tom does the same thing. o yea and that was a very dumb choice, he shouldve found out more info about it first

[Nadz]

the dumb ass should of looked into it more....and if he was a guitar tech youd think he would have an idear on what Cobain's guitar was like...dumb ass

[Phoenixblade]

Why the hell would the dude trade a guitar played by Kurt Cobain for a regular Gibson S.G.? That shoulda sent up red flags all over the place in his head. Moron was asking to get taken for a ride, doing something stupid like that.

He had it comin'.

[giraffe]

should of thought an S.G was just a little cheep for a kurt Cobain Guitar swap

[RossDev]

maybe he was stupid for swappin for his SG, but if it was kurts then he'd have been able to buy a lot more than one SG for the money he'd receive at auction....

[millencolin182]

I think he deserves it for being such a dumbass

[faqu]

dave navarro has one of kurt's guitars...

[n_punx]

lol!!!! well, my guitars used by jimmy hendrix, kurt cobain, kirk hammet, john petrucci, steve vai,etc. . wanna buy it?

[Twh2003]

Why does it matter that someone has played the guitar before you? I know some people who can play better than Kurt...admit it people, if someone better than him sold their guitar, would you buy it used? Exactly...

[frigginjerk]

spam deleted

[Duaniss1]

He's not as much of a dumbass as you'd think I bet. I bet he thought he was ripping the other guy off while the other guy was ripping him off. I guess it's how the tables turned.

[Duaniss1]

Oh, and Bailey,The guy who ripped the other guy off was the guitar tech, Dumbshit

[bimbo7]

there exists a guitar used by kurt cobain? i thought he smashed them all up during their concerts

[muzak313]

^Of course they still exist. I've seen two of them before. Jonathan Davis owns one.

[futurelegend546]

Tom delonge rocks too, sweet new album, i gone offa punk but still blink r one of my favs,

[Dark-Clown]

wow, gibson S.G for kurts guitar... but what guitar was the one "claimed" to be kurts guitar anyway ? was it also a gibson or what ? maybe it WAS a fair trade after all... they both thought they were getting lucky but aint nothing happening.. ooooh, conspiracy conspiracy ^_^ HAHA

[Dark-Clown]

i bought a guitar played by malmsteen... but i AINT SELLING THAT ONE! haha, if i was selling one of my guitars it would either be my telecaster or my strat... but not my malmsteen or my 68 telecaster !

[flip]

i think it a fender stratocator like the article said if you'd read all of it. but what was the quality of the so called "kurt's guitar". if it was perfect you could use it still fine and it would be a good trade. But if it was smashed ito pieces... too bad for him I guess.

[mikeyjoesith]

i bet the ad said "like kurt cobains guitar", but was written to sound like it was cobains.

[BlackLight45]

Hey boxcarblink41, How dare u compare THE KURT COBAIN to a shit *** like tom. Toms lyrics are all exactly the same and he cant play anything over a novoice level on guitar. No1 wants to hear some1 complain about all the times they were dumped by their girlfriends. Kurts lyrics were amazing and he played some guitar solos on bleech on a few on nevermind to show off some talent. Kurt also has a better voice than tom. So never use both their names in the same post again.

[GreenGoblin]

Kurt killed himself because of fans like that, fans who would due anything to get his guitar. Everyone says his death was so sad and such a tragedy (which it was) yet they would "give their liver" to get his guitar and thats the same reason he killed himself. Pathetic.

[UG Gangsta]

actually kurt is really ***in good at guitar he just kept it simple because he was usually to ***ed up to come up with anything great and because he didnt want to be big

[UG Gangsta]

o and i think courtney love killed him cuz she was there and she didnt care and now shes tryin to get all the rights and leagle shit

[dylandevoe]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^
Well Said "GreenGoblin"
-It Didn't Say If The SG was Left Handed or Not. If it wasn't, then the dude he got ripped off wouldn't be able to play the guitar (as easy). He probably just wanted it for a model. Or was he going to sell it again at a different auction?

[dylandevoe]

the dude that got ripped off***
by "model" I meant something to show-off

[nirvanarox94]

that guys a dumbass he should have known right away that it was fake cause no one would trade Kurt Cobains guitar for a regular guitar

[BlackLight45]

i dont think courtney killed him herself, but i think that she had some 1 do it for her becase she was in Los angeles at the time. Kurt was shooting herion with some1 he knew and he got more herion then he probably wanted in him(that explains why he had 3 time the lethal dose). Then he took kurt to the green house in the back of his house and shot him. The gun was laying across kurts chest with no finger prints on it. If he shot himself then the gun wouldent be across his chest because it would have recoiled and landed across his legs. The suicide note was acually a song he was writing. There was only 4 references to a suicide in there and they werent in his handwriting.

[plaidshoes]

that guy that traded a SG for kurts guitar should be shot, that dumass. How does he even survive on that little of common sense? I'd shoot myself. Kurt was a god, and he is probably turning in his grave right now. These are the kind of actions that made him kill himself. But as he says "theres good in everyone..." so i guess we just need to deal with people like him.

[lowrdr69]

i wish everyone would shut up everyone acts like they wer like kurts brother saying "kurt wouldnt like that" or ther some smartass detective but they dont no shit the only people who have the right to say stuff like that are kurts real family and friends, not some retard who gets their "facts" from articles and websites

[MetalheadBuddha]

hey, UG Gangsta, you really should reseach more. Kurt did kind of want to be big. He kind of was schizophrenic about it. At points he didnt want to be big and also did want to be big. Kurt was a confusing guy to learn about but none the less, a great musician. "Only the good die young."

[GUMY]

I sometimes wonder if Im the only person who actually thinks

[boxcarblink41]

actually i do think kurts comparable to tom delonge. just because kurts dead doesnt mean hes suddenly he was an all out god with guitar.

[plaidshoes]

well Kurts better than Tom, is so many ways. hes a better song writer, and guitarist and more emotional and deep. his songs make you think. and even if he maybe a bit overrated, hes still better, and if u like tom more, good for you.

[EG Bailey]

Here is my response to the claims presented in the story that ran in the press (quoted above):

"While I am choosing to fight these false and misleading allegations in the courts rather than in the press, there are many people in the Northwest and the Nirvana community who know the details behind why I contacted a UK auction house last year to notify them about a guitar I felt was being inaccurately represented as being used by Kurt Cobain. At no time did I ever sell or trade a guitar to a 'business man' named Philip Gross, nor have I ever had any meeting with him outside a single phone conversation prior to the auction listing in which I told him I did not believe him to be in possession of a guitar owned by Cobain. Mr. Gross informed me that he had obtained the guitar from Danny Mangold. I informed Mr. Gross that I had never sold, traded, or consigned to Mr. Mangold such a guitar as Mr. Gross described.

While Mr. Gross did not inform me in our conversation, I have since learned that Mr. Gross and Mr. Mangold have been in a legal battle filed in Snohomish County Superior court and Federal Bankruptcy court wherein Mr. Gross alleges fraudulent equipment trades and other misrepresentations by Mr. Mangold. Accordingly, I am somewhat surprised that Mr. Gross would have initiated the auction in question based upon authentication provided by Mr. Mangold.

I have in the past actively spoken out against individuals attempting to falsely market instruments allegedly owned by Kurt, and have offered my support to those in possession of instruments I believe to be legitimate based on my firsthand experience of maintaining and modifying Mr. Cobain's guitars."

- Earnest Bailey, January 27th 2004.

[drone]

Being from the UK, it saddens me, but at the same time comes as no suprise to me that americans are this dumb. Some of you got the people in the story mixed up, saying the guitar technician was the one getting kurts guitar...common now. if he was with Nirvana on tour, he could've had his fair share of kurts ex-guitars. Then there are the people that as one member pointed out, think they know everything about kurt cobain, how he thought, how he acted, who he was...for God sake, i dont think his other band members knew what he was really like inside, even he probably didnt know. There is a point to this- Is it American culture not setting itself high enough targets, or is it the education system, or perhaps inbreeding that makes you all so dumb?

[stratomatter87]

i dont blame him. gibsons suck anyway.

[sthrnrckr101]

hey anybody wanna buy mine it was played ny the late JUSTIN THE ONE AND ONLY..ie me

[sthrnrckr101]

i want a JAG-STANG..he supposedly helped design it..plus even if he didnt it still looks awesome and its a FENDER...

[MickProPer]

As Regards the "Cobain" guitar, and the comments from Mr. Bailey, While I can understand his being upset at someone who might misrepresent a collector's item, I do not believe that his comments regarding Danny Mangold were justified. While I am not privy to the details of this particular transaction, I have known Danny Mangold for almost 30 years, and I know him to have been one of the leading experts on rare and collectible guitars. I say "have been", because Danny was involved in a serious auto accident about two and a half years ago, which resulted in serious injuries and an inability to continue in his rare guitar dealership. Interestingly enough however, the car he was driving when he was in the accident, was a '60's Fairlane, given to him by Dave Groehl. Hardly something that Cobain's ex-bandmate would do if he felt Danny was ripping off Kurt's memory, wouldn't you think?