Fretboard Journal Blog » 2006

Archive for June, 2006

German Jazz Guitars

Jazzgitarren is a great site from Japan in English about German archtop guitars made by companies like Framus, Hopf, Hofner, Lang and Hoyer. (Ain’t the World Wide Web wonderful?) Looking through the site I was pleased to see that Hoyer reissued the Bianka, pictured on the left, which was one of the wildest looking archtops ever made. The site also has an interesting section devoted to guitars made in East Germany, including a very odd guitar covered in red pearloid.-MJS

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1 comment June 30th, 2006

But What Does It Look Like?

Radio host Jowi Taylor and luthier George Rizsanyi built the ultimate Canadian guitar out of iconic items such as Pierre Trudeau’s canoe paddle, the ship deck of the Bluenose II and Paul Henderson’s hockey stick. Annoyingly, neither Rizsany’s website, or the site devoted to the guitar, have photos of it.-MJS

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1 comment June 29th, 2006

Roy’s Guitars

Whether it’s $29.99 or $29,999, a Roy Rogers guitar is a very cool thing. If you’re at all interested, you should act fast because Roy guitars don’t hang around forever. Oh, and it’s nice to see they haven’t forgotten Dale Evans. Happy Trails!-MJS (Thanks, Gary!)

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1 comment June 29th, 2006

Who’s Deaf?

Well, Pete Townshend’s almost deaf. And in this article, he says his partial deafness was caused by listening to headphones at high volume rather than from his famously loud stage shows. No matter what caused it, please be careful. This page from the American Hearing Research Foundation has some good tips on preventing hearing loss.-MJS

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Add comment June 29th, 2006

Luthier Culture Clash

This article is a couple of years old, but it tells an interesting story of how Kenny Hill, a builder from California, tried to have guitars made in Paracho, Mexico. If you haven’t heard about Paracho, it’s a town where just about everyone is a luthier. My friend Teja Gerken went there in 1989 to study guitar making. Here’s a nice photo essay from his time there.-MJS (Photo courtesy of Teja Gerken)

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Add comment June 28th, 2006

The Cuatro Project

Here’s a great page devoted to the Puerto Rican cuatro that includes info on building them, bios of famous players, sound clips and loads of photos.-MJS

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1 comment June 27th, 2006

Hubcap Banjo

Here’s a guy who posted photos of a banjo he made out of a Chevy hubcap. I bet it sounds great on tunes like “Route 66,” “Highway 61 Revisted” or, maybe, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” but not so good on “Wreck On The Highway.”-MJS (via Make Magazine Blog)

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Add comment June 27th, 2006

Guitar Playin’ Machine

The Crazy J is a robotic guitar player that was designed by Jason Lawrence, Turner Howard and Susan Knueven, who were students at Georgia Tech’s graduate Mechatronics class. The site includes photos, info on how they built the machine and sound clips of Crazy J picking. How cool would it be to have a degree in Mechatronics?-MJS

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Add comment June 27th, 2006

The Unofficial Gibson Flying V Website

Here’s a good site devoted to one of the pointiest guitars around, the Gibson Flying V. It’s quite complete, but they seem to have missed this one.-MJS

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Add comment June 26th, 2006

Stolen Guitars Recovered

Here’s an article from the Baltimore Sun about some stolen Paul Reed Smith guitars that were recovered. It’s nice to know that swiped instruments are sometimes returned to their rightful owners.-MJS

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