Japanese Vintage: Kawai Moonsault Guitar

It might sport a totally impractical body shape, but to my eyes this 1980s Japanese Kawai Moonsault is a thing of beauty. Despite the obvious shape difference, it has a Les Paul quality to it. Look at that binding, the pearloid inlays, and my favourite feature: the phase of the moon fingerboard inlays. I also love the silverburst finish, which is infinitely preferable to yellow which makes the guitar resemble a banana.

On another topic, I'm taking a break over the next week or so, so don't expect a plethora of new posts. I may try to post something whilst I'm away - it all depends on how busy I am. Regular blog posts should begin again on 14 April.

The Holy Grail of Basses Found at Last

It may be old news to some of you out there, but I only just heard that Jaco Pastorius' 1962 Fender Jazz Bass has been found over twenty year after it mysteriously went missing.

Nicknamed the "Bass of Doom", it had last been seen with Jaco in Central Park in 1986, the year before Jaco's untimely death.

Pictured left: Jaco with the bass as it is most often remembered with worn sunburst finish, and on the right as repaired and re-finished by luthier Kevin Kaufman after Jaco had smashed the bass supposedly in an argument.

Kramer Focus "Jewel" guitar

I appreciate that this very pink girlie Kramer guitar would have been marketed to young girls, but I do hope that Jewel herself doesn't play one, as she'd look a bit silly playing a guitar with her own picture on it.

I can't help being reminded of this exchange:

MILHOUSE: I'm Radioactive Man.
LISA: I don't think Radioactive Man would wear a plastic smock with his picture on it.
MILHOUSE: He would if it was Halloween.

(The Simpsons, Tree House Of Horror X: The Collector's Lair)

Brooklyn kids make electric guitars

How cool is this? For several years now, Paul Rubenstein has been showing schoolkids in Brooklyn, New York, how to make electric guitars.

The kids each design, cut out, build and paint their own six string creations. They even get involved in the electronics side of things, winding their own pickups and building amps too!

Music lessons weren't like this back in my day. We used to have a "music trolley" laden with beaten-up drums, tamborines, glockenspiels, and those most hated of noise-makers, recorders. A ghastly discordant racket was the result. We could only dream about guitars.

What better way to get kids interested in music than to explore the science of how a musical instrument such as the guitar works, to take the hands-on approach and build these instruments, and then to play and record them?

Congrats to all the kids for their cool designs, and to their teacher Mr R for dreaming up the scheme in the first place!

One of Gibson's more eccentric designs...

I won't be the first to ask and I very much doubt I'll be the last: Just what were Gibson thinking of in the early 1980s when they dreamt up the design for the Gibson Corvus? Commonly likened to a tin-opener, its seemingly-abstract assymmetrical shape begs the question "WHY?"

My only guess is that perhaps it's an attempt at an ergonomic design. The contours on the body's treble side suggest it was designed to sit comfortably on the lap, and the strap button inside the cutaway at the rear of the guitar is possibly positioned so that the guitar hangs nicely on a strap. (Although, having said that, the other strap button up by neck doesn't look very well situated at all - I can imagine the guitar and strap parting company quite easily without some kind of strap locking device).

I wonder what Robert Irizarry over at Building The Ergonomic Guitar would make of it? Ergonomic or not?

Despite wondering what planet Gibson were on when they produced this guitar, I have to confess that I do actually quite like it. It has a Sci-Fi alien ray gun feel to it, and puts me in mind of Dave Hill's now legendary Superyob guitar.

Thicket to Ride

The Fab Four reformed (as shrubs) in the capital of culture. Yes, it's true, The Beatles have returned to their hometown of Liverpool in privet form. Now, who would have expected that? (Errrmmm... isn't the neck of George's guitar a bit too long? Looks more like a bass scale length. Someone take the secateurs to it, please!)

I also like to take this opportunity once again to recommend Fab Guitars of The Beatles which features just about every guitar they ever used.

Blog Updates

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that topic labels have begun appearing beneath posts. These should aid cross-referencing and searching through the archives. I've been applying these labels over the last several days, and whilst all the most recent entries have been taken care of, not all of the archives are indexed yet. It's a very long process, it seems.

I couldn't help notice how the blog has evolved over the years. Earlier entries were typically much briefer - often being only a link and occasionally a comment. The topics I covered have changed too. These days I don't feature every piece of guitar-related product news that I can find as there are plenty of other blogs doing that now.

Photographs also used to be rather thin on the ground, whereas these days they are a major feature of the blog. I have to apologise for any "dead" photos in some of the earlier archives. Many of these were hosted on a now long-extinct domain; some have been lost forever and others I still have on my hard-drive, but it would be a major task to re-upload and re-link to them all. I'll try to remedy this situation with some of the more pertinent archive materials such as some of those about projects and my own guitars.

By its very nature, some of the archive material will be incomplete. Things change and stories and websites linked to may no longer exist.

Phew! Who knew that maintaining a blog could be such hard work?

DiMarzio "Red Beauty" Strat from 1984

I'm not JP Stratoblogster but if I was I'd choose this as my Strat for Friday.

OK, so it's yet another Strat-type guitar - nothing unusual about that, but WOW! isn't it so very very red? I've certainly not seen the neck and fingerboard coloured in this fashion before. Not on a Strat anyway. I have to say, I really like it.

DiMarzio, of course, are known mainly for their pickups, but back in the 1980s they put their name to a full range of spare parts from hardware to bodies and necks. These days, I believe, they tend to focus mainly on pickups. This red beauty is apparently one that they built for display at the 1984 NAMM trade show. I bet it turned a few heads.

So, it's from 1984, it's built from quality DiMarzio parts, it's American-made [EDIT: No it's not!], it's a one-off... what's not to like?

Unless you don't like red, of course. My nephew, being a Manchester United supporter, would LOVE it (anything red is good in his book), but he's going to have to make do with the Jaxville "relic" guitar I already bought.

Free REM video on iTunes

I'm not the world's biggest REM fan, but I really enjoyed this video of them performing "Living Well Is The Best Revenge" acoustically whilst on the move. You can download it for free on iTunes now - catch it while you can.

Sonny Bono's Veleno aluminium guitar on eBay

Last week I commented that the metal-bodied Liquid Metal Guitar put me in mind of Valeno guitars.

Well, here's an actual original Veleno as owned by Sonny Bono (of Sonny and Cher) for sale on eBay right now with a Buy It Now price of £14,500.

As is customary with all Valenos, the guitar is made entirely of aluminium (yes, the neck too) and has a real ruby inset in the headstock.