AT LAST...

...the SEARCH function on this blog finally works! Apologies to anyone who has ever tried to use it in the past and gotten no results. It was useless, and would give zero results for the serach "guitar" even. (Blame Google/Blogger - it was their code).

Of course, the other way to navigate the blog is by checking the A-Z list of keywords at the foot of the page. That and the "You might also like" features beneath each post. But the now-functioning SEARCH box should make it even easier. Hurrah!

Sorry it took so long!

G L Wilson

Thanks to Micha

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Before today's main post, I want to say thanks to Micha who designed the new Guitarz header. I'd been meaning to change the old Hendrix Woodstock Strat header for ages now - it's served us well since 2007.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Guild X79 with scary 80s paintjob

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Guillaume writes:

Hi GL

This is Guillaume over at the Iconic Guitars blog.

I'm always looking for guitars to feature on the blog and stumbled upon this shocking though captivating Guild X79 with the oddest 80's paintjob. I think it belongs to your blog.

The X79 is an all mahogany guitar and neck with a rosewood fingerboard and 24 frets. The shape is out of nowhere, like if 4 people had decided to pull the body of an SG or a Guild S300 in different directions. As I said, the paint job, with its blue and white lines and curves is so 80's that this guitar belongs to a modern art musem (I wouldn't be surprised if Zakk Wylde put a bid on this one). And as any good 80's shredding board, the Floyd Rose tremolo is de rigueur.

Have a good week end,
Guillaume
http://iconicguitars.blogspot.com/

Ah yes, the dreaded Music Outlet Shop of Cologne. You can usually halve the prices that they give on eBay to get a better idea of a guitar's true value. However, nice find!

G L Wilson

NB: Please make sure you are reading this Guitarz post at guitarz.blogspot.com and not on a Scraper blog that copies posts without permission (and steals bandwidth) so as to profit from advertising. Please support original bloggers!

Guitarz blog featured in Guitar Edge

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Those jolly decent chaps and chapesses over at Guitar Edge magazine have just published a favourable review of Guitarz blog in the Digital Edge column in their latest edtion, cover-dated March 2010.

You can read a digital version here.

G L Wilson

Sorry guys, but we're no longer accepting "guest" comments

To prevent abuse of the system, i.e. people making snide comments under the cowardly veil of anonymity, "guest" comments will no longer be allowed in the comments.

Please do not let this discourage you from posting your thoughts about a particular blog posting. The new Echo commenting system allows several ways of logging in using login details from several different platforms, so really it couldn't be much easier.

It'd be a shame if the number of comments started dropping off. In the past they've given us some really excellent discussions which all go to contribute to a sense of community.

If anyone has any criticisms to make, then you are free to make them (and I won't as a moderator delete them unless they are downright offensive), but you will be required to put your name to them. If you have a problem with the blog - or with Bertram or me personally - then please have the courage of your convictions and put your name to it.

G L Wilson

Apologies...

guitarz.blogspot.com:

...for the sparsity of recent updates. I've been having some major computer problems over the last couple of weeks but hopefully will at last be getting my laptop sorted out this weekend. The problem after that will be to get the wireless router to function properly - that's also been a major headache.

On top of all this I've been looking for work. Note to any publishers or magazine editors out there: Yes, I am available for any writing commissions. I have recently completed work on a book about guitars which will be published in December and am available to do further work like this, be it books, magazine articles, or whatever.

G L Wilson

NB: There are a lot of blogs STEALING content and bandwidth. If you read this anywhere else but on guitarz.blogspot.com then you are reading a blog that STEALS content. Please support original bloggers!

Kawai Aquarius, blogs and stuff

Hi, this is Bertram.

As GLW pointed out in the previous post, I've been posting regularly here in the last weeks and it's been a very interesting experience, full of learning, sharing, exchange and - well - discipline; finding something interesting to post everyday is not always easy!

Anyway, I will keep posting once in a while when I find something worthwhile...

But I also have my own blogs, and I take the opportunity to advertise them to the Guitarz many readers.

First (and you will now understand why there is this bizarre picture on the right), I just started a blog about Kawai Aquarius guitars. This is not the greatest or most famous guitar, but I have a soft spot for it and it's very difficult to find information about it on the Web. So I call for contribution and invite players and owners of Kawai Aquarius guitars (and bass) to send me pictures, stories, tracks, videos... to feed this blog.

But my main blog stays gUitarREN (it's a mix of German, French and English for guitar - of course), a blog about guitar design and projects. From my background as a musician and a visual artist, I started one year ago to study thoroughly about guitars, first to master new aspects of guitar playing, then in the idea that I want to make guitars myself, then I got really involved (I mean even more than before) and went into drawing guitars every day as a creative design process and post them on my blog. I also started building my projects, but I have to learn everything while doing it, and have not so much time and will never have enough to actualize all my ideas...

So I'd love to meet a guitar maker who needs a designer and try a collaboration, if you are interested you can contact me via my profile (you know what? I contacted some companies already and Fender answered, they do have an office to receive suggestions from people like me, interesting, isn't it?).

Thank you for your attention.

Look at this... The thieving b*st*rds!

Dear Electric Guitar Shack

Please can you explain what you are doing by stealing content and bandwidth from my blog at http://guitarz.blogspot.com/?

I recently had to upgrade my Photobucket account to a Pro account because apparently the bandwidth on the photographs was being exceeded. I couldn't account for this because the blog was not getting more hits than was usual.

But look at this - another blog using MY content, MY pictures and MY BANDWIDTH!

YOU OWE ME MONEY!!! I had to pay to upgrade my Photobucket account because of your activities. Having lost my job earlier this year, that $39.95 was money I could ill afford to pay.

YOU CAN PAY ME BACK VIA PAYPAL. Please pay $39.95 using my email address gl.wilson@ntlworld.com

Yours, very annoyed,

G L Wilson

P.S. More thieving b*st*rds at: http://gadgetmagazines.blogspot.com/search/label/guitar (although I have been screwing them up by renaming and switching photos).

GuitarThai Message Board

I wish I could read what these guys were saying about this blog.

http://www.guitarthai.com/webboard/question.asp?QID=186663

Can anyone translate?

Liquid Metal Guitars present the LMG "T"

This is a stunning-looking Tele-type guitar from Canada's Liquid Metal Guitars. The body is made from a solid block of 6061 T6 Aircraft Aluminum, and features a machine-etched finish which is then coated with scratch resistant clear coat developed by Akzo Nobel for use on ultra luxury cars. Take a look a the photos to see how incredibly beautiful this finish is.

The neck is a fine-crafted Canadian hard rock maple affair, whilst pickups are courtesy of Lindy Fralin. I'm skimping over the details here, but it all sounds like it makes for a fantastic T-type guitar. With that aluminium body, it must sustain for days.

You've probably already guessed, I'm a big fan of the finish. It's certainly a lot more attractive than the rusty steel efforts that James Trussart churns out these days.

And finally on this topic, Liquid Metal Guitars now have their own blog: liquidmetalguitars.com/blog/

My first electric guitar project

Hey there, I'm Ben from All About Guitars and Im gonna keep this blog rocking!
First I'll introduce u to my website: Guitars 110 .

lets begin...
my first electric guitar project:
I started from an unknown 70's japanese "strat" style guitar, named "Stiefel".
And here are the features:
Guitar Body: Many pieces of different woods.
Guitar Neck: Maple.
Fretboard: Rosewood Scalloped.
Pickups: Fender Made In Mexico.
and here are the pictures of the guitar:




After a week, I'd made a pickguard from wood:




sound check: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=71RPJR7Y

Call for Guest Bloggers and Your Input

Hey guys, I'm back, but I am extremely busy with other projects right now and can't guarantee that I'm going to be able to post to this blog quite as regularly as I have been doing in the past.

Several people have contacted me with view to contributing a guest blogger post or two, and this is something I would like to encourage. I want to keep this blog moving on, so if you fancy getting involved please do contact me.

I would also feature more of YOUR guitars - especially if they are one-offs, self-built, luthier-built to your specifications or have interesting customisations. For the purposes of this blog, one-offs are much more interesting than off-the-peg guitars that you can find anywhere. Most of the guitars we have seen in our "Your Guitars" category were built by reader Andy Stone, so let's have a few more of you sending in your guitar pictures and stories (or you can be a guest blogger and post them yourself).

(Someone sent me their customised Tele pics a few days ago - sorry, I forget your name as I don't have access to that email right now, but I am going to use your piece in the next few days - thanks!)

I've also received quite a few link exchange requests recently, which I have not gotten around to doing anything about yet. Sorry, but it's been a bad time for me. I will get these sorted, so please just bear with me.

I don't normally do these things...

Hmmmm... Looks like I have been tagged by Ovidiu from Guitar Flame to take part in one of these meme things that originated on TheOpenSource.com. The rules are as follows:

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
  
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post - some random, some weird.
  
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

So, semi-useless facts (whatever they are - sounds rather vague to me):

1. Despite being a guitar nut, I am a big fan of electronic music with Kraftwerk being one of my all-time favourite bands. My own demos have often featured more synth sounds than guitars, and I think that my perfect band situation would be in some kind of experimental electronic band, although I'd still like to use my guitars. Kraftwerk with guitars would be my ideal (perhaps something like Neu!).
   
   
2. My favourite band in my early teenage years was Status Quo. This was when I lived in Wales and all the kids thought the Quo were cool. Then when we moved to Greater London all the kids laughed at me when I said I liked Status Quo because these city kids were all into punk and new wave acts and whatever else was considered to be the in-thing to listen to. I must admit, I followed the herd, but I never regretted it as I discovered some great music around that time. Now that I'm 45 years old I think that I can play my Status Quo records again and it doesn't matter if people don't think its cool, as I'm allowed to be uncool at my age!
   
   
3. The last time I went to what we in the UK call a Fancy Dress Party (that is, a Costume Party in the US), I went as Marilyn Monroe. No, I don't have any photos.
   
   
4. I love the ukulele and will try to sneak it into the posts on Guitarz every now and again. Up until now I have only played the baritone ukulele (the one tuned DGBE, just like the top 4 strings of the guitar) but I've just got myself a soprano - the titchy little one - and am playing about on that. First impressions are that my hands are too big to form some of the chords on that tiny fingerboard, but I reckon I'll still be able to use it for some songs.
   
   
5. I enjoy visiting standing stones, stone circles, ancient monuments, castles, and other places of interest that have that special "vibe" to them. I have recently started another blog to document my visits: siteandstones.blogspot.com
   
   
6. I put food out in the garden for several hedgehogs that visit almost every night (when they are not hibernating, that is). I'm looking into installing infra-red cameras so that I can video the little beasties, and might even start a Hog Blog or else a YouTube channel devoted to them.
   
   
7. They say you should never meet your heroes, but over the years I've met quite a few of mine including Captain Sensible of The Damned (plus other members of that band), Wreckless Eric, Julian Cope, and even Francis Rossi of the aforementioned Status Quo. I once helped Captain Sensible write a song which eventually turned up on their current album, but time had passed and the lyrics had been changed from those I had written (so, no song-writing credit there).
   

OK, who shall I tag?

Janet from Lord Celery
Tamsin from Girl.Meets.Chile
Benjamin from Bass Guitar Blog
Anne from My Guitar Buddies
The GuitarBass Man
Steve from Guitar 24/7
Gorehound from Gorehound's Roots Guitar Tips

Eureka!

Comments are back again.

Thank you for your patience.

Normal service will be resumed...

...as soon as possible.

One of the problems with this blog being The World's Longest Running Guitar Blog (oh yes!) is that its template was seriously out of date, seeing as our host, Blogger, has evolved so much since this blog was set up.

So, I'm having a bit of a a fiddle, updating the template, and re-entering titles to each post so that the blog is more RSS friendly. Titles weren't showing up in RSS readers, which is something that has been bugging me for ages. Unfortunately upgrading the template is an enormous job, because lots of the older posts aren't going to display properly until tweaked, and there are quite a few years worth of archives to work through.

Comments have been temporarily suspended. I had previously been using HaloScan comments and would dearly love to switch over to Blogger comments but fear all the old HaloScan comments will be lost. Does anyone know if there's a way of importing all the old comments into Blogger? Email me at gl.wilson@ntlworld.com

A Few Links to Share

• gUitarREN is a new blog from a would-be guitar designer. This guy has a whole bunch of new and refreshing ideas as to what an electric guitar could look like. I especially like his concept of a "neckless" guitar! (Actually, the neck would be integrated as part of the body). The blog features his sketches, cardboard-mock ups, and hopefully as time goes by we'll see some completed instruments too! Recommended.
  
  
• Play Away Guitars: UK-based store specialising in travel guitars (Traveler, MiniStar, Aria Sinsonido, Pignose, etc).
  
  
• Guitar Age: Netherlands-based site with crazy and sometimes cheesy guitars for sale (Eko, Crucianelli, Wandre, etc). Great pics!

Outrage as Stratoblogster is Censored!

Since when did Blogger/Google start censoring our blog posts?

JP Stratoblogster posted a very interesting rant recently which questioned Premier Guitar's apparent habit of giving rave reviews to their advertisers' own products. A review of one guitar in particular, the Etavonni GT-1 - a very expensive and supposedly innovative instrument, made JP think that something very fishy was going on and so he wrote this article (now re-posted).

Then the article was pulled!

Someone didn't like it! Premier Guitar? Etavonni? I don't know, but it seems that JP's comments clearly hit a nerve. Too close to the truth, perhaps? Almsot certainly, I'd say.

Why not respond with their side of the story? Why not enter into the debate in a reasonable, sensible way? Or even admit "Yes, we screwed up..."

Getting the article censored by Google/Blogger is just playing dirty tricks.

UPDATE: Kudos to Premier Guitar for getting involved in this discussion and responding to some of the issues that JP raised. (See the comments both here and on Stratoblogster).

Guitarz Blog - Bringing you Weird and Wonderful Guitars since 2002!

Yes! It's Happy Birthday to this blog, which is six years old today! I reckon that means it's OK to blow our own trumpet. There are hundreds of guitar blogs on the internet today, but this was the very first in the English language and it is also the longest running guitar blog ever! (And we STILL get missed off the lists of who's who in guitar blogging. We're obviously not in the right clique.) We might not be as deep or intellectual as some guitar blogs, but if you want a regular dose of weird and wonderful guitars, then look no further. Thanks for reading.

Holiday plans

I'm going away on holiday, 2-15 August. (Bermuda was work, although we did have some free time). I might be able to access the internet but cannot guarantee I'll be able to make any blog posts in that time.

Do any regular readers fancy being a Guest Guitarz Blogger for a couple of weeks? Knowledge of the workings of Blogger would be of benefit.

Email me at gl.wilson@ntlworld.com.

Sympathetic Slide Chicken Cooker in Open G

I've blogged about Iner Souster and the Experimental Instruments He Lives With before, about two years ago. I'm glad to report that he's still busy making weird and wonderful musical instruments out of assorted found objects and pieces of junk, and am even more pleased that he documents it all in his splendid blog.