Kazu Makino of Blonde Redhead, one of the players who discovered the joys of a Teisco offset – she plays the bass version of the TG-64, the TB-64 now being resurrected by Eastwood. VIEW INFO

Don’t get us wrong – we love a good Jazzmaster, Jaguar or Mustang. Fender was and still is the big daddy of the offset guitars. But if familiarity doesn’t always have to bring contempt, on the other hand many of us prefer guitars with that little spark of mystery, which add to an unique touch when you’re on stage, or simply helps making it more interesting to play. That’s why a few lucky guitarists can’t help but loving their rare, 1960’s Teisco TG-64. Let’s be honest, it has a certain mojo lacking in modern-day Jazzmasters!

The Forgotten Offset Classic?

While its shape is familar, it’s all about those other details: three single coil pickups stripy scratchplate, push buttons and that cut-out handle on the body – what’s it all about? One of those features no one really needs, but which in fact looks pretty cool. It was the Sixties, after all, and who knows what the designers were smoking, then!

Original Teisco TG-64

The thing about Teisco guitars, is that they were unashamedly cheap knock offs of bigger brands such as Fender – but with enough personality to stand out on their own. They were never meant to be GREAT guitars, but put them through a valve amp and a good fuzz pedal, and it could be the coolest thing ever.  Originally unpopular offset models such as the Jazzmaster and Jaguar were affordable, and for this reason rediscovered in the Seventies by Punk and New Wave acts, but as soon as they became a staple in 90s alt-rock, thanks to Nirvana, Sonic Youth and others, they became prized commodities – and, somewhere along the way, lost just a little bit of their “cool” factor (for all it’s worth!).

Owning a Teisco TG-64 is a bit like owning a Jazzmaster back in 1976 – because it’s still an odd and rather cool choice, not seen too often. Some of the people who’ve used one recently include Blonde Redhead and Conor Oberst. But this model is still not the easiest to find! This is perhaps the coolest of all non-Fender offset guitars, and certainly a “forgotten classic”!

Conor Oberst and his Teisco TG-64

Eastwood Custom TG-64 Monkey Grip

It’s great news that Eastwood Custom are planning to reissue the Teisco TG-64. The plan is to make it even better than the original, but still quite affordable. While in the past Teisco were cool but cheap guitars, the new ones are of much better quality. If you’re looking for a cool alternative to a Fender Jaguar or Jazzmaster that really stands out, maybe the new Eastwood Custom TG-64 will do the trick for you.

Eastwood Custom TG-64 Monkey Grip

At the moment guitarists have to pledge a small amount to guarantee theirs… if you’re interested, hurry up, because opportunity ends TODAY (17th November)

VIEW EASTWOOD TG-64 PAGE FOR INFO

Eastwood Custom TB-64 Monkey Grip

Teisco TB-64… new Eastwood custom project. Find out more

The Teisco TB-64 looks very closely to the TG-64, but with a few differences besides the longer scale: a more “Fender-y” headstock, different neck joint and a vibrato arm closer to the edge of the body. Yes, it might’ve been inspired – in principle – on the Fender Bass VI but, frankly, has quite a marked difference… and, dare we say, looks much better?

Eastwood launched a custom shop project to reissue the TB-64, ending on April 20, 2017. They’ve successfully crowdfunded the TG-64 and it looks likely the TB-64 will also get made… but the best way to make sure this happens, and to guarantee yours, is of course to help crowdfunding and leave your pledge, too!

VIEW EASTWOOD TB-64 PAGE FOR INFO

Watch: Teisco TG-64 Demo

Forgotten Offset Guitars: Teisco TG-64 from MyRareGuitars.com

The first wheel ever invented to be used for transportation would be obsolete by todays standards. It was probably made out of a chunk of heavy stone, and while it may have made life easier thousands of years ago, to use one today would make you that much more thankful for rubber and spokes. Inventions go through different iterations, and with each one new problems arise that lead to the necessity of improvements.

After “the Frying Pan”, guitarists and guitar manufacturers alike began to electrify their instruments so that they could be heard at new levels. At the time, hollow-body archtops were the guitar of choice – and if you’ve ever plugged in a big jazz box and tried to really crank it, then you know why this could lead to problems. A huge, open, resonant chamber combined with pickups that are mounted rather loosely is a recipe for two electrified problems; a small amount of amplified sustain, and worse, feedback. Guitarists were overjoyed that they could turn up and be heard within a band, but the design of the guitar at the time forced them to stay within a limitation.

A few great minds recognized this, and over the years sought to bring a solution to the commercial world. It’s not fair to give the credit to just one person, so lets go over three of the main contributors, whose efforts led to the success of the solid body electric guitar of the modern world.

1. Les Paul and “The Log”

Les Paul was a tinkerer from a young age. In the 1920’s, he discovered that he could amplify his guitar by using the mouthpiece from a telephone. He also discovered that this method created an unbearable amount of feedback, so he reduced the sound by filling the guitar’s body with plaster. An effective plan, but also effective at making the guitar weigh far too much! He kept experimenting with different builds and ideas,  (including one that involved a body made of steel from a railroad yard) but returned t his hollow-body builds having not yet struck gold.

Some 10 years later, he decided to return to the solid build idea. Les installed a homemade tremolo unit to a 4×4 piece of pine, added a neck and some pickups, and then attached two pieces from a sawn-in-half Epiphone archtop to make it look appealing. He brought his creation to Gibson in the early 1940’s, but in the words of Marty McFly, “I guess they just weren’t ready for it yet.”

The company rejected the instrument, thinking that it looked ridiculous. You wouldn’t think it to look at it, but this 4×4 is what laid the groundwork for what would later become one of the most iconic electric guitars in the industry.

When the 1950’s rolled around, and Fender came out with their “Broadcaster”, Gibson worked fast to come up with their own single-cut solidbody. Les Paul worked alongside Gibson’s Ted McCarty to build the very first “Gibson Les Paul”. It’s been more than 60 years now, and take a look – not much has changed! That’s the sign of a truly great invention.

2. Leo Fender and the Esquire/Broadcaster/Telecaster

Seeing all the same problems that Beauchamp, Rickenbacker, and Paul saw with the state of the electric guitar at the time, Leo Fender wanted to join in the electric solid body fun. There were, however, a few additional issues that Leo wanted to address in his design. For example, players were looking for a guitar neck that made for “faster” play and better intonation to allow them to play impressive lead guitar more accurately.

1950 saw the release of the Fender Esquire, a single-pickup solidbody guitar that did not have the same feedback issues that hollow body electrics had. In addition to this, the Esquire featured adjustable saddles for the strings, so players could raise and lower their guitar’s “action”, as well as fix intonation issues that made them sound out of tune. Instead of gluing the neck into the body, Fender decided to use screws to bolt it on. This made it far easier for manufacturing and future repairs.

Later that year, Fender released a two-pickup version of the instrument and named it the Broadcaster. It was during the production of this model that they implemented a truss rod into both models, giving the ability to compensate for any bowing and buckling the neck experienced. The “Esquire” name was dropped, and the single pickup version adopted the “Broadcaster” name. This didn’t last long, however, as Gretsch had a drum-kit named the “Broadkaster” and wasn’t too thrilled with Fender. It wasn’t long before Fender had to drop this name too, and coin the iconic name the “Telecaster” we know today.

3. Paul Bigsby and the “Travis” guitar

Though the name is most widely associated today with a high-quality tremolo unit, Paul Bigsby has been previously referred to as “the an who could build anything”. In fact, around the same time Les Paul was trying to convince Gibson to take his invention, Mr. Bigsby was working on lap steel, followed by pedal steel builds. Paul wasn’t concerned with mass producing commercially successful instruments – instead, he worked with respected artists of the day and built instruments specifically for their needs. Earl “Joaquin” Murphey and Wesley Webb West are perhaps the two earliest examples, having built lap and pedal steels for both of them. As Paul kept building, he kept coming up with new ideas and inspirations. H began to make pickups, and it was due to these that he caught the attention of Merle Travis.

In 1944, Paul had begun experimenting with the idea of a solid body electric guitar. Merle had contacted Paul around the same time, and expressed his interest in a solid body, noting that he believed such a build would allow for more sustain than a hollowbody electric. Travis planned out a design, and commissioned Paul to bring it to life. The resulting build was dubbed the “Travis” guitar, and featured a hollowed-out bird’s eye maple body, and a headstock with 6-in-line tuners. In looking at pictures, it’s hard to deny the similarities between this guitar’s features and the designs of a couple others that actually came after it:

In fact, it is said that Paul Bigsby, Leo Fender, and Les Paul had meetings to discuss guitar building and design. It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that these three got ideas from each other, whether they gave it willingly or not. The fact that Fender’s 6-in line headstock on the Stratocaster with such a similar shape was bothersome to Bigsby (so much so that it eventually led to an unsuccessful lawsuit), but not so much that it would slow him down. He maintained his “artist” approach – building instruments by himself for individual clients. While this approach ultimately led to a 2-year waiting list, it may very well be the reason that Bigsby was responsible for revolutionizing so many key elements in guitars – when an artist asked for a customization, he would figure out a way to incorporate it. A guitar built for Jimmy Bryant (purchased by Billy Byrd) for example may have been the first solid body electric to feature a double cutaway:

Another example would be when Merle Travis asked Paul to come up with a tremolo unit that worked well and kept the guitar in tune. That’s what led to the earliest form of what we know today as a “Bigsby” unit. The original featured a fixed arm and a bridge that rocked back and forth, allowing the strings to return to pitch. Guitarists flocked in to get a unit installed, and it wasn’t long before Gibson struck a deal with Bigsby to use his invention (though, slightly modified) on their instruments. Once again, Paul Bigsby had revolutionized the electric guitar.

If it weren’t for these and other tinkerers and inventors, we’d all be playing Hawaiian folk music with frying pans. Not that there’s anything wrong with that… but I think we can all agree and be thankful for the existence of the modern solid body electric guitar, and its contributions to the music world today.

The Origins of the Electric Guitar: Part 3 from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1987 Dean Z Autograph Electric Guitar

Now that Japanese guitars are too expensive to import into the U.S.—and now that most folks understand how good Japanese guitars could be (with a good set-up)—it’s not uncommon for eBay auctions to feature “MIJ” as a positive selling point. And, now that large-scale guitar-making—except for the highest quality custom shop work—has pretty much left Korea, for a combination of economic and political reasons, attitudes are being adjusted once again. Turns out the Koreans had also gotten pretty good a making guitars. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time that “MIK” will become another compelling sales factor when you’re shopping for guitars.

Dean guitars were the brainchild of suburban Chicago native Dean Zelinsky who started building the now legendary upscale, hybrid “Gibson copies” in the late 1970s, like the folks at nearby and contemporary Hamer partly in response to the perceived inattention to quality at Gibson at the time, and partly because Zelinsky liked Explorers and Vees and was annoyed that Gibson didn’t make any fancy flamed-top versions. The former reason might be a debatable point, but there’s no question that those early Deans were darned good guitars.

Vintage 1987 Dean Z Autograph Electric Guitar

Indeed, players thought Deans were so good they were highly successful and the company quickly expanded its offerings. Unable to keep up with demand, Dean inevitably—like virtually everyone else, in time—turned to Japan for help. In 1983, with Guitar Player Magazine doing cover stories on the return of the Strat, Dean came up with it’s own take on a Fender with its first “Super-Strat,” the Bel Aire, one of the first guitars (there are competing candidates) to sport the now-ubiquitous h/s/s pickup configuration. The Bel Aire had a neck and hardware imported from ESP in Japan, though final assembly continued to be Stateside. By 1985 Dean Hollywoods were made in Japan by ESP.

By the end of 1985 Dean had also inked a deal to bring in Dean Autographs, like the one seen here, made in Korea. I’m actually not sure who made these guitars. Even though Korea had (and has) a number of guitar factories, most OEM work was done by either Samick or Cort and the odds are that the Autographs came from one or the other.

Vintage 1987 Dean Z Autograph Electric Guitar

So, get over any contemporary reservations about Korean guitars and look at this with a modern eye, and you have to admit it’s pretty snappy! I’ve never been a fan of black guitars but make the black super-high-gloss, add a white lacquered fingerboard, and slap a mirror on the front and you have my attention. In addition to having the usual Super-Strat features, this also has a neck-tilt adjustment feature to let you fine-tune your action without taking everything apart. A lot of people obsess over pickups, which I’ve never really understood. Almost no one plays an electric guitar through a solid-state amp set to give clean, neutral sound, which is the principal way you’d get to hear mainly pure pickup. Color your sound with a tube amp, pump up the bass, or, horrors, shoot the signal through a distortion pedal with a touch of reverb, like most of us do, and as long as you’re getting some output it doesn’t really matter what pickups you have. You’re going to color the sound electronically. I’m sure that’ll rile some folks. Whether you agree with this last point or not, the Dean Autograph holds up as a swell, classy shred machine.

Vintage 1987 Dean Z Autograph Electric Guitar

This guitar has a serial number of 8700430. Since the Autographs were made from 1985-87, I presume the “87” is date encoding. I have no idea if these are relatively rare or common. They don’t come up for sale that often, but that many not mean much. I suspect it’s a lot like 1960s Japanese guitars. They weren’t that rare (although less plentiful than most of us think), but no one ever imagined they’d be collectible in the future, so few people held onto them. By the time Zelinsky got into Korean-made guitars, he’d grown tired of the guitar biz and he shuttered the original Dean doors in 1990, off to make furniture.

Dean guitars are back in business, of course, and apparently doing well, including some made in the U.S.A. again. The more I see, the less I know I can predict about how things will eventually turn out. If my wife wouldn’t kill me, I’d start squirreling away some of those Chinese guitars…

Mirror Image Guitars (Vintage 1987 Dean Z Autograph Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar

I finally found my Wild Dog on, of all things, the inventory list of George Gruhn, the eminent Nashville vintage guitar dealer. Now, that may not seem odd to you, but this was a long time ago. Back then finding guitars was done by eagerly getting the first printing of the Trading Times, a weekly newsprint want-ad rag that was published all over the country in localized versions. If you’re one of those young-uns who walks around with your nose in a smart-phone, “want-ads” were notices you paid to put in the paper if you had something to sell. EBay didn’t exist. Only Al Gore used the Internet. George’s list wasn’t in the Trading Times, but in Vintage Guitar Magazine, which was the Trading Times for old guitar junkies.

Anyhow, I got this 1965 Baldwin-Burns Jazz Split-Sound from George Gruhn for what I thought was a high price at the time, but it was a relative bargain at Gruhn’s because this was the time when everyone was still looking for vintage Strats and Les Pauls (before they cost 5 to 6 figures), not Baldwin-Burns guitars. So, this wasn’t on the radar at the time. Except for someone like me. There’s a reason I’m billed as “The Different Strummer.”

Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar

Baldwin-Burns guitars are part of the madness that was the 1960s guitar industry. Baby Boomers like me liked guitars and corporations with money started buying up guitar manufacturers. CBS and Fender, Norlin and Gibson, etc., etc. Among the early suitors for Fender was the Baldwin Piano and Organ company of Cincinnati. When Fender went on the block in 1965 due to Leo’s health problems, Baldwin tried to buy the company. CBS outbid them and that was that. At the same time, Burns of London, owned by Jim Burns, was having financial difficulties. Burns was more guitar “genius” than business wizard. The plan was to import Burns-designed and produced guitars carrying the Baldwin name. The first units began to arrive in late 1965 and this was a very early arrival of the Jazz Split-Sound model.

Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar

Actually, this is pretty interesting in a number of dimensions. First of all, it’s a “Strat” configuration, although pretty liberally interpreted, with “notes” of the Burns Bison. Back in the mid-‘60s Fender’s top guitars were the Jazzmaster and Jaguar, which were most copied by both European and Japanese manufacturers. It’s early because of the head, which became a scroll design in mid-1966. Like I said, Jim Burns was a pretty good guitar designer and this has one of his Series 2 adjustable vibratos. The pickups are a pretty interesting take on a humbucker, really kind of a hybrid, with offset coils and poles. This is, no doubt, the origin of the “Split-Sound” nomination. These are pretty cool, because the “Split-Sound” meant that the neck coils captured the bass strings and the bridge coils got the trebles. I’m not really sure you can hear the subtleties, but it’s dang cool none-the-less.

Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar

The “Wild Dog” setting is, well, underwhelming. It’s basically an out-of-phase sound like you get in the in-between positions on a Strat, but the pickups aren’t really as hot as a Strat’s, so, while it’s cool—and pretty innovative—in a ’60s guitar, it’s really no big whoop. But good marketing!

This is, for the times, a professional grade instrument, on a par with Fender or Gibson, with an entirely unique feel, of course. Burns doesn’t get the respect he deserves in the American market, and the Baldwin—and later Ampeg—monikers didn’t help with credibility, given the consumer illusion that a brand name had to equate with the manufacturer. Which it almost never has.

Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar

Despite all the technical features that make this guitar desirable, there really isn’t any “Wild Dog” there. Maybe compared to a Kay or a Harmony electric. And to get Wild Dog out of a Strat, you needed toothpicks. Nada on Gibsons.

That the “Wild Dog” setting was kind of disappointing doesn’t diminish the coolness of this guitar, but it certainly wasn’t what I expected. More like “Big Whoop.” But pretty good marketing!

The Lure of the Wild Dog (Vintage 1965 Baldwin Burns Jazz Split-Sound Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar

Carvin guitars, made in Covina, California, are one of the Rodney Dangerfield’s of the American guitar world. They’ve been around as long as Fender. They’re actually still in the family (as I write this, at least!), not passing through various corporate hands or part of a conglomerate family of brands. The company has contributed numerous innovations. These days the guitars reflect a high standard of quality. Yet for some reason Carvin doesn’t spring to most folk’s lips when you bring up the subject of venerable guitar brands.

I confess I was not really much aware of Carvin guitars until I started collecting back in the ‘80s. I probably saw some of their ads in Guitar Player Magazine, but since I wasn’t in the market for an electric guitar, I didn’t pay attention. Plus, I was living in the Great Lakes area and Carvin was out in California. You didn’t see too many Carvins.

Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar

My first Carvin was a classy 1982 DC-200KI with a body make of figured koa and a heel-less glued-in neck. Very sweet. After that I always kept my eyes peeled for interesting Carvins, and there are plenty.

I found this Carvin SGB-3 languishing in a music shop in Toledo, Ohio, before I knew much about the brand. Turns out this was one of Carvin’s first solidbody guitars, originally introduced in 1955 and offered until 1961.

Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar

Carvin—the name is a combination of the founder’s sons’ names Carson and Gavin—was started in 1946 when a Hawaiian guitar player from Kansas named Lowell Kiesel moved to L.A. Kiesel began developing an idea for a Bakelite lap steel and introduced the Kiesel lap steel in 1947. These were distributed by Continental, at least. I actually found one of those laps a few years ago. No one knew what it was! (Knowledge is power.) I spoke with one of the younger sons Mark years ago and he recalled assembling those laps in their kitchen. These did well and the Hawaiian line was expanded and they began making Kiesel amps.

The Carvin name appeared in around late 1949 or so. Carvin’s first Spanish electrics were hollowbodies sourced from both Kay and Harmony, with a Carvin pickup mounted on them in California. Until Carvin opened a couple retail outlets in the 1990s, Carvin guitars were always mail-order. Because they used that method of marketing, your guitar was basically custom-made when you placed an order. No dealers to supply, etc. As a result, Carvins have always offered lots of options, so you’re likely to find a lot of variation between examples of the same “model.”

Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar

As I said, the SBG solidbodies (Solid Body Guitar, SBG) debuted in 1955 with the design you see here, a big slab maple body and a sort of Stratish neck. I love the look, but there’s no way that point on the top side is comfortable to play! The pickups on this guitar are probably not original, although with Carvin’s “customizable” approach, who knows? I don’t know who made them. They look like DeArmonds and have the date Sept. 16, 1957, which DeArmond often did on older pickups. And they sound like DeArmonds, not my favorite units. Anyhow, they’re not stock Carvin pickups but they were probably mounted close to when this guitar was made. This one came with the all-important original hard case AND a Carvin brochure! These don’t have serial numbers yet, so your guess is as good as mine, but they were only made for 6 years. Pretty cool—if basic—guitars!

Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar

Carvin got a little more hip with a quasi-Jazzmaster style following these first SBGs, but switched to importing parts, briefly bodies made in Japan, then for much of the 1970s made its own Strat-style bodies but outfitted them with Höfner necks from Germany. In 1978 Carvin started making all of its own guitars again, including use of glued-in necks like my DC-200KI.

Fortunately the Plains-states migration into California didn’t yield The Grapes of Wrath for guitars. I’d say both Fender and Carvin are success stories. Carvin just needs a little more respect.

The Other Dust Bowl Ballads (Vintage 1961 Carvin SGB-3 Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

11. Ampeg VT 22

Song: All Down the Line
Artist: Keith Richards (The Rolling Stones)
Ah, Keith Richards and his Les Paul + Ampeg VT 22 combination. It’s like chicken soup/comfort food for the soul of tone. Holed up on the coast of France during 1969/70 to avoid arrest for tax evasion changes back in the UK, Keith and the boys recorded one of my all time favorite albums. Check out anything off Exile on Main Street for reference. The riff and tone on “All Down the Line” is a standout track to me. PURE KEEF!

Keith Richards with the Ampeg VT 22 Amp

Keith Richards with the Ampeg VT 22 Amp

12. Carvin X100B

Song: Blue Powder
Artist: Steve Vai
I’ll never forget the first time I heard Steve Vai’s “Blue Powder” on his breakout give away flexi-disc record that was included in the October ’85 issue of Guitar Player Magazine. The sheer melodic content vs. guitar prowess was beyond insane for the time. Steve Vai houses genius, melody and lighthearted feeling in a way that no other guitar player can. The tone and technique offered in the thin piece of vinyl was a small viewing glass into what was soon to become a new era in instrumental guitar technique.

Steve Vai & the Carvin X100B Amp (1986)

Steve Vai & the Carvin X100B Amp (1983)

13. Marshall 6100 30th Anniversary

Song: Up in the Sky
Artist: Joe Satriani
I had the opportunity to take my stepfather to see Joe Satriani at the memorial auditorium in Sacramento, CA for his birthday on October 29, 1998 during the Crystal Planet Tour. I’ll admit I had stepped outside my earlier hard rock guitar roots at that time and was listening to more alt country and pop stuff then. Seeing Joe on that tour blew my mind and reminded me of why Joe is the KING of all things instrumental rock guitar. I soon went out and purchased the Crystal Planet cd after the concert and was given a heavy dose of all things that inspire rock guitarists to play – including but not limited to – amazing instrumental guitar songs with pure tone and heartfelt performances. In the strange mystery that is life, Joe would later become a client of mine and a good friend. We have talked about how that album was recorded mostly live at “The Plant” in Sausalito. The majority of the core tones were captured with single channel tube amps, including the Joe Satriani staple: Channel One of the Marshall 6100 Anniversary Edition with a Japanese Boss DS-1 pedal pushing the front for the gain. In the hands of the master, even this simple setup can be considered legendary. Check out “Up in the Sky” as a standout track, but every track on this album is pure gold. One of my top ten instrumental albums of all time.

Joe Satriani’s 1992 Marshall 6100 30th Anniversary Amp

1992 Marshall 6100 30th Anniversary Amp

1992 Marshall 6100 30th Anniversary Amp

14. Hiwatt DR103

Song: Comfortably Numb
Artist: David Gilmour (Pink Floyd)
David Gilmour of Pink Floyd has always conjured up jaw dropping juicy tones of mythical proportion for decades. The Wall album feature many classic songs and some of my favorite recorded solo guitar tones ever. It seems Mr. Gilmour’s go-to amp on stage and in the studio is the Hiwatt DR103 100W head with WEM Super Starfinder 200 cabinets loaded with Fane Crescendo speakers. In this case I would say that David’s core tone is crafted from his hands, guitar and the highly elaborate Pete Cornish pedal board that is fed into the amp. More so than the amps stand-alone sound, his DR103 acts more as a clean full range power amp in this setup but is still noteworthy. Check out the solo in “Comfortably Numb” as my standout track. For more great info on David Gilmour and his gear, check out www.gilmourish.com as well.

David Gilmour’s Custom Hiwatt 100 Amp

David Gilmour’s Custom Hiwatt 100 Amp

David Gilmour’s Custom Hiwatt 100 Amp

David Gilmour’s Custom Hiwatt 100 Amp

15. Fender Eighty-Five (Solid State)

Song: Creep
Artist: Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead)
When the band Radiohead hit the scene in the early 90’s, I was immediately impressed with the songs and the two unique and original guitar parts on every song. Both guitarists (Jonny Greenwood & Ed O’Brien) seemed to cover so much tonal spectrum, yet always giving way to complimenting the song and never walking over the other players parts. I was surprised to find out at a much later date that Johnny Greenwood used a solid state Fender 85 amplifier as his main set up with pedals (including a Marshall Shredmaster pedal) driving the front of the amp to get his signature overdrive sound. Very early in Radiohead’s career, Jonny’s only amp was his Fender Eight-Five, which he used for both his distorted and clean tones. By late 1993, however, Jonny had bought his first tube amp: a Fender “The Twin” – which is the version Twin Reverb produced at the same time as the Eighty-Five. I think Radiohead is one of the most important and truly original groups to come out in the last 20 years.

Jonny Greenwood’s Fender Eighty Five Amp

Jonny Greenwood’s Fender Eighty Five Amp

Jonny Greenwood & his Fender Eighty Five Amp (Radiohead)

Jonny Greenwood & his Fender Eighty Five Amp (Radiohead)

16. Vox AC30

Song: Apache
Artist: Hank Marvin (The Shadows)
Across the pond in the late fifties & early sixties, The Shadows were cranking out pop and instrumental hits left and right. They achieved over 60 UK chart topping singles during there long and successful carrier. As a result of their success at the start of the 60’s, Hank Marvin had an interesting influence on the current VOX amplifier designs of the day as noted in this interview:

Along with the Fender guitar, another cornerstone of the Shadows sound was the Vox amplifier. According to Hank Marvin:

“Vox was one of the first companies to get onto artists and groups so they could promote their amplifiers. In fact, I tried Fender amplifiers first, but preferred the sound of the Vox with the Strat, because I think it was more of a raw sound. The Fender amplifier, to my ear sounded a little too smooth with a Strat, and I seemed to get more guts out of a Vox.”

Reg Clark worked in the Vox store in London’s Charing Cross Road in the early 60’s, and credits Hank with instigating a major Vox development:

“He suggested we made one with two speakers and it was from that comment that the AC30 came.”

The Shadows had tried the more powerful Fender Twin, but the Vox AC15 provided the sound they wanted, albeit with insufficient volume. Using two amplifiers each was rejected, and Vox finally came up with the legendary AC30, with the group taking delivery of four in late 1959. The AC30 was a 30-watt model with 12″ twin speakers and EL84 output valves. Hank’s amp was modified with a treble booster to provide a cleaner sound at high volume levels and this model was later sold commercially as the AC30 Top Boost.

Soon after, Hank changed his echo unit to the Binson Echorec, and a true legendary combination was solidified!

The Shadows & their Vox Amps

Vox AC30 Amp played by The Shadows

17. Gibson EH-150

Song: Stomping at the Savoy
Artist: Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian is the modern godfather of amplified electric jazz guitar. He is credited as a pioneer for taking the humble roll of the rhythm jazz guitar player in non-amplified form and pushing the boundaries to the point where other musicians respected the guitar. He proved the amplified guitar as a viable lead and solo instrument in the context of a large jazz ensemble. The Gibson ES-150 guitar coupled with the very rudimentary Gibson EH-150 tube amplifier paved the way for the future of modern electric guitar. Check out Charlie on the track “Stomping at the Savoy” and think back to how amazing that must have sounded live in the room in 1941 NYC.

Charlie Christian & his 1930’s Gibson EH-150 Guitar Amp

1930’s Gibson EH-150 Guitar Amp

18. Modified Marshall 100W Super Lead Plexi (The “Pete” Amp)

Song: Welcome to Paradise
Artist: Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day)
When Green Day hit the big time on their chart topping Dookie album in 1994, I was immediately intrigued. Dookie was the band’s third studio album and its first collaboration with producer Rob Cavallo – and its major record label debut. Green Day seemed to come out of nowhere with their punk and thrash attitude, yet the songs were tight & concise hit pop/AOR sensations. Not only is Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day a killer songwriter and performer, his guitar tone is super fat and chunky. Wielding his bastard green Fernandez Stratocaster copy and a modified Marshall Plexi Super Lead 100-watt amp head (with the name duct-taped out), Billie Joe has perfected that tight right-hand rhythm and is so locked in with Trey Cool and Mike Dirnt. They create a modern power trio that is highly underrated IMHO. Check out the opening riff to “Welcome to Paradise” and you realize right then and there – this is the fundamental core sound of modern alternative rock as it stands today.

Billie Joe Armstrong on-stage at Woodstock 1994 with his ‘Dookie’ modified Marshall Super Lead

Billie Joe Armstrong on-stage at Woodstock 1994 with his ‘Dookie’ modified Marshall Super Lead

19. Kustom K200A-4 (aka the ‘A4’ or the K200A Model 2-15L-4)

Song: Born on a Bayou
Artist: John Fogerty (CCR)
Another solid state transistor amp to make the list! The Kustom A4 amplifier with 2 x 15″ cab. This was John Fogerty’s main live rig for the classic CCR years, but there is also proof that he did use a a silver face Fender Vibrolux Reverb on many of the CCR studio recordings. The Fender provided more of a natural distortion that the transistor-based Kustom just couldn’t provide. John’s Kustom amps on stage always had the Trem / Vib set at one o’ clock as seen in many photos. Check out this classic performance and tone from Woodstock with the Rik in hand. There’s no doubt in any guitarists mind who the player is when the intro riff of this classic rock song comes through your radio dial.

CCR with the Kustom Amp in the background

John Fogerty’s K200A-4 Amp

John Fogerty’s K200A-4 Amp

1968 Kustom Ad for the K200A Amp

20. Standel Amp

Song: Mr. Sandman
Artist: Chet Atkins
In the mid to late 50’s, all the top guitar players and band leaders of the time were custom ordering Standel amps from Bob Crooks in CA. From StandelAmps.com:

Bob Crooks built approximately 75 amps with the first design (knobs on top of the amp), all out of his backyard workshop at 10661 Freer Street in Temple City CA. Chet Atkins couldn’t order one himself because of his endorsement deal with Gretsch, but he bought one from a guitar player friend and used it on thousands of recordings. You can hear the amp during Chet Atkins appearances on “Classic Country” originally from 1957 but rebroadcast in the mid-80’s on TNN, Chet’s White Standel can be seen behind him on a bale of hay on about half of the performances).

Chet Atkins is arguable the most accomplished and amazing guitar player in US history. This performance of “Mr. Sandman” shows his effortless touch and command of the instrument.

Jim Reeves & Chet Atkins with a Standel 25L15 Amp

Chet Atkins with a Standel 25L15 Amp

Standel 25L15 Guitar Amp

10 Classic Guitar Amps & The Songs That Made Them Famous (PART 2!) from MyRareGuitars.com

Back in the Sixties, Fender guitars were the holy grail of electric guitars. I knew two people in the valley that had Jazzmasters. But, being a sixteen year old kid, owning a Fender was out of the question. For us, it was the Sears or Eaton’s catalogue and a cheap, poorly built guitar from another land. My first electric guitar was so poorly built it could not be tuned properly, and every time you switched pickups, you got a shock. It soon went back to the catalogue company. I settled for an Italian acoustic and played folk music, but the thought of an electric guitar was never far from my mind. Playing Ventures music on an acoustic just didn’t cut it. After a long and hot summer, I earned enough money working at a chicken farm to head off to the city and see if I could buy some sort of electric guitar.

One sunny morning, I swung my acoustic across my back, stuck out my thumb and headed for the city, about 2 ½ hours away. Pretty soon an old beat up Hudson pulled up, driven by a longed haired hippie, with wife, baby, and sister. Strapped to the roof were their worldly possessions, as they were from California, heading north to the gold fields in Alaska. I got in the back with the sister, guitar across my knees as there was barely room with all the boxes and clothes. We got to talking about their adventure, life, sixties politics, and eventually music. I mentioned that I was headed to the city to see if I could trade my acoustic in on an electric guitar. After a while I learned that he had a Fender electric in the trunk. Of course, I was pretty excited that I met another Fender owner, and we talked different models etc. After a couple hours, he eyed my acoustic and told me that they were a bit short on cash and he would consider selling his Fender, taking my acoustic as part of the deal.

Deep in my heart, I was thinking, “I’ll never be able to afford it, but what the heck, at least find out how much he wanted for his guitar”. He scratched his beard for a few seconds, and said “tell you what…your acoustic and ninety bucks, and you got yourself a deal”. Well, you could have peeled me off the roof of the car. I was in heaven – I was going to buy a Fender! My summer’s work had put $130 bucks in my pocket, so I said I might be interested. Yeah right, I would have given him every cent I had. I wanted that Fender, and I am sure he could tell I was pretty excited. He would get the guitar out of the trunk so I could look at it when we got to where he needed to turn off and go north.

Finally we reached the turn-off, he pulled the car off the highway, and I proceeded to help him unload a well packed trunk. It took a few minutes and finally, laying across the bottom was a beat up old brown fender guitar case. I was so excited, it didn’t matter what was in that case…it was a Fender and that was all that mattered. He slid the case out and onto the ground. He popped the case open and there it was. This beautiful, beat up, old, scratched and chipped, beige colored, ¾-sized, one pick-up, maple neck Musicmaster:

I picked it out of the case, strummed a couple of chords, stood up, shook his hand, and said, I’ll take it!” I pulled the cash out of my wallet, helped him put everything back in the trunk, and then watched as they headed north, the sister smiling in the back seat as she strummed my acoustic.

I crossed the highway, stuck out my thumb and headed back the way I came. I didn’t need to go any farther. I was the proud owner of a Fender.

Written by: Andrew Marr, Coldstream B.C.

My First Fender from MyRareGuitars.com

From the Temple of Doom (I): Koob, Albert, Patricia, and Adeline

By Michael Wright
The Different Strummer

Imagine someone telling you about an old-time music store that had a huge stash of unsold guitars from the 1960s, plus some guitar effects from the ‘70s lying around in its upper floors in Newark, NJ. Well, you can bet it didn’t take long for me to beat a path to the door of Newark Music City (calm down; this was a long time ago and, while the company still exists, it’s long gone from Newark). Even though I was late in the game, there were still unmined treasures to be had. A real Temple of Doom!
I pulled a lot of good stuff out of Music City and owner John Ciarfella was great to work with. The store was full of New-Old-Stock gear, not to mention a bunch of vintage pieces taken in on trade over the years and just never sold. Maestro pedal effects, replacement Victrola parts, Japanese guitar hardware. Plus this NOS c. 1966 Kapa Continental No. CO-XII-V 12-String, culled from a huge pile in their old cardboard boxes stacked in a corner on the 3rd Floor. All leftover from when John’s father ran Newark Musical Merchandise and distributed Kapas, but was never able to sell. More about the Kapa later.

But the trip to the trip was the upper floors.  Music City was actually two joined 4-story buildings on a corner near the “new” Newark performance center.  The stairs were rickety and the floors unfinished, everything dusty.  The 2^nd floor was full of old shelving and drawers filled with the NOS stuff.  The stairs between the floors and buildings were a maze.

After I’d bought a number of things on several trips, John took me up to the 4^th floor of the corner building.  That had originally been a speakeasy and on the 4^th floor was a Burlesque theater.  It was still there.  The proscenium stage, all the seats, tattered curtains.  Water damage and some graffiti by locals who’d broken in through the skylight.  It was awesome, almost dwarfing the Kapa find.

But, unlike the KAPA, I couldn’t take the theater home with me. Kapa was a brand started by another music distributorship begun in 1960 and owned by a Dutch immigrant named Koob Veneman in Rockville, BD.  Veneman’s father had operated a music store in Holland and distributed guitars carrying the AMKA brand, an acronym made up of the first letters of his childrens’ names (K was Koob).  In 1962 Veneman decided to plunge into the Guitar Boom and manufacture his own line of solid- and hollowbody electric guitars and basses in nearby Hyattsville, MD.  He named the guitars KAPA after his family, himself, son Albert, daughter Patricia, and wife Adeline.

KAPA began in 1963 or ‘64 (sources differ) with three solidbodies, the Challenger (sort of a two-pickup mini-Strat), the Wildcat (three-pickup version), and an occasional single-pickup Cobra, made from scraps.  KAPAs were famous for their ultra-thin necks, made by KAPA, not Höfner as some online sources claim.  Until 1966 the pickups, which looked like Höfners, were made by KAPA.

In 1966 KAPA’s lumber stock got thinner and they began using Pix pickups made in Germany, the same as used by Höfner (but not made by Höfner).  They also switched from threeway toggles to sliding on/off switches about this time.  KAPA also introduced the Jazzmaster-style Continental in ‘66, including the 12-string example seen here.

KAPA guitars were actually quite well made, very easy to play, and give off a nice vintage ‘60s vibe.  They made upwards of 120,000 of them, so they’re not especially rare, but then, not too many people ever thought they’d be of interest to anyone in the future!

1966 Kapa Continental 12-String HS

Unfortunately, KAPA doesn’t seem to have been very concerned about consistency, and you’ll find Continentals with Challenger decals and vice versa, and dating is primarily a matter of guesswork.  In 1968 KAPA added a Minstrel teardrop-shaped solid to the line and in 1969 some thinline hollowbodies with bodies made in Japan.  However, by then sales were in decline and in 1970 Veneman shut KAPA down, selling leftover supplies and machinery to Micro-Frets and Mosrite.  Veneman sold Bradley copy guitars during the 1970s.  In the 1980s the shop got into the mailorder music biz.  The shop still exists, but as a premier Guitar Center location.

In any case, besides being a relatively rare ‘60s soldibody 12-string, this KAPA Continental carries the cachet of having been found unsold in a musty old corner of a musical Temple of Doom in Newark, NJ, next door and an obscure staircase away from a mothballed attic burlesque theater!

Michael Wright, The Different Strummer, is a collector and historian whose work is featured in Vintage Guitar Magazine.

From the Temple of Doom (I): Koob, Albert, Patricia, and Adeline from MyRareGuitars.com

Eastwood Mandocaster Electric Mandolin (Antique Sunburst)

BACKGROUND:
Traditionally, the mandolin is described as a short-neck lute with eight strings, named after the Italian ‘mandolina.’ It has the same fretboard and tuning as a violin, and originated in its current form around the 16th Century and likely developed to fill out the scale of the lute family. The instrument became popular in North America into the 18th Century and particularly in parlors where simple instruments were used to entertain. Into the 19th Century mandolin ensembles toured the Vaudeville circuit and the mini-lute soon captivated the average person as a viable instrument of choice to play at home and with friends (its small size was great for travel); this occurred well before the popularity of the steel-stringed guitar as thousands of mandolins were sold through Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs.

Lyon & Healy were one of the larger mandolin manufacturers in the early stages, but Gibson soon took up the challenge to become the primary manufacturer. And it was in 1905 that the Gibson A-4 was developed, breaking all mandolin traditions as the design moved from the typical bowl-back shape to mimicking violin construction with a carved top and back. This helped to set the stage for a preferred mandolin shape in American folk and popular music. Today the mandolin may be best accepted or connected to folk and country bluegrass music, but it also has been used in rock music of various genres, including works of Led Zeppelin, Tea Party, Alan Parson Project, The Byrds, Hall and Oats, REM, Jethro Tull, Yes, and many others.

The flat-back style of mandolin took a unique turn in 1956 when Fender developed a 4-string electric version, with a body shaped similar to a Stratocaster – and its name to become the Mandocaster. Highly collectable, mostly because of its unique shape, the Mandocaster was limited in usability due to the four strings and a less robust sound of typical mandolins. Nonetheless, it did find an audience due to its appearance and electric capabilities before being discontinued in 1976.

As with other rare and vintage instruments, Eastwood Guitars swooped into production to create its own unique version of the Mandocaster, which construction and appearance rivals the old Fender issues. Available in a high-quality finish of antique sunburst or black (I ordered an antique sunburst model since it so reminded me of a vintage instrument), the Eastwood Mandocaster boasts a solid alder body with a maple bolt-on neck and rosewood fingerboard. In fact, when describing this instrument it can be described accurately as a solid-body guitar, as though a James Bond villain miniaturized a Telecaster and gave it 8-strings. Surprisingly heavy in feel, you can tell you have something in your hands that will last for years without breakage or environmental damage. It is built to stand up to regular use.

Eastwood Mandocaster Electric Mandolin (Black)

HARDWARE:
The bridge is a fully adjustable Tele-Style bride, which means a fully intonatable saddle just like its big brother. The bridge plate is cast and plated, and each set of strings has its own saddle with height adjustment screws. When first received, my Mandocaster had some buzzing on the third string, but with the included hex key (Allen wrench) included, it took seconds to fine-tune. The machine head hardware is quality Gotoh nickel and chrome, and the keys feel exceptionally smooth and solid in use.

NECK:
The maple neck with truss rod is very solid and bolts onto the body with four contact points. The neck is more of a U shape rather than a C shape, which may be a concern for a full-sized guitar, but I did not find it cumbersome or ‘thick’ in the least. Rather, having a rounder or chunkier neck for its size is a requirement since the neck of a mandolin is so narrow and small to begin with and you need enough bulk to make it strong and lasting. As well, with a solid-body Tele there certainly needs to be some harmony in the design and I could not imagine a thinner neck; even a person with small hands should not be hindered by the neck’s shape and I put myself in that category.

The frets are smooth on all edges and they may seem rather small if you’re use to today’s jumbo fret electric guitars. But I do not think one would want them any larger – the fret spacings are small, as they are with any mandolin, and a chief complaint of people with large fingers is the difficulty playing a mandolin effectively. Larger frets would reduce fret space and make the task of playing more challenging and particularly in the upper register. Moreover, the action is low and playing is smooth, and so the neck and fret size certainly do work together.

ELECTRONICS:
The vintage Fender Mandocasters were limited by a single pickup, whereas the Eastwood model has two single-coil pickups, together with a 3-way switch and a tone control (the switch and tone pots are smooth, solid and have little play), thus offering far more possibilities in the eventual sound. The pickups do not offer a lot of output, but they are super quiet even when you turn your amp up to high levels. And if desired, because they are standard-sized pickups, you can replace them with a different type. Nonetheless, the tone of a mandolin seems to cut through just about any mix and having extremely loud/sensitive pickup capability is not as much an issue as some would think. After all, it is unlikely a mandolin will be paired up with Death Metal music, and just about any other genre that incorporates a mandolin tends to be more subdued, even within certain rock genres. Consequently, I see these pickups as being sufficient for the job. As well, with such passive pickups, the true tone of this instrument shines through, whereas going a different route (with something more ‘active’) may reduce the mandolin sound one is trying to achieve.

TONE:
I own a quality pumpkin-back mandolin, and what can be said about these acoustic counterparts is that there is a certain resonating and vibrating quality that cannot be achieved with a solid body electric. Well, certainly, and that should be obvious, as obvious as being able to achieve sounds with a solid-body electric that cannot be achieved with an acoustic model (with or without a pickup). These are different animals and one would not compare an electric solid-body violin with a regular violin either.

Having said that, the Mandocaster has a definite mandolin tone which a person may or may not like, depending how much of a die-hard ‘acoustic’ mandolin player you may be. I’m a guitarist and like using a mandolin the odd time for enjoyment purposes or to include a mandolin within my compositions, but I’m certainly not a mandolin connoisseur. Yet I would state that the Mandocaster is the genuine article and produces its own array of unique tones that are unmistakably ‘mandolin.’ And those unique tones are the result of the body construction and the pickups.

The neck pickup is my favourite and has the most organic timbre the two. The bridge pickup offers a thinner sound, as is the case with any electric guitar, but it does cut through the mix better. Thus, for more robust music accompaniment, the bridge may be best, whereas the neck selection would be superior for unaccompanied or less voluminous music. And then you have the middle selector position, which has a slightly out of phase characteristic that definitely offers a mix of both worlds. A piezo pickup may be an interesting modification and this may result in even a better or authentic ‘acoustic’ sound, but the neck position does provide a full-bodied richness that has me returning to it repeatedly.

DIVERSIBILITY:
As important as the qualities of each pickup and the sounds that you can achieve, the Eastwood Mandocaster reacts like a regular guitar, in that it has good response with effects pedals. High levels of drive and distortion may not be apropos, but certainly a little edge/distortion with flange, tremolo, chorus or other ingredients bring out unique colors that makes people think twice about the mandolin and how well it can fit into modern music. And although too much drive or distortion may make the tone a bit abrasive, easing off on the volume knob cleans things up nicely.

Finally, I encourage readers to check out a video demonstrating the Eastwood Mandocaster, featuring Wendell Ferguson, an award-winning Canadian guitarist on YouTube:

PLUSES:
With two pickups, a three-way switch and a tone knob, there are many sound possibilities, besides any effect (tremolo, chorus, flange, etc.) you care to throw at it in order to produce your own unique mando tone. The weight and quality of construction is very good and you feel like you’re playing an electric guitar. Since the Mandocaster has standard sized pickups, you can replace them with any other single-coil model if desired. And… it comes in a lefty version.

MINUSES:
The Mandocaster may not sound as organic as a typical acoustic mandolin, but then again – this was not meant to replicate an acoustic model – it is what it is. The three-way switch may get in the way of some larger hands and particularly players with long and aggressive picking/strumming strokes.

Review by Brian D. Johnston

Eastwood Mandocaster Review from MyRareGuitars.com

Story #1- 1959 Fender Musicmaster

This was perhaps one of the first vintage Fender guitars I ever owned. Got it in a trade in the early 1990’s eBay days from a fella in Texas. I was living in California at the time. Can’t remember what the trade was, but for my own sanity I’m convinced I got the better of the deal. I’m sure the guy on the other end feels the same way. That’s a good trade – when both parties are happy – and in fact I think we did a few more deals over the years so such is the case.

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

Vintage 1959 Fender Musicmaster Electric Guitar

I instantly fell in love with this guitar – so tiny, so playable, and it was made the year I was born, 1959. Shortly after I got it, my wife and I were invited to a friends house down in Mexico for a weeklong vacation with three other couple. Why not take that old Fender?! It will fit in the airline overhead for sure! One of the other guys along for the trip – Ben Goldman – was a talented guitar player/singer and each night stirred up a sing-a-long around the fire, so I would bring out the little Musicmaster to add some accompaniment. Somewhere along the way, Ben went out to a local shop and came back with one of those massive acoustic Mexican guitars – I think it is called a Guitarron – without much thought we all ended up at the airport a few days later with no case for this beast. He ended up wrapping it in all his families clothing, then duct tape, to get it on the plane back to California. Nothing phased Ben, he was a cool guy is sadly missed by all who knew him.

The Guitarron

That old Fender was such a curious and cool piece of wood and wire. But, there was a problem.

Everyone I showed it to would eventually say, “what is up with that glob of gold shit on the body?”. At first it did not bother me, but a sticker that some kid put on it 40 years earlier had become fused with the finish, impossible to remove. Becoming self conscious about it, I took it to the local luthier for his opinion and to get that damn sticker removed. “We can refinish the guitar, but then it will be worth half as much as it is now, and you will have twice as much money into it”. Lesson learned.

Pretty cool guitar, but I sold it, and as always in cases like this, it got filed under THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY.

Back Catalog Memories: 1959 Fender Musicmaster from MyRareGuitars.com

Don’t get me wrong. The Deluxe Reverb is a great amp. But the Fenders I love pretty much all fall in the tweed era, where there wasn’t a ton of great headroom and you got into a nice snarl pretty early in the sweep of the volume knob.

1960's Kay 507 Twin Ten Vintage Guitar Amp

You don’t see a bunch of the dual 6V6 single 12” Kays. The models you tend to see the most are the little (and somewhat anemic) single-ended practice amp, the 703. And the Kay tube amp you tend to see the least is the VERY cool duel 6L6 (sometimes) Kay 507 Twin Ten.

1960's Kay 507 Twin Ten Vintage Guitar Amp

As the name suggests, the amp pushes two (ALNICO) 10” speakers powered by a pair of 6L6’s. What’s weird is that a LOT have 7868’s as output tubes and use a 7199 in the circuit. 7868’s have a great tone, in general. They are, from what I’ve read, essentially the same tube as a 7591, but with nine pins instead of eight. 7199’s got used a lot in Ampegs and Sanos and they are very rare and they aren’t made anymore, so they tend to cost a lot of dough. So, buyer beware (especially about the 7199) on this amp. BUT, the model I have has what are obviously original 6L6’s and no rare or obscure preamp tubes (five 12AX7’s do the preamp and phase inverter jobs) and the old stand-by 5U4 for rectification. Mine is all original—as the schematic inside matches what’s in the amp. But there seem to have been some variations on the construction of the 507—so, ask the seller about/check the tubes when buying so you know what your 507 has in it.

1960's Kay 507 Twin Ten Vintage Guitar Amp

Also, it’s one of the coolest looking amps you’ll see. It has two channels (two inputs per channel), a VERY snazzy chrome rear control panel with six knobs (tone and volume for each channel and speed and intensity for the tremolo). And it has a very 50’s-looking two tone appearance (even though it lists that they were made 1960-1963), brown rear and light brown front with a white swirl on brown cloth grill. It’s a great size—not too heavy and 24” wide by 20” tall.

1960's Kay 507 Twin Ten Vintage Guitar Amp

OK, it looks cool, but how does it sound? Pretty freaking cool. It sounds a lot like the other great Chicago amps of the same period. And this is where things get kind of interesting—who made these Kay amps? It has a tone very much like the great Valcos (which ended up branded, at various times, Supro, Airline and, in the 400 series, Harmony). And, like a Valco, it has a tone a bit like some of the great Lectrolabs, too (I’ve seen Lectrolabs branded under their own name and also with Philharmonic and the 300 series of Harmony amps). But, it’s not made by either Valco or Lectrolab (I get this info from a friend of mine who knows more about off-brand amps than anyone I know and has a collection to prove it). It also doesn’t look like a Valco or Lectrolab under the hood. It’s simply made differently (though it is point-to-point like both of those brand—no hand stuffed circuit board like on a Tweed Fender). According to my friend, it was Kay who actually made these Kay amps over these years (go figure). As I say, this friend knows a lot more than me and has written several books on the Chicago giants. Plus, it’s easy to tell from looking that it wasn’t made by Valco or Lectrolab. So, if it isn’t easy to tell who DID make it, at least we know who DIDN’T.

1960's Kay Dual 6V6 Vintage Guitar Amp

Whoever made it, though, it’s a wonderful amp. At low volume, you get a VERY rich and textured clean sound. The two ten inch speakers sound great and the cleans are very complex, much like a Tweed Fender Super from the early 50’s. This is one of the richest, thickest (without being overly dark) cleans I have ever heard in a vintage amp. And when you add the tremolo, wow! It moves from a VERY slow, pulsing tremolo, to a pretty fast one—but it never gets totally choppy and helicopter-sounding like a lot of the late 60’s tremolos. Throughout the range of the “strength” control, the tremolo stays watery and smooth. Just a killer sound.

1960's Kay Dual 6V6 Vintage Guitar Amp

Turned up, it sounds more like a 6V6 amp than most 6L6 amps I’ve ever heard. Very Neil Young and Crazy Horse. If you push the volume on the channel you’re using to 6 or higher, it starts to really snarl and have a complex great sounding distortion. The volume and tone controls are interactive, too, so you can get some very nice textures of distortion by either coupling the channels with a short cord, or just playing with the volume of the channel you’re not using. Open it up full and put the other channel around 5 or 6 and it sounds VERY much like Neil Young’s tone on RAGGED GLORY—that opening of “Country Home” sounds spot on when this amp is cranked.

1960's Kay Dual 6V6 Vintage Guitar Amp

It’s a sleeper. And there don’t seem to be too many of them out there. I haven’t heard the 7868 output tube version of this amp, but I’d sure like to. In any case, if you see one of the 507 Twin Tens with 6L6 output tubes, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. I’m doing a MAJOR purge around here—selling at least five guitars and five amps. And I kept going back and forth on the Kay 507. Then I plugged it in to write this and I decided I’d be nuts to get rid of it. There simply aren’t that many of them. And I don’t want to feel like I felt about letting go of my 4X6V6 Danelectro Challenger with a 15 inch speaker. That was another super rare amp I let go of, and I still get angry at myself. From now on, I’ve vowed to only get rid of stuff I could easily replace if I truly regretted the sale. So this one stays.

1960’s Kay 507 Twin Ten Vintage Guitar Amp from MyRareGuitars.com

• Some very cool products come out.
• Some slimy companies try to sell their (generally) useless products with scantily clad women (and, hey, I’m all for scantily clad women, but it seems out of place, silly and kind of skanky in a bad way at a trade show).
• There are rooms and rooms of guitars and amps and pedals to check out.
• And there is what seems like a whole floor of drummers and drum products to avoid. (Only the most aurally masochistic of us should ever have to endure the “World’s Fastest Drummer” competition.)
• A surprisingly large amount of guys (most in their 40’s, but some younger, however this is an offense that even youth offers no excuse for) walk around with sunglasses inside and look pretty much like their trying to win a “look like a pathetic moron” contest.
• And so on.

But, it’s still a blast and a half to go—largely because the Eastwood crew (Mike Robinson, et al) are some of the greatest people to hang with. So, what happened this year at NAMM? What follows are some random notes and observations, things I saw and heard, from the NAMM show, this year’s model.

• One of the things about booth placement at NAMM, is that you’re pretty much at the mercy of the gods…or, at the very least, whomever it is who decides what booths go where. The Eastwood booth was in the company of several very cool booths. It was, however, maddeningly placed kitty-corner to some “carry it in a bag” acoustic amplifier. The theory behind this gizmo seemed to be that any singer-songwriter could carry this tall thin speaker and amp and play a gig anywhere without back strain. Unfortunately, the makers didn’t seem to consider ear strain when making this. The sound quality was not helped by the fact that everyone who demo’d the thing seemed to be the first handful of people they could find off the street who knew a G C and D chord and who promised to howl out of tune at any public opportunity. But the amplification system itself sounded so bad that I don’t think Bob Dylan himself could have sounded good through it. As the great and funny Peter Robinson said at one point, “That thing sounds like someone strumming a screen door.”
• The booth directly behind us seemed to be for some brand of bass. However this wasn’t some company trying to take business from, say, people who play Fender Precisions. People who play, you know, actual bass. No, this bass was for guys who thought holding down the bottom and playing tastefully and melodically were archaic notions and quaint ideas of the past. Not for them subtlety or musicality…bass is made for playing as fast as possible. And it gets even better if you can tap and snap as often as possible. Spend four eight hour days with this tuneless rumble directly behind your booth, and you will go insane. You’ve been warned.
• Relic guitars are, inexplicably, as popular as ever. I may get some flak for this but, damn it people, if you want a beat-up looking guitar, beat up your own damn guitar. For one thing, there’s something truly disingenuous about having a fake cluster of wear on your guitar. Do it yourself! Play the hell out of it. It’s not hard to beat a guitar up—I’ve done it to several. However, the worst thing about these “relics” is that they LOOK fake as all hell (including the ones that cost about as much as a car coming out of various custom shops in, not to name names or anything, places like Corona, CA). I have a 1969 Telecaster I’ve had since 1982. It was beat up when I got it. In the twenty-eight years I’ve had it, I’ve played it more than any other of my guitars. It’s been on several tours. It’s been through THREE sets of frets. It has acquired beer and sweat and blood (all, literally) in its electronics. It’s been banged around by luggage carriers, band-mates, tour vans with crappy suspension and questionable brakes and played night after night for years by yours truly. It’s full of dings, scratches, wear marks and a couple of cigarette burns. Why do I tell you all this? Because, as beat up as my Tele is (and I’ve hardly taken great care of it, physically) is has NOWHERE near the “wear” of the average “relic” guitar. I checked out several “relics” (from several well known brands—all the big players) and they, without exception, looked extreme, ridiculous and phony. I can see the logic of wanting to feel a worn-in neck, but these relic bodies are goofy. Most look like a stoned teenager took a belt sander and mallet to them in shop class.
• Boy, are there a LOT of pedals for guitar players available. Many of them seem to have so much gain, it has NO importance what amp you put behind it. It kind of cracks me up that people will buy a three thousand dollar amp and then put a pedal in front of it that so blocks the tone and personality, they might as well be playing guitar through a Radio Shack PA.
• There are, and this is an estimate, about five thousand guitar players at NAMM better than me (I say this estimating the number of guitar plays at NAMM at about five thousand). Somewhat reassuring in this estimate, however, is that fewer than a hundred of them play anything I’d want to play. There’s an astounding amount of truly stunning, and truly awful, noodling out there.
• Based on the purely anecdotal evidence of walking around the NAMM show, I would say that there are a LOT of bass players who don’t know what a bass player’s job is. Yes, Jaco Pastorious and Stanley Clark may have been geniuses, but I think they may have ruined a generation or two of bass players. I’m not saying you have to play Nashville bass and just sit on the root, or that you can’t play it as a lead instrument at time—hell, I love Mingus, for instance, or Entwistle, and they didn’t play “traditional” bass. But, damn, I heard so many profoundly AWFUL bass players just cramming a bunch of notes and slapping and pulling and not seeming to know a thing about the bottom or the melody. It’s an epidemic, people. If you have a bass player like this in your family or band, it might be time for a thud staff intervention. This “style” of playing needs a drastic reaction. Say, public shunning, or something.
• I had to listen to a guy, some “artist” at a pedal booth demo (wearing a purple suit and purple fedora and more makeup than Tammy Faye Baker) play “Pride and Joy” and (yes, really) “Mustang Sally” several times in four days. He was, sadly, on the way to the bathroom, the food and the beer. He was also, sadly, on the way BACK from the bathroom, food and the beer. He played a Strat through a Tubescreamer and a Wah and he sounded exactly like Stevie Ray Vaughan, except for those ever so subtle little things we like to call originality and genius.
• A lot of guys (the ones not shredding like someone named Blackie, or Sinister, or Diabolical Jones or Really Scary Larry or whatever their mascara-stained faces are) play “Pride and Joy” when they sit to test a guitar.
• An otherwise stunningly attractive woman in her mid 40’s with a “SCORPIONS” tattoo tramp stamped at the small of her back. Just sad.
• Along with the bozos who wear sunglasses indoors (and NO, I will never let up on you clowns until you’re swept from the Earth), there were plenty of guys trying to dress like rock stars—long coats, silly boots, one Goth guy trying to look all scary with those weird “look! My eyes are red! Ooooh, scary,” contact lenses, and so on. Really, NAMM is an interesting place to go to see how pathetically some men handle middle age. Guys, the pencil-thin mustaches, the pancake makeup, the black wigs…it would be funny if it weren’t so obvious and so naked in its Peter Pan desperation.
• I checked out the Peavey booth, thinking I’d been unfair a couple years back saying everything they made was ugly. But, no, I was right. They make fine, dependable, at times first-rate products. But they slap that hideous early 80’s ‘lightening bolt’ Peavey logo on everything and they seem to have the worst aesthetic sense in the business. Obviously they’re doing something right, having been in the biz since 1965, but boy, their stuff is tough on the eyes.
• What else? Well, lots of cool guitars. Some fine looking amps (it’s hard as all hell to tell if they’re good sounding at NAMM, since you can’t turn the volume up, which is good, in the long run). More Ukuleles than I’ve ever seen in one place. A Paul McCartney impersonator at the Hofner booth who didn’t look much like Paul McCartney. And, perhaps much sadder, a Catwoman impersonator at the Hallmark booth who didn’t look nearly enough like Julie Newmar. But, then, not enough people in this world look enough like Julie Newmar, so what’s one to do?
• I’d be remiss not to mention National Treasure Deke Dickerson and his annual Guitar Geek Festival. The man knows how to put on a show and this year was no exception.

So, that’s something of a wrap on this year’s NAMM show. In between all the guitars, the amps, the goofy guys with sunglasses indoors were many hours spent laughing and hanging out with the guys from Eastwood (and I would quote some of the jokes and conversations, but none of them approached anything like a G-rating, so you’ll have to be out of that vulgar loop, my friends)—truly some of the greatest guys I know and people who make even a casual gathering in a hotel room better than most parties. Even though I’m still hearing really bad folksingers and slappy bass bozos as I try to sleep at night, I can’t wait until next year.

Report from NAMM 2010 from MyRareGuitars.com

The guitarMatz is an innovative wall mounting system that displays your guitar in front of a 48” x 18” graphic of your choice. The system works with a steel wall mounted guitar hanger that holds a channeled frame. The graphic sits inside the frame and a guitar hook securely bolts into the wall mount. The guitarMatz is designed and built in Canada out of heavy-duty epoxy eCoated steel and it is built to last. The result is a large wall graphic that looks great either with or without your guitar hanging on it. But the best result is, that with this art piece, you may be able to convince your spouse into allowing you to hang your guitar in the family space.

GuitarMatz: Wall Mounting System for Guitars

How did I get here you ask? Well I spent years searching. I looked at all of the available methods of displaying guitars trying to get my guitars out of the basement. First I found the rather overpriced museum style framed boxes that look more like a coffin than a cool place to display your prized Mosrite. They didn’t look right for me. Then I found and purchased a Rockcase by Warrick – with its flightcase aluminum frame and plexi window, it is very cool, but it looks way too much like it just came off the tour bus. My Rockcase is in the basement holding my Johnny Winter autographed Firebird, it never made it over the couch. Then I looked at the giant multi-guitar cabinets that take up half a room and will cost you your vacation to Disney. That really wasn’t my style or in my budget.

But what I did like the most, were the custom framed collectable guitars that fill all the memorabilia shops in Vegas. Big, bold and exciting with photos and graphics relating to the guitar, their only problem was the guitar was just an expensive signed art piece that you couldn’t play. So I put my years of marketing, design and visiting guitar shops together and created the guitarMatz. It is a simple logical way to display your guitar. It looks great because it is a frame and you choose the graphic that best suites you, your guitar and your room. And the best thing about the guitarMatz is that your guitar is right there… just pick it up off the hanger and you can noodle away for hours while everyone else watches some mindless dance contest.

I am very excited about how great the response to guitarMatz has been from guitar players, retailers and their spouses. We are now developing some very interesting licensing deals and some special artist programs for new and exciting graphics. And we also have the flexibility to allow you to create and upload your own photos and graphics. Just jump over to www.guitarmatz.com to check them out.

MyRareGuitars.com will soon be offering the complete line of guitarMatz as one of their ongoing products.

Do yourself and your guitars a favor, take them out of the case and put them up on your walls on a guitarMatz. They will look amazing, you’ll play them more and if you’re real lucky they may even make it to your living room.

Grant Ivens, rgd, is a Toronto musician, writer, creative director, TV producer, married with two talented young daughters, and is currently working on several new products aimed at bringing his ‘brandSimple” design sense to the music industry via his product company ShowOff Gear. You can contact him at grant@showoffgear.com

GuitarMatz: How I Got My Guitars in the Living Room from MyRareGuitars.com

Vintage 1966 Standel Model 101 Custom Deluxe Electric Guitar

Fast forward to the go-go ‘80s. Not about stocks or dancing. Go-go because I was buying guitars hand over fist. Weird guitars. Mystery guitars. One of those guitars snared in my trap was this Standel. I held back at first because there was some damage to the pickguard near the jack and I had no idea what this thing was. But plastic can be fixed, right? Once I started looking into this guitar, I was glad I didn’t pass.

Roll the tape further forward and I still don’t know much definitively about this particular guitar. Standel was begun as a tube amp company by Bob Crooks in Temple City, California, near Los Angeles, in 1953. The solid-state amps came in around 1965. As indicated, he was pretty successful, so it was a logical next step to cash in on the guitar boom and introduce a line of guitars. In around 1961 or 1962 Crooks approached a young Semie Moseley, who’d been making waves hot-rodding the guitars of local Country-Western stars, and asked him to design a guitar that was “as close to being a Fender as possible without being a Fender.” Moseley said sure, grabbed a Strat, flipped it over and traced the outline upside down. Voila, the first Standel guitar! Moseley build about 25 of these guitars for Standel, but the project languished for reasons unknown. It was this design that became the legendary Mosrite Ventures guitars of 1963.

Vintage 1966 Standel Model 101 Custom Deluxe Electric Guitar

Following the brief association with Moseley, Crooks began selling Dobros made in El Monte, California, by Emil and Rudy Dopyera, who came out of retirement to revive Dobro brand resonator guitars. That lasted until 1965 when Semie Moseley purchased Dobro. That same year saw Standel’s association with former Mosrite employee Joe Hall, the man who made the famous Hallmark guitars. These were pretty much Mosrite knock-offs. It is entirely possible this guitar is one of those; the CTS pot code is 137 6532, dating it to August of ’65. Some reports have Crooks getting some guitars from another guitarmaker named Bill Gruggett of Bakersfield, California.

After the brief stint with Hall, Crooks turned eastward to the Harptone Manufacturing Corporation in Newark, New Jersey. Harptone is still known today as a manufacturer of high-quality hardshell cases, but during the ‘60s they also did some guitarmaking (they’d done some before World War II, as well). Their chief luthier was the somewhat eccentric Sam Koontz. Koontz built custom-made archtops and ran the set-up and repair functions at Philadelphia Music Company, the principal importer of German-made Framus guitars. From around 1966 until around 1969 Harptone/Koontz built a variety of interesting, mainly thinline hollowbodies carrying the Standel brand.

Vintage 1966 Standel Model 101 Custom Deluxe Electric Guitar

But this is not about them. It’s about this odd guitar. Obviously, this is kind of a cross between a Burns Bison and a Mosrite Ventures. A lot of features are clearly Mosrite, including the German carve top and zero fret, though Koontz used these, too. This is a heavy guitar, probably made of mahogany, though it could be maple. The single-coil pickups look a lot like those made by Micro-Frets, but there’s no reason to think there’s a connection. They are pretty good pickups, with 3.88 kO of output. But check this out. They are epoxy potted. Now, who did that? Another fellow with New York/New Jersey connections, Dan Armstrong. Could he have done these? Dunno. These are replacement knobs, by the way, though everything else is original.

Other curious characteristic include a neck-tilt adjustment and two sets of volume/tone controls. The red switch lets you toggle between them. I guess that’s so you can pre-set them for lead/rhythm. The neck is nice and thin, but with a round profile that gives it a feeling of heft. The tuners are actually Grovers.

So, made by Moseley? Timing wrong. By John Hall? Bill Gruggett? Who knows? But probably not. By Sam Koontz? Most likely, though he didn’t do much with solids. Help from Dan Armstrong? Tantalizing, but unknown. In any case, despite its goofy looks, this is actually a pretty good quality guitar. Definitely a middle-level-plus axe with some professional features. Perfect for “Walk, Don’t Run” and “Pipeline.” Through solid-state or tubes, your choice! And even with the spotty pedigree a way cool blast from the past! Glad I grabbed it when I had the chance…

Hey Man, What’s That Sound? (1966 Standel 101 Custom Deluxe Electric Guitar) from MyRareGuitars.com

• The NAMM show is incredibly HUGE. It’s fitting that it’s across the street from Disneyland, as you end up walking just as much as you would at the self-proclaimed happiest place on earth (not when there’s a million guitars across the street, Walt). On a further plus, there’s a lot less puke and fewer children at the NAMM show.
• Parking is a slice of hell. Maybe two slices. And that’s with Disney running the parking, and Disney does parking with an efficiency that rivals the train schedules of Fascist Governments.
• NAMM is, however, one of the most incredibly organized colossal endeavors I’ve ever seen. We’re not just talking about hundreds upon hundreds of booths with guitars and amps and accordions and ukuleles, but full rooms of grand pianos and other enormous instruments. Add to this the complexity of visitor lists, vendors, exhibitors, performers, and so on, and it’s just incredible that the whole thing comes off without a train wreck of disasters.
• People who wear sunglasses indoors look like idiots. The NAMM show is no exception. Knock it off, people. If you don’t have some eye condition and you’re wearing sunglasses inside during the day, you look stupid. You do not look like a rock star. You look like a guy trying to look like a rock star. Which is really not an admirable goal for anyone over 14.
• The guys at the Eastwood booth were a kick and a half to hang out with for four days. Many laughs, much guitar geek love and a cool surf guitar show for the first two days by fellow Buster Keaton fan Peter Robinson of the CA surf band Surf Cinema. Thanks for the great time, guys!
• Metal and shredding are with us to stay. As is guitar-face. And sunglasses inside. And men in their fifties in leather pants. We can ask why, or we can accept it and move on.

I also learned there were a lot of guitars I wanted. The short list:

• A radical Fritz Bros Jimmy Reed Thin Twin model (high end…got a spare four grand for a fellow down on his luck?)
• A cheapie (retail under three bills) Dano Pro (in Aqua, and several colors that were not Aqua…which is what happens to me when a guitar is offered in Aqua and/or Sea Foam Green…I know only that it is offered in other, non-essential colors. Aqua, people!). It played really well, and it had an improved bridge over the last re-issues. And it comes in Aqua.
• Some very cool Italia models, including an absolutely stunning twelve string electric with a beautiful headstock. Why aren’t there more sparkly guitars in the world? Well, Italia is doing their part to right that wrong. A big sparkly thanks, folks!
• See-through Ampeg Dan Armstrong. I didn’t play it, but it’s see-through. That’s enough cool factor.
• SEVERAL Eastwood models released at NAMM, but there were also a couple of others that will be ready in April – the AIRLINE Tuxedo “Kay Barney Kessel” Model and the Map Shaped Bass. The Saturn (man, that’s a fun guitar to play…and I got one!), The Town & Country (ditto), but the big hit was the Map Shaped Guitars. I’m guessing EASTWOOD sold out of those at the show. All great lookers and players.

And a bunch more. What else did I learn?

• Peavey continues to make solid, well-made really ugly stuff. 40 years and counting of truly aesthetically challenged design. You would think they might have accidentally made a cool looking guitar by now, but nope, you’d be wrong.
• There was a guy who always dressed in camouflage and sold machine-gun shaped electric guitars. I kept my distance.
• In a world of large booths, Fender and Gibson have REALLY large booths. No stunner there, but the Fender booth did have some cool historic guitars. They also had a new Eddie Van Halen model that costs a lot of money for something that looks like it was made in a high school shop class by a stoner in 1982.
• Randy Bachman seems like a nice guy in addition to being a legend who has played on lots of great tunes.
• I learned there were a lot of amps I wanted.

Again, the short list:

• The new. Which isn’t really a re-issue, as I don’t think they ever did a Jet with 6V6 output tubes (a early Reverberocket, yes, maybe a Jet, but I don’t remember that…I’m pretty sure they all had 7591’s). But, anyway, it sounded great, and had only Volume, Tone and Tremolo Speed and Intensity knobs. Cool. Low wattage, few knobs. Gotta love that.
• Our very own Don Mackrill’s Airline 18 Watt amplifier. Just a great looking and sounding amplifier. Hand made, with style and care and great tone. What’s not to love? Don, I want one in Sea Foam Green! (Everything should come in Sea Foam Green with a Bigsby option. I’d put a Bigsby on my Sea Foam kitchen table if I could).
• Ben Fargen’s 4x6V6 amp. Yummy. Four 6V6’s, which is such a cool way to get to your 30-40 watts, rather than the more conventional two 6L6’s.

What else?

• Joel Weaver of Home Brew Electronics, in addition to making my favorite overdrive pedal (The Power Screamer), is a nice guy. Check out his pedals. Great stuff.
• I begged Groove Tubes…I cajoled JJ Tubes…Nobody is going to make a new 7189A tube. Argh. This is sad news to a Magnatone M10 lover. They just don’t run on EL84’s, no matter how rugged, and there is an ever-dwindling (and ever-expensive) supply of 7189A’s. As my niece likes to say, this news is “poopy.” Poopy, indeed.
• A lot more people that I might have expected wanted Paul Stanley’s autograph. But, hey, it’s a big world. More power to him, I suppose.
• There’s one very cranky and not incredibly competent woman who checks your bags on the way out. There may be more than her, but I kept running into the same one. She would demand I open my bag, not really look in, and then bark at me to move on. I could have had a severed head in that bag for all she knew. (I did NOT have a severed head, for those wondering at home).
• There are a LOT of people who play guitar better than me. That’s not a huge surprise to me, but when they’re all in the same room with you (albeit a VERY LARGE room), it’s pretty humbling. A lot of people who can play out there in the world. Pretty cool.
• I learned that I had to sell some stuff to make some room for what I carried out of there. NAMM is a heady experience, a gear freak’s nirvana (or close…maybe it would be nirvana with vintage axes, too), and a tiring sensory overload that’s a ball.

There’s nothing quite like it, and I can’t wait until next year to see what’s new.

See you in next month’s newsletter.

What I Learned at My First NAMM Show from MyRareGuitars.com