Mark St. John's Rampages

[RampageFan]

I have been on a quest to collect as much information on the Rampage's history as I can find. I am interested in finding any rare or unusual models. Such as rare factory finishes, hardware and the different bridges. So if any G&L Historians such as Gabe or Fred see this, I would appreciate any help at all.

Mark St. John was briefly Kiss' guitarist in late '84 to early '85. After his departure from Kiss, he was in a LA band called White Tiger from '86-'89. He only played a couple of shows with Kiss, and as far as I can tell, these shows were the Rampage's first appearance. At that time he played a black Jackson Soloist and a red Rampage. Photo's of Mark are hard to find, but I have found a few pictures of him playing a white Rampage with black tiger stripes and a Floyd Rose. A yellow model with a Floyd and a black pickguard. He also had a light blue Rampage with gold hardware and a gold Floyd. He also had two red models, one with a black kahler, and one with a chrome Floyd. Mark passed away in 2007, and his family sold his guitars, but none of his G&L's were offered. Does anyone have any info or know the whereabouts of these guitars?

Mark with a red rampage equipped with a Floyd Rose


Marks '86 G&L Ad


A small photo of the white tiger striped/Floyd Rose


Notice the light blue Superhawk in the middle


Mark had a light blue Rampage like this, but had gold hardware. Has anyone ever seen a G&L superstrat in this finish?

I woud appreciate any info or photo's of oddball Rampages
Thanks,
Dave

[Elwood]

Worthy Quest Dave !!

The only thing I can add, is that about the same time I bought my crackle Rampage
one-off on ebay ( and that was around 2008 I think),there was an a Rampage with an
airbrushed white tiger on and it said "ST. JOHN" in the neck cavity IIRC.
I vaguely had heard of Mark at that point and didn't know of the band White Tiger .
I probably should have bid higher on that one now seeing all the connections.

I had pics saved but my harddrive went down once since then and I think I lost those pics.
I've searched for the guitar in google images...nothing yet, but maybe some full moon a white tiger
will pop his head up. ( Hopefully with a reasonable BIN )

It was a cool paint job...sorta had that 70's custom van vibe .

Elwood

[blargfromouterspace]

Very noble cause there Dave. Looking forward to all the pics you can throw at us!

[Fred Finisher]

Dave,
When the Rampage was first introduced we did at least one with the word Rampage in bold letters across the upper horn area. Dale's idea at the time was to make it similar to the way cars were being decaled with their names on the side such as Porsche Carrera across the bottom of the doors in huge letters. I don't know if that guitar was ever sold or just used for promo purposes. I remember when Mark was having his first guitars built because a new neck radius arm had to be built for the flatter fingerboard (25").
Fred
P.S. If you are wondering who Mike James is, he was Mike Rodriguez from final assembly. He was a very good guitar player that played in cover bands and was beginning to get noticed.

[RampageFan]

Elwood, At least now I know one of his Rampage's are out there. Do you remember if it had a Floyd Rose? I would be interested in hearing and playing one with a Floyd. A lot of people call Kahler a tone sucker, I'm curious if the Floyd makes a difference. A long time ago, I saved a picture of your crackle Rampage. And fyi, if you do a Google search of White Tiger G&L Rampage, your crackle guitar is the first thing that comes up!

Thanks Blarg, I'm very interested in the history of the Rampage. I'm even trying to add serial numbers of Rampages I see online to the registry, in an attempt to get an idea of how many were made.

Thanks Fred, I was hoping you would see this post! Great stuff! I have two with the 25" radius and love them. BTW, I once did a Google search of Mike James, I was curious who he was. I wasn't able to find anything on him. Thanks for clearing that up!

Here is another small pic of Mark with the light blue finish. I have another shot in a magazine lying around somewhere that shows the G&L logo on the headstock.

I wish G&L woud have made that finish available on the superstrats. I think it looks really cool.

Thanks,
Dave

[KenC]

I missed White Tiger back in the day, but I believe their bass player is on the Amazing Race this season. Not that this factoid is in any way related to Rampages...