Happy Whatever-You-Celebrate

Listening to: lots and lots of Mick Taylor-era Rolling Stones. Go figure...!

I usually refrain from these kinds of "Hinglish" posts, being too easy a target even for me, but it was just too cute to pass up...

Phatfinder! This simple typographical error (especially in italian) just brings a smile to my face! And for those who aren't guitar-geeky as i am, this particular model is a Vox Pathfinder.

Yeah, the truth is i'm just easily amused.

Nostalgia moment

Awwww...it's my first bass guitar!

I paid $20 when i was 16 years old (money obviously given to me by my parents), bought from a high school friend. I immediately set out to compose songs on it! I and my brother (who plays guitar) immediately put a group together. Oh, that bass guitar was just the beginning of the chaotic adult life i call mine.

But it was/is a crap guitar. I'm snickering to myself that they're asking $895 for it. It sucked so bad i don't even remember gigging with it. I remember finding my first real love, a modified Vox Bill Wyman bass, at the Sunday flea market at Martin and Frazho. But now i'm just repeating myself...

Anyway, i personally wouldn't hand over more than $100 for it...but what do i know?

Fender Evil Twin

I love this! And i'm shocked no one has ever thought of this before...the Fender Evil Twin!

What? Too guitar geek?

He played it left hand...

...but strung right-handed!!! Thick-ass .016-gauges on that gold-sparkle Strat, strung right-handed!

Dick Dale! Let's Go Trippin'! Riders in The Sky! Banzai Washout! Shake-N-Stomp! The Wedge! Taco Wagon (exceptional rendition)! Dick-fucking-Dale!

House of the Rising Sun! Hey, Bo Diddley! Pipeline! Folsom Prison Blues/Ring of Fire! California Sun! Fever! Smoke On The Water! And...wait for it...Link Wray’s Rumble!

“Where am I?” And the crowd responded “Rome,” to which Dick replied, “No, I’m in Heaven!” Dick, you sly dog!

Actually, with the packed house at Locanda Atlantide and no air conditioning to speak of (a few ceiling fans, turned on about mid-show), it felt like Hell!

Problems with his mike tonight. His vocal was almost buried in the mix. At one point he gave the sound man a lesson on using the mixer's EQ. He then says to the sound man “More high end...make me sound like a special guy.” To which I had to respond, audibly, “But you are a special guy!”, which got a smile out of him and the band (who were right behind him all the way, Brian and Richie, if i remember correctly).

And of course his most-recognized hit here in Italy, thanks to Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Misirlou. He even introduced it: “Hey, what's this song?” doing an impression of John Travolta dancing the Watusi! It was at this point i left my spot at near-front-center for the bar for the tourists and met up with my friends Paolo, Francesca...and Jack.

Of course there was more. I can only remember so much. I believed he played for about three songs more.

Dick Dale. Eyein’ and dealin’ the ladies at age 72! Dick Dale, doin’ the sonic version of Hitchcock’s Rope: it seemed like four or five songs the whole night because one thing just segued into another! Played for an hour and a half, maybe more, he was relaxed as hell, California laid-back, and did what the hell he wanted the whole time. He played the Strat, the trumpet and even duoed on the drums. He even took the sticks to his bassist’s bass! Dick Dale!

What? Of course there’re pictures (forgive my cameraphone)!

Flatwounds are for pussies

I was stinkin' about some of my favorite guitar sounds...

Well, there's Ronnie Wood's Dan Armstrong through his Ampeg 4x10 (what is that, a Rat pedal?)...

Then, there's always John armed with his Casino through a Fender Twin...

Peace.

Cheapy "vintage" guitars

My brother's first guitar was a Gibson ES-125TDC.

My first bass guitar was a used Danelectro-made Sears Silvertone. $20.

This is the same model as mine, found on eBay.
Many thanks to the original photographer and BCR.

It had a neck that only Paul Bunyan could love. I can't even say i liked its lipstick pickups so beloved by Danelectro fans, but i believe this was an isolated case as i do generally like lipstick pickups. It was a crap guitar.

I later found at the flea market a Vox Bill Wyman bass with its original body replaced with a Phantom-esque slab of clear lucite. $10. No photo, sorry. Now this bass i fell in love with. Short scale neck, crappy Italian single-coils, exposed wiring, Bill Wyman's name on the teardrop headstock (apparently Bill had next to nothing to do this model! HA!). But i'm the first to admit that it was also a crap guitar.

Many years later, i found this exact Teisco Del Rey EV2T at the defunct Guitar and Drum Center in St Clair Shores. $200 (i probably paid $150 too much for it).

This is the same model as mine, found on the Squinternet.
Many thanks to the original photographer.

I just loved it for its body, not its mind. I can be so superficial. Cheap Japanese single-coils, Vox Phantom rip-off design, knobs, switches and a whammy bar...what's not to love? I've even recorded with it! Eventually i had replaced the tuners, bridge saddles and had the pickups potted (they made Rema-Rema or Sonic Youth sound controlled). Say what you will, but yet another crap guitar.

Which brings me to this recent eBay auction...


Buy It Now: US$890?!? Are they kidding??? Nostalgia and "vintage" aside, it's a crap guitar!!! We're not talking non-uniform Quality Control; all these Teiscos, strangely enough, were uniformly crappy! Let's call it for what it is: a knockoff guitar just this side of a toy that because of demand created by the 1960s "British Invasion" were mass-produced very cheaply in Japan, then today's equivalent of the Chinese manufacturing juggernaut, because they couldn't produce them fast enough or cheaply enough in Italy (the original source for cheap imported guitars into the American market).

A conversation between me and my brother about this very guitar up for auction had me wagering that the highest bid for that guitar would be around $300, $350 max but that's because the seller had found his patsy. Well, ever optimistic, i never thought that someone would offer almost half of the Buy It Now price.

Believe me, i understand that whole "look" thang, hence my ongoing infatuation with 1960s "fetish" guitars. But for my money, that same $405 could get you a MIM Telecaster or Stratocaster or maybe a Gretsch 5235 Pro Jet. Cheap guitars but with a whole other level of quality.

eBay.it Eko

I have a...“thing” for eBay. Guitars, specifically. I like to watch 'em come and go on eBay. I don't actually buy them (well, just once i did). Does that make me an eBay voyeur?

Never buy a guitar you can't touch first.

I also have a thing for “guitar boom” guitars: guitars produced during the 1960s, when American guitar makers couldn't keep up with demand created by the Beatles after the first Ed Sullivan appearance. I've always had (much to Joey's chagrin) a thing for cheesy guitars. I personally was too young to experience that first wave of British Invasion (i grew up during Kiss', Alice Cooper's and Donny Osmond's respective musical reigns and the beginning of punk) so i'm not sure where this fetish came from. Everyone was pretty much playing (not unlike today) Stratocasters and sunburst Les Pauls. Maybe it's just the aesthetic? Or as i discovered later on, that unmistakable single-coil sound? Probably the aesthetic.

During my daily eBay hunts for old...errm, vintage Ekos, Hagströms and Kliras, i come across this...






Chitarra EKO Ancient Vintage Guitar |No Hofner - Framus

...and i mark it to be “watched”. And i'm lookin’ at it...and lookin’ at it. And my fifth-and-a-half sense is itching. It doesn't look like any Eko i've ever seen, not like i'm some great expert. Look at these other photos...

The above photos link to the Auctiva-hosted large size photos, and may not be available in the near future.

I've never seen a logo nor pickups like that on an Eko. And if i'm not mistaken, Eko didn't offer a natural finish at that point in time (1960s). And isn't that a Hagström vibrato? Again, i'm no expert.

So let's go to the experts, www.fetishguitars.it! What a site! I always have to have a roll of paper towels with me when i visit...just kidding. Anyway, after a much-shorter-than-expected search of this vast site, i found this page. The page's title says it all.

So, there's one born every minute, so the saying goes. As the above graphic shows, it sold for €200,05. Maybe the new owner just liked it, actual pedigree be damned...?

Remember, kids: never buy a guitar you can't touch first!