Ciao 2001

Ciao 2001 magazine

Ciao 2001 was founded in 1968 in Rome, Italy, and was the most important music magazine in that country for many years. We’re not exactly sure why they named the magazine “Hello 2001” but it seems to have been an unfortunate choice since the magazine went out of business in mid-2000 - there is nothing quite like tempting fate, eh?

This issue includes a photo of Cheap Trick, with Tom Petersson playing a 4-string bass. While there is no 12-string bass content in this issue, in this one instance we’re going to violate our strict focus on the 12 because there is a photo of Sting from the band The Police and he’s shown playing a fretless Ibanez 8-string bass. Fretless 8-strings were extremely scarce in 1980 and are not much more common today. Sting played this bass live on the song “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da”.

Not only did Sting have this Ibanez fretless 8, he also played a fretless Hamer 8-string bass too! We think this truly qualifies as another instance of overkill being just enough. Well done, Sting!

The December 23, 1979 issue of Ciao 2001 includes an article about Cheap Trick, and one photo includes the Hamer Quad 12-string bass.