Warning, May Be Addictive.

If you're into guitars and other stringed instruments check out Jake Wildwood's blog.  He does instrument repair in Rochester, Vermont, and works on everything from 21st Century electric guitars to late 19th Century banjos.  Lots of cool instruments with lots of good pictures are featured.  But be warned, you might spend hours slowly going through the entries, because there is so much to look at.

Twist, Twist, Twist.

I was just restringing one of my guitars.  As a result I spend a lot of time twisting tuners.  No, I'm not one of those folks who uses a string winder.  I would imagine doing that for multiple guitars every night, as some guitar techs do, would be a recipe for tendonitis in your fingers. 

Big Earl Versus Billy The Ric.

A long time ago I had a Fender Stratocaster XII 12 string electric guitar, one of the original versions with a Fender Electric XII style bridge.  I never had to do any work on the intonation or action before I sold it to my cousin.  Which is a good thing because I'm not Mr. Mechanical.  But I'm sure it would be a lot easier to work on than a classic Rickenbacker twelve string.  Today I came across a pair of videos from Edmonton's Big Earl discussing his adventures changing the bridge on his Rickenbacker 12 string.  Boy, talk about a lot of work!  And he's not a gigging musician on the road with one.  Watch the videos, and then imagine having to restring one every day, as gigging musicians often do, or if they're really lucky their guitar tech does.

A Little More For The Estate.

I get regular product emails from the good folks at Fender.  Among the products in the latest one is the Elvis Kingman acoustic guitar.   He apparently played one of the originals in the 1967 movie Clambake.  Seeing this I immediately started to wonder what kind of fees Fender is paying to the Presley estate.  Obviously they're low enough that Fender is willing to use his name to try to sell this thing, as Fender's acoustic guitars have never been particularly popular.

More that one guitarist has wondered why Fender has never released a Buddy Holly Stratocaster, as Holly was one of the early proponents of the instrument.  Supposedly the answer is that Holly's widow wants very high endorsement fees, and is hard to work with.

NGD.

It's been a long time since I bought a guitar.  I'd been thinking about buying something this year, so yesterday I pulled the trigger and bought this Squier Classic Vibe Thinline Telecastter. 





Of these photos I like the back the best, as it nicely shows the figuring of the mahogany used for the body.

The Telecaster was the first successful solidbody "Spanish" (that is, made to be played by fretting) guitar to see mass production.  The Leo Fender design was first released under the Esquire name in 1950.  When local guitarists convinced Fender to change the neck design so it had a truss rod, allowing for adjusting the curvature of the neck to compensate for climate effects, Fender renamed the guitar the Broadcaster.   Several hundred were produced before the  Gretsch Company asked the name be changed since they already had a Broadkaster drum line.  The result was a final name change to the one that would stick with the instrument, Telecaster.  Fender would soon revive the Esquire name for a single pickup version of the design, versus the two pickup Telecaster.

Telecasters have been offered under the Fender brand name ever since, a production run second only to the hollowbody Gibson ES-175, which debuted in 1949, making the '175 the electric guitar model produced the longest. 

This Squier model is based on the late '60s Telecaster Thinline, designed by the late Roger Rossmeisl(who designed many of the classic Rickenbacker instruments used by the Beatles) with help from Phil Kubicki.  It features a mahogany body with a hollowed out chamber and accompanying f hole, both features originally being an attempt to create a lighter version of the Telecaster than the original solidbody design.  This emulation is part of Squier's Classic Vibe line, which has been getting a lot of attention from guitarists of late.  These Chinese made instruments run in the 300 buck range, and show a nice level of quality for that price. 

Fender established the Squier line of instruments in 1982 when it began selling Japanese made instruments.  Fender had acquired the V.C. Squier string company in 1965, and decided to use the Squier name for their initial Japanese line in case reaction proved negative.  Instead Squier went on to be Fender budget oriented line, with production over the years moving to South Korea, Indonesia, India, and China as production costs increased in more developed countries and as guitar manufacturing capabilities grew in sophistication and quality in new places. 

This is a nice instrument.  I haven't popped off the pickguard to get a look at the electronics, but this one is surprisingly electrically quiet for a guitar with single coil pickups, which are prone to 60 cycle electric noise.  It seems a good shielding job was done.  Some folks have complained about the neck width and depth but they haven't bothered me yet.  If you're looking for a budget electric check these out. 

Twang!

I love guitars, and I love seeing guitar collections that go beyond the usual suspects. A good example of such a collection is that of Dutch guitarist Wietse. His webpage showcases the guitars he's accumulated, many of which he bought for amazingly low prices, and many of which are good examples of some of the strange and bizarre directions electric guitars went in the '60s and '70s.

Duo.

Yep, it's two for one day here on the blog. Since I mentioned the other day I was having a bit of "fun" restringing my guitars I figured I might as well post some pics of them.



On the left we have an Aria Pro II TS-300 Thor Sound. Why they went with the name Thor Sound is something I don't know. This is apparently a 1980 instrument given the K80 serial number, and came from the now defunct Matsumoku guitar factory in Matsumoto, Japan. Despite its appearance this is actually a bolt on neck guitar, and was the low end of the Thor Sound range, which also had glued neck and neck through models. I bought if off eBay some years ago from a seller in Florida.

On the right we have my long time companion, a Fender Japan '57 Reissue style Stratocaster. I bought it from Saskatoon's The Music Box way back in 1987, so it dates from somewhere in the 1985 to 1987 range. These guitars were made for Fender by Fujigen Gakki, probably the best known Japanese guitar plant and makers of instruments for Ibanez and Greco amongst others. It was supposedly used when I bought it, so I have no idea if the pickups are stock or not. (Music Box eventually became the Saskatoon outlet of Long and McQuade.)



Here's a closer shot of the bodies. The sticker on the Strat's pickguard is of Homer Simpson, and came out of a bag of Hostess chips probably a decade or more ago. Too bad you can't see the see through quality of the finish on the TS-300, which shows off some nice wood.



And here are the headstocks, with the Thor Sound logo clearly visible.

I'm A Stringer.

I was just changing the strings on one of my guitars. Given the trouble I was having I think it's fair to say that I've haven't restrung that guitar often enough. Of course I could be like some people and just never restring my instruments. I saw an article recently about the great Jamaican born bassist Phil Chen and he supposedly has the same strings on his main Fender Jazz Bass as when he bought it in the '60s. Of course its a little bit easier to do something like that on a bass given the considerably thicker strings used.

Hmmm, I Hear A Similarity....

I've been listening to the Cars quite a bit the last week or so. Listening to "Touch and Go" last night I came to a realisation. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "You Got Lucky" has some similarities, as you might notice in the Youtube videos posted above. The keyboard part on "You Got Lucky" especially sounds like it was influenced by the Cars song, and some of the guitar sounds show a bit of similarity as well. "You Got Lucky" was released in 1982, so there's no doubt Tom Petty and the boys had a chance to hear "Touch and Go" before writing their tune. Deliberate lift or accidental copying of elements? Somehow I doubt Tom Petty would admit the former if it did happen.



A bit of trivia about the "Touch and Go" vid is that Ric Ocasek is playing a Kawai Moonsault guitar. This guitar with its distinctive crescent moon shape appeared in the late '70s, but since Kawai never put much effort into selling its guitars in North America at the time very few of what was probably a limited run in the first place made it across the Pacific.

Orville Would Be Disturbed.

As with any other business there are always interesting rumours floating around about various guitar makers. But a new rumour about Gibson is rather bizarre. According to a regular poster on the Gear Page, a guitar discussion forum, Gibson is planning to discontinue production of archtop guitars. If true this would be a major shock, since it was Gibson founder Orville Gibson who invented the archtop guitar in the 1890s, and the improved archtops developed by luthier Lloyd Loar in the 1920s became the basis for some of the first practical electric guitars. Archtop electrics are still favoured by many jazz guitarists, but the rumour has it too many of them are buying brands other than Gibson. Its unclear, assuming this is true, whether this will also effect another Gibson's semisolid ES335 line, which also have arched tops and f holes. In any case its hard to imagine such classic instruments as the ES175 leaving production, and such a decision will certainly bolster the belief of many guitarists that the current Gibson ownership is too interested in wringing every available cent out of the Gibson name, and not interested enough in making quality instruments.

The Quine Collection

Here's something of interest to fans of the late Robert Quine. Carmine Street Guitars in New York is offering his guitar collection for sale. The link is a pdf file so you'll need something that handles pdfs to view it. The man had a lot of guitars! He also wasn't a made in America only snob, as can be seen in the number of Japanese, Korean, and other Asian guitars he had.

The Blue Box and the Brown Guitar

There have been at least a couple of entries on this blog that have mentioned the Roland GR300 guitar synthesizer system, much loved by Pat Metheny. Tonight I stumbled across an interesting page of various bits of GR300 miscellany. So if you're a guitar geek who likes all those '80s King Crimson, Police, and other releases full of GR300 goodness check it out. Personally I'd love to have one, but if I had the money I'd be leery of buying one, since we're talking about a 25 year old piece of equipment that used some pretty unique bits and bobs, and was made in relatively limited numbers. The cabling used in both the GR300 and its associated guitars is apparently pretty fragile.

Hey, anyone want to lend me lots and lots of money to buy these? I think they'd sound good in my Aria Pro II TS-300 Thor Sound. Now, if you're not familiar with guitars that auction might seem crazy, and frankly I don't disagree. But consider how much you'd have to pay to buy certain guitars equipped with those pickups, like this one. Makes them seen fairly cheap.

Anyone wanna lend me 5 or 6 grand American? Thats probably what the new limited edition Pete Townsend Les Paul Deluxe costs. I think its neat that it even has the much derided "pancake" body common to the Les Paul Deluxes Townsend used in the '70s.

Here's a nice page of "guitar porn" (don't worry, its entirely family and workplace safe)for all the axeslingers out there.

Today is the fourth day of the "spring" show of the NAMM, the National Association of Music Merchants in the US. At these shows the various makers of musical instruments come together to show their new wares to music shop owners, professional musicians, and the musical instrument media. One of the rumours apparently floating around the show this year is that Fujigen Gakki, a Japanese guitar maker, is going to leave the guitar business in 2006. This would be a real shame, as Fujigen has made a lot of great products over the years, most noteably various instruments for Ibanez and Fender's Japanese lines. Presumably the growing guitar production in Indonesia and(especially)China, along with the maturing of the Korean guitar industry, is making it harder and harder for Japanese firms to compete, even if they have a perceived reputation for making higher quality products than their other Asian competitors.

James Brown announced in a press release this morning that he has prostate cancer. This came as a bit of a surprise given that he performed here in Saskatoon last night, which was apparently the last date of his Canadian tour.

Since I've been posting quite a bit about guitarists and guitars lately I would be remiss if I didn't mention some of Saskatoon's entries in the business. Fury Guitars is Saskatoon's senior guitar maker, and indeed one of Canada's longest running guitar manufacturers, having set up shop in 1962. Fury are said to be the first manufacturer of solidbody guitars in Canada. Fury head Glenn McDougall also had a hand in designing instruments made by Deakon Roads. Dingwall Guitars are probably the best known Saskatoon maker. Sheldon Dingwall's basses, which use Ralph Novak's fanned fret system, have turned up in the hands of pros like Leland Sklar, major league session bassist and Phil Collins sideman. And there's Pura Guitars, who make a wide range of acoustic and electric instruments.