Cry Baby: The Pedal That Rocks The World

Cry Baby: The Pedal That Rocks The World from Joey Tosi on Vimeo.

A film by by Joey Tosi.

Thanks to Tsahi Lazan for bringing this to my attention.

Specimen electric lute

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's another one of Ian Schneller's creations, seen here in this video clip being played by the guy who commissioned the instrument in the first place, Michiel Niessen, in March 2009. Read more about it here.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Ed Ricco - Come Together solo slide guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Guitarz reader Greg Haehl says: "I thought you might enjoy this Berklee grad slide player I came across while surfing."

And why not? Thanks for sending that, Greg, it's an impressive performance.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Charvel Surfcaster Bass - ex Grog from Feline/Ultraviolet/Die So Fluid

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here we have a Charvel Surfcaster bass up for grabs on eBay. This particular example was previously owned by singer and bassist Grog and used in her bands Feline and Ultraviolet, before evolving into the darker, heavier  three-piece Die So Fluid (I believe she favours G&L basses these days). It's a thinline bass with a hint of Rickenbacker in its design. Unlike many guitars and basses we feature here on Guitarz, I can personally confirm that this bass plays and sounds fantastic having witnessed it in action on quite a few occasions and also on having tried it out. Grog actually had two of these basses - this red one and another in black (who knows where that one ended up). At one gig I went to, she ended up throwing both of them on the floor. They were obviously built to be able to withstand a lot of abuse and hard gigging.

First manufactured in 1991, the Surfcaster guitar and bass were something of a departure for Charvel, who up until then had mainly been concentrating on the pointy-headstocked superstrat market. As the name implies, they were aiming for more of a surf vibe, and the guitar was also being marketed to the country market, the Chandler lipstick pickups being suited to this sound.

However, they were also capable of a heavier sound, as evidenced in this video of Ultraviolet (below). Watch out for Grog's Surfcaster bass - the actual one for sale on eBay right now.

One last comment - don't confuse these Charvel Surfcasters with the later inferior "Made in India" Jackson models. Those awful guitars sully the Surfcaster name.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Interesting 'slide' technique with fingers!

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This is Ronnie from Botswama who has a really interesting playing technique! I'll let the video do the talking, just click "play" already!

Thanks to Marty Jensen for recommending this clip.

Thanks also to Paul Bob for pointing me in the direction of a better quality version of the video than the one I posted pre-edit.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Grace Chang sings the Habanera aria from Georges Bizet's "Carmen"

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Ah, I love it when we get contributions from Guitarz readers (please keep 'em coming!). Here's an email I received earlier today:

Interesting use of a resonator guitar

Check out this clip of a 1960 Hong Kong movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqI4h1uODng

The girl starts off playing a resonator in a fancy Hong Kong night club while singing Carmen. I'm not asking for an ID of the guitar - I just thought it was an interesting use of a resonator. I wonder if your blog readers can find other "out of place" guitars in films, etc.

cheers,
Tone Deaf Radio

Thanks Tone! (Do you mind if I call you Tone?) There's a fun challenge for our readers! I can't say I would have expected to see a National Tri-Cone resonator guitar in the hands of Chinese actress/singer Grace Chang whilst singing an aria from the opera "Carmen". Can anyone beat that for a guitar being used in an unusual context?

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

What is Nokie's guitar?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Jim writes:

I was looking at listverse.com today where they have the top ten instrumental songs from the 60s. Because I am in the US, I couldn’t watch the youtube video of The Ventures playing "Walk, Don’t Run". I decided I wanted to check it out so I went to YouTube and clicked the first Ventures video clip.

There is guy wearing a cowboy hat playing lead on a very strange looking little guitar. Any ideas what that is? Kinda cool looking with a massive tremolo bar.

Grace and Peace,
Jim Hevesy

Hey Jim, thanks for writing. Of course, The Ventures have over the years been associated closely with the guitars of Fender, Mosrite, Aria, Wilson Brothers and very likely a few others. However, this guitar appears to be none of those.

The "guy wearing a cowboy hat" is Nokie Edwards, but I can't say what the guitar is. It looks a little like one of Washburn's Idol series guitars with a Tele-like, probably bolt-on, neck. I suspect it may be custom-made guitar, possibly a one-off, but do any readers have a better idea as to its identity, who made it, etc?

G L Wilson

Edit: It's a Hunt Guitar built by Tony Hunt - see the comments. Thanks guys!

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Eko M33 Short Gun + bonus

guitarz.blogspot.com

I've been willing to show an Eko Short Gun guitar for a while, this is a good opportunity. 

The Eko Short Gun (aka Fuciletto - I like Italian nicknames for guitars - did you know that in Italy the SG is called Diavoletto - little devil?) is a very interesting small guitar, designed to look like the stock of a handgun, compensating the cold minimalism of the Steinberger L models with a sensual curved wooden body...

This M33 is the one pickup model - the M35 having two pickups. The Eko Short Gun is supposed to have had much visibility when used by The Knack on their hit My Sharona, that is of little interest but if you enjoy as much as I do how Frank Zappa inserted a few bars of My Sharona in his 1988 version of Ravel's Bolero, as you can hear here: 

Bertram

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

Kids make electric guitars - If they can, you can

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This is - in the words of Ninja from Die Antwoord - unexpected. The ending soundtrack of the video is so bloody cool, it all but brought tears to my eyes. But then I am a big old softy. I'm not going to say too much - just check out what's going on here. I hope you enjoy it and it inspires you.

David in Barcelona - Happy new year. Off for a break. Back in 2011.

[Thanks, David, for all your great posts this year. Although we've blogged about these Brooklyn kids making their own electric guitars before, it's fantastic stuff and does bear looking at again! - G L Wilson]

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

Alvino Rey (and not to mention Stringy the talking steel guitar!)

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's an email from Alan:

Hello from Washington DC USA.

Two slick videos I wanted to tell you about featuring Alvino Rey - a steel guitarist popular from the '40s thru the '60s. One (see above) features "Stringy", a singing puppet fronting for a vocalist going through a Sonovox. Bands of the 1940s routinely did these early "music videos" that ran in movie theaters.

The fun starts around the 0:42 sec mark.

The second shows Alvino on the "King Family" TV show of the 1960s - a very safe, family-friendly music variety show of that era. What makes it cool is seeing Alvino slinging a state of the art Fender solid-body instead of a nice, dignified archtop jazzbox; almost a blasphemy on a "family" TV show such as this.

In black and white it's hard to tell what the actual color of this guitar is. Since TV of that era couldn't handle *pure* white (it would blow the picture out), I want to pretend it's a Lake Placid Blue, an Ivory, or some kinda yellow.

Enjoy.
-AP

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

Motorized remote-controlled guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Présentation from Gryphée on Vimeo.

Here's an email from Gyphée:

Hi there,

A friend of mine make me discover your web-site, it's really great!

You maybe be interested in my project. I'm a french musician and I start a new project during the summer, called Gryphée. It's a motorized and remote controled guitar, tunned in 450Hz, with 5 stings in B and one in Fb.

It's done big drones, with stranges overtone.

You can watch a video here: http://vimeo.com/17466126 (see above)

I have a Myspace even if it's became a very bad place: http://www.myspace.com/gryphee

I have a mini-album here: http://www.archive.org/details/isor025LesRondesAbiment

Right now, a friend do the mastering of the second called "The Rotations Project" with 10 other european musicians who used the same sample of motorized guitare to do something new. And I will record another one in January.

I hopes you will like it.

Regards from France.

Gyphée.

Thanks for that. As well as weird, wonderful, beautiful, strange and outrageous guitars, we always enjoy seeing guitars used in art installations and in experimental music.

G L Wilson.

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

Captain Beefheart RIP

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This is sad news indeed...

Don Van Vliet, aka 'Captain Beefheart', has died aged 69 from complications from multiple sclerosis.

(I know it's not necessarily directly guitar-related, but look out for the Melobar in the above clip.)

G L Wilson

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

Home made aluminium lap steel

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This very simple instrument, made out of a piece of aluminium double glazing extrusion, is especially interesting to me as I just bought a Peavey Powerslide and I'm in the process of getting the hang of it. Not a piece of cake by any means.

The builder of this guitar (Airbrake 1 or Marscape 1, depending whether you find him on Flickr or Youtube) has further simplified the construction - and complicated the learning process - by leaving out the fret markers! Which makes his rather modest claim to not be able to play steel guitar even more remarkable. On his Flickr page, he says "I decided to fit 3 strips of tape to show the 5th fret position, the 12th and the 24th. I could have fitted more, but I wanted to try to develop my ear, so I would be able to automatically find the right notes. It takes some practice to do this!" Yeah, you don't say. Check out his not too shabby video. If I could coax something like this from my Powerslide, I'd be pretty pleased with myself.

David in Barcelona

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

Baglama bama a wap bam boo

We usually try to steer clear of repeat postings but I think this is sufficiently different from Bertram's recent post to allow ourselves a little indulgence. More of an extension really.

When I was buying my Baglama Saz in Turkey, I had the opportunity to try an electric one which was much more like a western style guitar. It had a solid, Strat-like body, bright red paint job and had a spiky, angled headstock. I should have taken a few pictures. However, I came across this one in a DailyMotion video. More traditional in style but definitely more "guitarish" and a chance to hear one in action.

Caution. For the sake of your sanity DO NOT click on my name!

David in Barcelona

guitarz.blogspot.com:Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Adam Ant plays his telecaster

guitarz.blogspot.com

The previous post suddenly awoke in me the strong urge to show to all of you the magnificent Adam and the Ants in their time of glory, and maybe reveal something beautiful to some people who were not teenagers in the 80s in the UK!

bertram

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

Underwater guitar with The Great White Shark Song

guitarz.blogspot.com:



Yeah, I know he's miming! Nevertheless, rather him than me!

G L Wilson

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

Glen Campbell's electric resonator guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Tone Deaf Radio has written to me asking what guitar Glen Campbell is playing in the above clip?

This red electric resonator guitar is also pictured on the front cover of his album "Hey, Little One".

Anyway, my suspicion was that it might be a Mosrite - I don't know why I thought that - but it's been vindicated by this page here where we see a very similar guitar in black for sale (pictured right). I did wonder if it was it was a genuine collaboration between the Dobro and Mosrite companies, or if the name Dobro is being used to describe the type of guitar, i.e. a resonator. Dobro is one of those brand names, like Biro or Hoover, that has passed into the language and is applied to similar items not of that brand. However, a look at the full-size photo clearly shows both names on the headstock.

G L Wilson

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

Albert Luampasi, African guitarist

guitarz.blogspot.com:

"Hello, I am a fan of African guitar music, and the video below is of one of the masters of the instrument in Africa, Albert Luampasi. Is it possible to you to identify the guitar that he is playing in this video at Youtube?

Thank you
Emerson"

Hi Emerson, I really can't say what that guitar is. It looks 1960s Japanese to me, but could equally be a guitar of 1960s European origin given the pushbutton controls, whilst the headstock looks Silvertone/Danelecro.

The strings have a very un-metallic sound to them. I wonder what strings he is using here. I note he has a microphone in front of the guitar. Perhaps the guitar's pickup isn't even functioning or is itself microphonic.

Anyway, do any Guitarz readers have any clue as to the identity of this instrument?

G L Wilson

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

Devo's Bob Mothersbaugh and the Blue Potato guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

As a big fan of Devo I am excited that they are releasing new material for the first time in 20 years, and from what I've heard already it sounds like classic Devo!

I was also pleased to see that guitarist Bob Mothersbaugh is once again using the Ibanez "Blue Potato" guitar that he lost and was later reunited with. You know how we love wacky guitars here on Guitarz, and Bob's one-off Blue Potato is one of my own very favourites.

Watch Devo performing "Fresh" here.

G L Wilson

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

Mr Wilson goes guitar shopping

guitarz.blogspot.com:
I recently decided to put some of my savings into a couple of vintage guitars, as I don't think much of the interest rates on savings schemes that the banks have to offer at the moment, and at least with guitars I can enjoy having them and playing them (got to treat them carefully though). The Eko bass is already on its way, but I wanted another interesting vintage piece without going down the Fender and Gibson paths. So today, I took myself into London, and more specifically, to Denmark Street, which is THE place to go for guitar shopping in the capital.

Musicground in Denmark Street, which is where I took these photos, had an astonishing collection of weird and wonderful guitars. I wish I could have photographed them all individually. That would have have been blog material for a whole year!

Anyway, I'm pleased to report that I ended up buying one of the guitars pictured. See if you can guess which one. (Regular readers should be able to work it out pretty quickly).

While I was in London, I also visited the Barbican Centre because I wanted to see the art installation by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot in which flocks of zebra finches play electric guitar.

It was absolutely delightful, and seemed to bring a smile to the faces of all the visitors. What I hadn't realised from viewing the video (which must have been on ALL the guitar blogs imaginable by now) was that you actually enter the birds' enclosure and get up close and personal. At one point I had three zebra finches happily trying to make a nest in my backpack whilst another was on my shoulder whistling in my ear.

The guitars provided for the birds to "play" are five white Gibson Les Paul Studios and three black Gibson SG basses. They seem to have been tuned to chords so that when the birds land on and take off from the strings, it can actually be surprisingly musical. (I noted some pretty hefty strings on the Les Pauls - some of them were bass strings, for sure). I don't think I've enjoyed an art exhibition so much since the Tate Modern had those scary slides installed in the turbine hall a few years back. Sorry, photography wasn't allowed, but here's a still from the video:

G L Wilson

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