Kramer Gorky Park

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I could have sworn I'd previously featured the Kramer Gorky Park guitar on this blog, but a quick search through the archives tells me that this isn't the case. This particular guitar is currently for sale on eBay and has a Buy It Now price of £1,499.00 which, to me, seems very steep for a jokey-looking instrument created for the band Gorky Park. (I'd never heard of them and had to look up on Wikipedia. I was amazed to learn they were active from 1987 to 2001. Perhaps they simply never made an impact here in the UK. But then again this eBay auction is in the UK, so someone over here must have known about them.)

Kramer fans, it seems, are a particularly rabid bunch when it comes to collecting guitars from their favourite brand. I personally never saw the appeal, other than for their early aluminium-necked instruments. Yeah, Eddie Van Halen played Kramers for a while, but I still don't get it. (No abusive comments or emails please - if you're a Kramer fan get in touch and tell us here at Guitarz what makes Kramer guitars so great!)

The Gorky Park model was based on the shape of the Russian balalaika - a three-string triangular-bodied folk instrument. Somehow the pointy Kramer headstock spoils this metaphor, as do the over-the-top graphics with band logo, USSR and USA flags, and signatures of the band members. (The signatures are reproductions and are part of the design). In fact, the top of that little triangular body is so busy that perhaps it's a good idea that the guitar sports just a single humbucker and a lone volume control.

G L Wilson

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