Posts filed under 'Guitar'
I got this clip from Gary Peare over at Ukulelia, who had been doing some sleuthing on YouTube and turned up this wonderful clip of Witt and Berg, a guitar/ukulele duo from the 1920s, playing in a Vitaphone short. In an extra cool addition, he also found a documentary about early sound movies that includes a segment filmed in 1926 at the Vitaphone studios that shows the company filming the Witt and Berg segment. It worth heading over to Ukulelia to read his full post, which includes a link to the documentary and some speculation from me about the instruments Witt and Berg are playing.-MJS
January 8th, 2008
This is Spinal Tap, as we all know, is the funniest movie ever made. What I didn’t know was that Christopher Guest, who played Nigel Tufnel, had experimented with rock parody before. Here’s a page, complete with soundclips, of Guest tweaking prog rock for The National Lampoon in 1975. Behold, the glory of “The Art Rock Suite.” Also, it turns out that the 1979 Lenny and the Squigtones LP, with Michael McKean and David Lander reprising their Lenny and Squiggy roles from the TV show Laverne and Shirley, featured Guest playing guitar and credited as Nigel Tufnel a few years before Spinal Tap was formed. If the next issue of the Fretboard Journal is delayed, it’s because I’ve been spending too much time looking stuff like this up on the Web.-MJS
December 21st, 2007
Gibson is going to make a limited run of the Reverse Flying V, which was originally part of their Guitar of the Week program. That is very cool, in wacky way, but if they’re going to be bringing out Flying V variations, I’d love to see them do a Thunderbolt.-MJS
December 19th, 2007
This isn’t good. It seems that Robert W. McLean, the guy who donated Bill Monroe’s F-5 and Maybelle Carter’s L-5 to the Country Music Hall of Fame passed away owing a great deal of money and the instruments may have to be sold to pay off his debts. You know, I was married for more than ten years before I found out my wife was distantly related to Maybelle Carter. Personally, I think that her L-5 should be returned to the family, by which I mean, given to me.-MJS (Photo of Maybelle Carter’s 1928 Gibson L-5 courtesy of Gruhn Guitars.)
December 17th, 2007
Last year I posted about a guy named Lou Reimuller, a luthier who made a guitar out of a department store mannequin. He dubbed his creation the Teenar and it looks like that not only is it making the blogs again, but he’s changed the way it’s dressed. It’s still kinda creepy.-MJS
December 17th, 2007
FJ contributor Andy Volk alerted us to this great online find: “The University of Rochester has digitized and posted online its archive of public domain scores and music ephemera. Included are copies of the amazing S.S. Stewart’s Banjo and Guitar Journal from the 1890’s.”
Andy describes the rag as “The Fretboard Journal of a century ago” (which we’ll take as a compliment). For those who don’t know about the Banjo and Guitar Journal (original copies sometimes show up on eBay), the mag was published by the S.S. Stewart company, ostensibly to promote their instruments and network of dealers. But the writing is filled with fascinating (and sometimes just plain bizarre) commentary on the then-current state of music (when banjos and mandolins were more popular than guitars): how lazy music students can be, random notes about instructors who have moved or plan to sometime and now quaint editorials about gear and live performance trends. There’s also sheet music in each issue. At the risk of getting even more obscure in this posting, if any of you are fans of illustrator Chris Ware (and especially his self-published Ragtime Ephemeralist magazine), when you download these files, you’ll see the huge influence that magazines such as this have on his artwork. -JV
November 15th, 2007
For years, we’ve known that the members of Wilco were true gearheads. Now we have even more proof. Today, Breedlove announced a signature edition Jeff Tweedy model. Officially titled the Breedlove Revival 000 Jeff Tweedy Ltd. Edition (remember, this band is fond of long titles), the guitar will be made in a limited edition of 25. Based on the older Revival 000, the guitar has Red Spruce top, Indian Rosewood back and sides, a pretty neat bee-themed inlay (Tweedy’s idea) and a label signed by the musician. You can also get Tweedy’s electronics preferences added to the setup or, if you’re feeling really spendy, get Brazilian Rosewood for the back and sides (only five of these models will be made). With a retail of six grand for the basic model, the guitar isn’t cheap, but for a few lucky die-hard Wilco fans, it seems like a sure-fire ticket to capturing the band’s acoustic tone. On a side note, perhaps this is a sign of a change in the industry. Between Fender’s Buddy Miller acoustic guitar and J. Mascis Jazzmaster and now this guitar from Breedlove, it seems the big guitar companies are finally catching on to the fact that some of today’s left-of-the-dial artists have influenced a ton of us guitar nerds. Now we just need Epiphone to make a signature David Rawlings Olympic and Gibson to churn out some new Neko Case signature model tenor guitars and we’ll be set! - JV
November 15th, 2007
Breaking news… In a just announced press release, Fender Musical Instruments Corp. has announced that it will acquire Kaman Music for approximately $117 million in cash. Fender, of course, owns the Fender Guitars brand as well as Squire, Tacoma, Guild, Jackson, Charvel and others. Kaman is the owner of Ovation Guitars, Hamer, Genz Benz Amplification and Gibraltar Hardware.
October 29th, 2007
Here’s an, um, interesting Squier Strat that was converted into a 12-string guitar. If you’d like to have it for your very own, it’s for sale on eBay in Niedersachsen, Germany.-MJS
October 8th, 2007
Next Posts
Previous Posts
