Pointless triple-neck

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Uh-oh! You know you're in for trouble when you see a Tennessee-brand guitar. They are often very wacky instruments, but don't be fooled as the workmanship is shoddy and the instruments themselves are reported to be virtually unplayable.

But let's put aside the provenance for this discussion. Just look at this thing: it's a triple-neck comprising 8-string bass, 10-string bass, and 6-string lap steel.

Just WHY?

Why would anyone need that combination of necks on a single instrument? To start with, how many bass players double on "lap steel"? Not that this could ever be a real lap steel. Is the player supposed to un-strap it mid-song, sit down and lay the instrument on his lap for a lap steel solo?

Perhaps the "lap steel" neck was added because it was lying around at the factory at the time this ridiculous instrument was assembled.

Let's forget the lap steel neck. What about the two bass necks? Why would any bassist ever need a 8-string and a 10-string on one instrument? (That is to say, a 4-string and a 5-string with doubled courses, rather than 8 and 10 individual non-paired strings). Surely if you needed to play a song that required both 8-string and 10-string bass, all you'd need would be the 10-string neck and you could ignore the low B course in the sections that "require" the 8-string. In the same way, I can't see why anyone would ever need a 4-string and 5-string bass combination on the same instrument. I could understand a 4-string and 8-string, or a fretted and fretless, but this instrument shown above offers nothing of advantageous use.

It's utter nonsense, and as I've commented on previous occasions, Tennessee guitars seem to be put together by people who know nothing about guitars.

G L Wilson

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Franquin's Gaffophone

guitarz.blogspot.com

OK, GL Wilson stunned me with his Omstrument and there would be no possible answer to this extreme instrument if genius Belgian comics artist Franquin didn't invent the infamous Gaffophone.

Franquin's prominent character Gaston Lagaffe (seen here playing the Gaffophone) is not well known by English-speaking audience since these comics were never translated in English, but he and his monstrous instrument are famous in French- and Spanish-speaking countries, also in Scandinavia...

The Gaffophone is supposed to have an horrible and destructive sound (Gaston being himself a terrible musician, also playing sousaphone), being thus a frequent reference and joke amongst continental European guitar and brass players.

Some Gaffophones have been built for real, but of course could not match its supposed terrific sound.

bertram

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"Carol Brown" - Flight Of The Conchords

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This week I've been listening to "I Told You I Was Freaky", the new Flight Of The Conchords album featuring songs from Season 2 of their TV series. I wanted to include the above clip on this blog because I just love those guitars they are playing. Yes, I know they are just props. Basically, Jemaine's guitar is a video editing console with a guitar neck attached to it, and Bret has a similarly obsolete-looking video mixer with a bass neck. Imagine if guitar synths were really as cumbersome as these! They do bring to mind the Stepp MIDI guitar.

G L Wilson
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The Omstrument

guitarz.blogspot.com:

In our previous post about Uli Jon Roth's Sky Guitar, Bertram, my co-blogger here at Guitarz, made a note in the comments appealing for "Less frets, more strings!"

Is this enough strings for you, Bertram?

With a combined total of 46 strings, the Omstrument is the creation of Jack Haas and is a gestalt instrument comprising harp, guitar, longneck dulcimer, strumstick, and tanpura. And before you ask, yes, they are supposed to be played together at the same time.

Perhaps it's easier to let one of Mr Haas' videos do the talking:

Before anyone else comments, yes I am aware of Pat Metheny's 42-string Pikasso guitar created by luthier Linda Manzer. It's a crazy-looking guitar with strings all over the place, but surely more portable than the Omstrument!

G L Wilson

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Uli Jon Roth's Sky Guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Thanks to KC for jogging my memory. The guitar that the Gruggett Raindrop reminded me of was Uli Jon Roth's Sky Guitar, as seen pictured here.

To unashamedly quote from his Wikipedia entry:

Uli Jon Roth has (or at least has had) at least five of these "Sky" guitars. They are made by a British luthier, and also used by the guitarist from Fair Warning. The first three Sky guitars were as follows: One had 36 frets, another had 42 frets, and a third one is fretless which was used on the Beyond the Astral Skies album. In an April 2001 Guitar Player Magazine interview, Roth reports that the guitars are either fretless above the 30th fret or have whole step fret spacing above the 27th fret, with 35 effective (half step) frets. All of the Sky guitars with frets have extensive fretboard scalloping as is favored by Swedish guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen (who was influenced greatly by Roth) and many neoclassical metal guitarists. The Sky guitar's pickups are custom 4 coil humbuckers made by John Oram, with one guitar having an Oram pickup hidden under the 24th fret. The guitars named Mighty Wing and Destiny each have 7 strings and the others have 6 strings. The 7th string is a low B string. The US company 18th Street Guitars made 50 commercial versions of the Sky guitar in 2004, each reportedly selling for $18,000 USD.

G L Wilson

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Highly optimistic French eBayer

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Someone has applied a very poor imitation Fender logo to this cheap and nasty vaguely-Telecaster-styled guitar from the 1970s. These appeared under various brandnames; it's probably one of Teisco's poorer efforts.

So, how much do you think the seller is asking for this dreadful example?

Would you believe €9,990.00? That's approximately £8,939.96 or US$14,754.10 which is quite frankly outrageous for this horrible plank!

I'm unsure as to whether the seller is incredibly stupid and really thinks that this is a long lost Fender prototype or whether he/she is aware that it's a pile of crap and is hoping someone out there is stupid enough to pay that kind of silly money for something that is actually hardly worth 50 quid (and that's being generous).

My French isn't very good - perhaps someone can translate the listing and what crazy claims the seller is making about this sorry guitar.

G L Wilson

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Gruggett Raindrop guitar from 1966

guitarz.blogspot.com:
This Gruggett Raindrop was apparently one of only six such guitars and was built in 1966 for a band called - appropriately enough - The Raindrops.

Bill Gruggett, the maker of this guitar, also built guitars for Mosrite and Hallmark Guitars back in the day, and is currently working with the re-launched Hallmark company.

The Raindrop guitar reminds me of a more modern guitar, possibly 80s-era, but I can't quite put my finger on what it might be.

I wonder what happened to the band The Raindrops too, incidentally.

G L Wilson

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Petrol tank 3-string guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:
This 3-string slide guitar has been made from an old Villiers's petrol tank, a Pearl high hat stand and cymbal stand, and some aluminium box section! I'll let the following YouTube video do the talking:



See also: three-string slide guitar made from a BSA engine casing

G L Wilson

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Billy Boy guitars

guitarz.blogspot.com

When surfing the Web I like to discover small guitar companies - I actually have in mind to start a new blog about these companies, for those who are bored to death with the endless reproduction of the same Fender / Gibson 4 models... I'm too busy now for an extra blog but I'll think of it seriously for 2010...

Anyway, browsing for what's going on in  the field of Italian guitars (you remember that Italy is providing regularly amazing vintage guitars for this blog), I just discovered the Billy Boy "brand" - well I think that the company is just one guy! Billy Boy guitars don't have a proper website but get along quite well with a MySpace - if you're interested, go there and check the many pictures presenting his different models.

Billy Boy has just three guitar models, the solid body that you can see on the picture, a semi-hollow and a Jumbo model - there are also some basses. His trade mark is the cartoonish skull bridge that exists also with a trem (if you don't like it, you can also ask for another bridge). Since his production rate is not high enough to produce stock guitars, most of Billy Boy's are one-offs, not for the shape, but for the pickups and knobs combinations. The picture I chose shows guitars with two humbuckers + one central lipstick and they are already slightly different. If you check other guitars on the Billy Boy MySpace, you'll find quite radical pickup combinations that I'd be embarrassed to describe here!

bertram


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Mike Oldfield's travel guitar up for grabs

guitarz.blogspot.com:

We've seen one of Mike Oldfield's guitars up for auction previously on Guitarz. On that occasion it was his ex-Marc Bolan Telecaster which was the main lead guitar used on his now legendary Tubular Bells album.

This time, it's a one-off travel guitar with integral amp and speaker which was presented to Oldfield by the German arm of his record company, Virgin. The guitar appears to be modelled along the lines of a Hofner Shorty (possibly it is a customized Hofner Shorty) and bears Oldfield's name on the pickguard and has a Tubular Bells logo on the trussrod cover.

I remember seeing Mike Oldfield demonstrate this very guitar on a Breakfast TV show back in 1983 (or thereabouts) during an item in which he was showing off part of his guitar collection. I've tried and cannot find this clip on YouTube. I believe he mentioned taking it with him on aircraft flights. I couldn't say if it was ever used on any of his records; I suspect that it was purely a practice guitar.

G L Wilson

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