I've never seen one of these (closeup around 1:50). There are other videos on YouTube showing him with this guitar, too. What a player. I believe this is live: they didn't normally close-mike vocalists on TV back then. What is this guitar?
Thanks for your great blog from Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, where the temp is currently -19 °C.
- Tate
This is a rare Renaissance guitar made in Pennsylvania in 1978, The founder of the company was John Marshall who trained locally under Eric Schulte, along with Augie LoPrinzi of New Jersey. The company lasted from 1977 to 1980. They are very well made guitars. This one has had some "customizing" done. Due to weight, someone cut out the back and drilled holes into the body. Very cool looking, but rather unfortunate to alter a rare vintage instrument. The weight of the guitar is now a little less than 8.5 lbs. Dimarzio pickups. Active electronics, CTS pots are dated 1377833 which dates the guitar to 1978. Brass hardware. Flame maple two piece neck which is straight. Ebony fingerboard with 24 jumbo frets. Some minor fretwear. Action is excellent. The guitar plays and sounds great. They only made 250 - 300 guitars. Mostly basses. Less than a 100 guitars were produced. This is definitely a rocker and would make a great stage guitar.Long-term Guitarz readers might remember that we previously featured a Renaissance guitar in smoked plexiglass - this shows what it should look like without the holes.
Here's another delightfully eccentric hand-made bass from Steve Wishnevsky, a.k.a. Wish Bass. This unique, one-off fan-fretted bass is called the Holy Lobe Bass and is currently up for grabs on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $500. The through neck is made from laminates of mahogany, purpleheart and maple, and the body is of wild cherry. As on other Wishbasses, there is no trussrod. It also features a Kent Armstrong humbucker, and the controls are basic being just limited to just a single volume.
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It's June which means it's time for the London International Music Show (LIMS09), which once again is being held at the ExCel Centre in London's East End and is on for four days until Sunday 14 June.
...and you know how I love perspex-bodied guitars. This Patrick Eggle example (below) isn't highly polished like acrylic guitars from most other manufacturers. The edges have been sanded to a rough matt surface that helps define the outline of the instrument. I also love the straight-through-the-body f-hole.
A whole heap of Airline guitars. It must be the...
...Eastwood Guitars stand.
Ah, you know about Eastwood by now, surely? Retro-looking guitars but with modern playability, reliable hardware, good pickups, etc. They certainly look the part.
Pictured below is the one I really wanted to try. Regular readers will know that I'm a big fan of the Ovation Breadwinner, and I wanted to check out Eastwood's re-issue. So, I tried it out and you know what? It gets the thumbs up - it feels exactly like my 1976 Breadwinner - only newer and without the dents! Eastwood president Mike Robinson, who was on hand to talk about the guitars (what a thoroughly decent chap), tells me that the pickups are hotter than the originals, which I can well believe as that's one area where the Ovation originals are lacking.
I'm not normally a fan of guitars with a "relic" or road-worn finish, but I did like this S and T-type pair from Fret King (below). I like the way the pickups and control knobs are deliberately mismatched, especially on the S-type guitar with has a nice mix of Strat and Tele features.
Now here's a sight to behold, these beautiful hand-built aluminium guitars from Goulding Guitars. Anthony Goulding, who builds these fine instruments, also makes all the hardware, the bridges, pickup surrounds and knobs. There are also many finish options: the purple example on the left in the below picture has been anodized, whilst the one on the right has a chrome finish.
Each guitar is custom-built to a customer's requirements, but all share the same basic shape. And what a great shape it is too! Anthony, who, it turns out,is a Guitarz reader (we had a good old chin wag) mentioned that I had once likened it to the shape of the Acoustic-branded Black Widow.
I had a great time talking to all the guys and girls on the booths. I also met Tom of Inky Hollow who creates custom artwork for guitars and basses, and seemingly any other instruments you care to throw his way such as drums, and also other items, e.g. motorbike helmets and surfboards. Check out the website because my photo here really does not do this particular example justice.
What else was there? Some of the big names were absent: Fender, Gibson, Rickenbacker... Did we miss them? No, not really.
Music Man were present, as ever, on the Ernie Ball stand and this doubleneck caught my eye for a couple of reasons. For one, I was intrigued at the layout of tuners on the 12-string headstock, and also I thought that the body was quite nice and compact for a doubleneck which are often such cumbersome beasts.
...and a whole rack of Hofner Verithin guitars. You can see where the name comes from. Very elegant looking, these.
Now, I know nothing about these Faith acoustics (they were on the Shadow pickups stand) but I really liked the little 12-fret parlour guitar in the middle. I think this is what I want from an acoustic guitar, just for playing around the house.
The only thing that caught my eye on the Yamaha stand was this retro-styled semi. Saying which is doing them a dis-service, as they do produce some quality gear.
Things I didn't manage to photograph included:
The XOX Audio Tools "The Handle" guitar on the PROEL (International) Ltd stand. What an absolutely beautiful guitar in terms of looks, sound and playabilty. Being made of hollow-sectioned carbon fibre it's as light as a feather. If only I had two and a half grand to spare...
Vintage Guitars - the brand "Vintage" from John Hornby Skewes, that is. Someone once commented on this blog that I had judged them too harshly and that they were pretty decent instruments, and that I should do my homework. Now, I'm always one to put my hand up when I'm wrong, so I thought I'd try out a couple. I tried a relic Strat-a-like from the Icon series. It was a little unsubstantial feeling for my tastes (for a Strat, that is), but it was certainly a very nice player, certainly better than many Squiers I have tried. I then tried an LP type guitar. I've never been a Les Paul player but I was almost sold. It played beautifully and it sounded great. Dare I say it even sounded authentic?
Dudley Ross, a very talented fretless guitar player was demonstrating the Vigier Excaliber guitar with delta-metal fingerboard, and which I featured in last year's report. He was very kindly letting people try out the guitar for themselves, including Yours Truly. What a beautiful player. I've experimented with fretless guitar in the past, but never imagined it could sound as good as this - even on the unwound strings (which was where my own customised fretless used to fall down).
I also noodled for a while on a Roland-equipped Fender Strat over at the Roland / Boss booth. It was plugged into a device called the Roland GR20 Guitar Synth. Most the sounds were pretty farty and perhaps someone had screwed up the settings as I could only really get it to track on the D and A strings. However, I discovered that I absolutely loved the Hammond organ patch, and spent ages playing Hammond solos (complete with Leslie rotating speaker effect) on two strings! It sounded very Steve Winwood.
And there - for now - I shall leave it. It's been a long day and I've been up all night typing this lot out and need bed! Until next year, then. (And we'll look at lots of curious guitars from eBay in the meantime!)
PLEASE NOTE: The photos in this article are all my own so if you do want to use one on a forum or a blog or whatever, that's fine, but please credit me and link back here. Thanks.
