six-string-survivors

[six-string-survivors]

Some IG pulls from the past few months. I wish I could say these were all ‘survivors,’ but in this writer’s humble opinion, some of these are just trash. Apologies to the owners... maybe they play well and sound really good? Who knows? Some survivors, some did not survive. 

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Today on Six-String-Survivors, Peter Frampton’s 1954 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop, ‘Phenix.’ (reprinted in part from Guitar Magazine) In 1970, while performing a run of shows at the Fillmore West in San Francisco with the band Humble Pie, guitarist Peter Frampton was having significant problems with his newly-acquired ES-335. After recently switching from a Gibson SG, feedback from the hollow-bodied Gibson had plagued him throughout the band's opening show.

This prompted Mark Mariana, (a fellow musician, and fan of Frampton) to suggest that Peter try out his modified 1954 Les Paul Custom, which was loaned to him for the following nights performance. By the end of the set, Peter was so impressed with the guitar that he offered to buy it on the spot, famously stating of that first night, “my feet never touched the floor.” However, incredibly and generously, Mariana insisted that Frampton accept it as a gift.

Originally, the ‘54 would have had a compliment of bridge P90, and neck AlNiCo pickups, and a gold top. By the time Frampton got ahold of it, the guitar had been refinished in black, the neck shaved, and a trio of early 60′s Gibson patent number humbuckers had been fitted. 

The guitar would rarely leave Peter Frampton's side for the next decade, featuring on some of Rock's most memorable and multi-million selling recordings including; Humble Pie's ‘Rock On’ and ‘Frampton Comes Alive’. Peter and the '54 graced the cover of the later, to create an image that is arguably one of the most recognizable of the 1970s.

Frampton's partnership with the instrument looked to have come to an abrupt end during a tour of South America in 1980, as the guitar was thought to have been destroyed in a cargo plane crash near Caracas, Venezuela, that tragically killed all the Frampton crew-members on board. The guitar that had become such an important part of his career was gone forever. Or so it appeared.

Amazingly, it now seems that several of the instruments from the plane crash were saved by locals, and though badly burned on the neck and headstock (see the accompanying picture,) the famous Les Paul spent 30 years ‘undercover’ playing in a local Venezuelan jazz band. Eventually needing some repairs, the instrument was brought to a part-time guitar repairman, who also happened to be a Curacao Customs agent and big fan of Frampton’s, and who immediately recognized Peter's Les Paul.

For the next few years, the local luthier, along with a member of the local tourist board, tried to convince the Venezuelan guitarist to sell the instrument. A negotiation that would continue until November 2011, when facing some financial difficulties, he finally agreed to part with it for a reported fee of close to $5,000.

With the guitar in hand, the two flew out to meet with Frampton to return it to him in person in Nashville, Tennessee. After receiving a few repairs at the Gibson Custom Shop, the '54 Les Paul is now back on the road with Peter Frampton, three decades after it presumably met a fiery end. A true "Phoenix" from the ashes.

[six-string-survivors]

Hey there, SixStringSurvivors. I think I was fourteen when I heard Sloan’s ‘500 Up’ for the first time. I’ve been listening, off and on, ever since. Their 1994 album ‘Twice Removed’ and 1996′s ‘One Chord to Another’ are permanent fixtures in my CD player. (Yes, I still have a CD Player, and it gets regular use. Shut it.) 

This guitar (which I’ll call the “Kiss” guitar, for obvious reasons) has fascinated me for years. There is a lot that’s unique about it. I think I first caught sight of it in Sloan’s music video for ‘Coax Me,’ and it was a live staple for many years (only replaced since maybe 2012 by a white Gibson SG Custom, three-pickup model.) Most often seen in the hands of Sloan songsmith / guitarist Patrick Pentland, after a bit of emailing and contacting Sloan members via social media, Pentland’s bandmate Jay Ferguson wrote back “Hey! It belongs to Chris... he got it many years ago. I believe it’s from early 60s and it’s called a Les Paul Jr. - hope that helps!”

The Chris mentioned is Sloan bassist Chris Murphy, most often seen wielding a 70′s Fender Mustang Competition bass, though it bears mentioning that all four members of Sloan are multi-instrumentalists, and it’s not uncommon for them to swap instruments mid-set. 

The Les Paul Jr., if Jay is indeed correct, narrows down the age of the instrument a little, though there are several oddities worth noting. Jazz guitarist Les Paul did not like the new “Solid Guitar” shape of the redesigned Les Paul Model, which debuted in 1961, and removed his name from it by late 1963. The guitar was then known simply as the Gibson Solid Guitar, or SG. Those SG’s that left the factory with Les’ name on the headstock, such as this one, date from the first two years of production. 

The Les Paul / SG Junior was the logical follow up to the late-50′s single-cut and double-cutaway Les Paul Junior model, which more closely resembled the fabled late-50′s Les Paul goldtops and standards, except without the figured, carved maple tops. Junior models left the factory with a single pickup, and simplified controls of single volume, and single tone. 

Thing is, no early 60′s Les Paul / SG Junior ever left the factory in Kalamazoo with a humbucker, as the Kiss guitar has. Likewise, no ‘stock’ SG ever had a pickguard shaped like the Kiss guitar (though I wish they did! I think it’s a very handsome shape.) The picture from the collage in the bottom left corner is a screen-cap from Sloan’s “The Good in Everyone” video (attached) which is not only a great, rockin’ tune, but there are some great close-ups of the Kiss guitar. 

As you can see, the pickguard has changed over the years, from a battle-scarred black, so worn that it makes me wonder if the pickguard was actually a black-painted piece of white plastic, to what looks to be clear. It’s unclear if there were two pickguards, or if the paint (?) was just removed completely. 

The bridge has changed over the years, too. In the Bottom-left picture (c. 1996) it sports a Wilkinson. or pigtail-style wraparound bridge, whereas in the main picture (c. 2002-3) the bridge appears to be a vintage or reproduction Gibson ‘Lightning Bolt’ as would have come from the factory. It seems the knobs have also been replaced (likely many times, which is common for a guitar that’s seen so much road use.) It would originally have left the Gibson factory with top-hat style knobs with inserts, as in the bottom left photo (though the all-black top-hat style it currently wears became more common from the factory by 1963.) 

Patrick most often plays this guitar pretty dirty, with a pretty thick, overdriven tone vs. Jay’s often cleaner lines. I wish I knew more about which songs it was commonly used on, and from which era of live Sloan performance. But there are plenty of live shows on YouTube from the 90′s to the present that show a wide variety of live setups. What I can say with a level of certainty is that Patrick’s tone seems to come mostly from amp and pedal tone, since there are many live performances where he can play the same song, but use a Fender Telecaster, a Gretsch Duo-Jet, a Hagstrom, or the SG. Those guitars are so varied, the tone has to be in the pedals, amp, and in the fingers. 

In researching this post, I found that the “Kiss” guitar disappears from live performance after about 2012, in favour of a white SG Custom with gold hardware. It’s possible the frets are worn out after 20 years of hard work on the road with Sloan, and 30+ years of existence before that, or it’s possible Patrick merely had a change of taste. 

It’s too bad -- she’s a real looker. 

https://youtu.be/Qffy6uHkcTU

[six-string-survivors]

Today on Six String Survivors (again, as usual, it has been far too long...) an all-too brief look at Fender prototypes. No, not the oddballs. Not the experiments. The guitar by which all others would eventually be measured. The Stratocaster.  As a general rule, Fender prototypes from any era, but especially from the ‘golden age’ are terribly difficult to come by. Usually they were destroyed as useless mules or dismantled so that stampings and tooling could be reverse-engineered from their parts. Very few have survived from the 1946-1960 era. Certainly, when discussing the quantum leap from Telecaster to Stratocaster, there are many questions, and little in the way of physical, concrete answers.  The key figures from the birth of the Strat have, unfortunately, left us behind to wonder how it all happened. There are some interviews, certainly, but we’ll have to content ourselves that there are simply some things that will go unanswered.  The Stratocaster started life as an evolution of the Telecaster, and was initially supposed to replace that instrument. But over the two or more years of design and testing (1952-54) the new instrument became more than just an extension of its forebear.  Leo Fender had always been impressed with the work of Paul Bigsby, and wanted to incorporate a tremolo device on his next instrument. The Strat’s iconic trem system is the result, but is truly an eleventh-hour re-think of a previous, flawed design. The main picture above, shows a guitar that a Fender fan has assembled from discussions, interviews, second-hand knowledge and the very few photos that exist of the “working prototype” Fender Strat, c. 1953. Leo Fender wasn’t against putting his untested prototypes in the hands of working musicians for a gig, and the Strat was no exception. What we see represented here is very likely what existed as the Strat entered a nearly-completed stage of design.  The hardware, including neck, tuners, electronics and output jack are all directly from the Tele. (Leo mentions that the Strat’s recessed jack socket on the face of the guitar was designed mere weeks before the guitar entered production.) There are only two pickups, lacking covers. (Leo has also mentioned that the Strat’s pickups were finished and tested as early as late 1952, though the decision to mount three came later.) The body is a ‘slab,’ like the Telecaster. No body contours.  The biggest departure from what we would recognize as the typical Stratocaster is the bridge. Kind of a hybrid between the Jazzmaster tailpiece, and a hardtail Strat bridge, the prototype Strat bridge saddles were thought to be rollers, and mounted backwards from the future, final design (meaning adjustment to intonation and height was done from the pickup side of the bridge, rather than behind the bridge.) Apparently, there were too many complaints about the functionality of this bridge, and loss of tone and tuning stability, that at the dawn of 1954, four short months before its release, Leo Fender went back to the drawing board and completely scrapped the first bridge design, in favour of the ‘knife-edge’ system we now know.  The two smaller shots of the bare-wood body (front and back) are thought to be the one and only surviving prototype 1953 Stratocaster. There are subtle differences in pickup routes, the bridge cavity and accompanying, original bridge are rougher than the stamped factory units, which might suggest this is the hand-tooled original unit the OEM units were based upon.  What is most unusual and interesting about this guitar body is that the rear routing to accommodate the trem block and springs is much narrower than the standard Stratocaster, allowing room for only three springs, whereas the Strat we know and love allows room for five springs. Also, the springs on this guitar are simple screwed into the body, rather than retained by the “spring claw” as on all other vintage Strats. This guitar has been in the hands of a former Fender employee and his son, for nearly 60 years.  The last picture is of famous Fender employee George Fullerton’s 1954 Strat, which bears some ‘custom’ work done by George himself, to relocate the Strat’s controls to a lower area on the face of the body. Having had access to lots of industrial machines and the processes to create what he wanted, George cut and chromed the (quite handsome) control plate to cover the extra routing needed to relocate the V,T,T controls and switch. This guitar also survives today, in the hands of collectors. 

[six-string-survivors]

Guitar geeks: I’ve seen Jimi’s Woodstock performance. I’ve seen the guitar featured in magazines countless times. So why -- when I came across this picture, which seems to be untouched, does it look like his Strat sports a Tele neck? How have I never noticed this before? Is this an optical illusion? Did the guitar actually have a neck swap at some point? 

[six-string-survivors]

There’s something I love about seeing the familiar, and then noting an exception. A pleasing, thought-provoking exception to the norm. Double-cut Teles, and No-cut Les Pauls, for example. 

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First time back to ‘Six String Survivors’ in a long while. Been thinking about my first guitar hero recently, Kurt Cobain. I find it difficult to listen to any of Kurt’s music anymore -- very few of the tracks live up to the live sound, and the live recordings from that era are rarely good. Also, the wound is still open. Maybe that’s more to the point. 

Kurt is usually associated with Fender offset guitars: the beautiful and idiosyncratic Jaguar he used during the Nevermind era, and his favored Mustangs, used throughout his career. Kurt: “I’m left-handed, and it’s not very easy to find reasonably priced, high-quality left-handed guitars. But out of all the guitars in the whole world, the Fender Mustang is my favorite. They’re cheap and totally inefficient, and they sound like crap and are very small. They also don’t stay in tune, and when you want to raise the string action on the fretboard, you have to loosen all the strings and completely remove the bridge. You have to turn these little screws with your fingers and hope that you’ve estimated it right. If you screw up, you have to repeat the process over and over until you get it right. Whoever invented that guitar was a dork. I guess I’m calling Leo Fender, the dead guy, a dork. Now I’ll never get an endorsement...” Eventually, he had his guitar tech, Earnie Bailey, send in a collage of guitar parts, with notation about his preferences, to Fender, which eventually resulted in the ‘JagStang,’ but shortly before his death (Fender sent him two prototypes -- he rarely played them, preferring his modified Mustangs.) 

Kurt never sent any feedback to Fender on the prototypes, and Fender released the JagStang posthumously in its raw, unaltered, prototype form. It was only ever offered in the two colours Fender sent out for Kurt to play with: Sonic Blue, and Fiesta Red. 

Oddly, there were major facets of the Mustang and Jaguar that Kurt detested: namely the bridge / tailpieces. Earnie Bailey’s first job upon getting a newly-acquired pawnshop Mustang was to ‘block’ the trem, and replace the bridge with a Gibson-style tune-o-matic. Fender did not take this into account on the JagStang prototypes, and sent them out with standard Mustang bridges. What Kurt DID like was the Mustang Single-coil pickups. For more power and a throatier roar, Earnie often changed the bridge pickup for a Duncan Hot Rails humbucker. (His end-of-show ‘destructo-strats’ often also got a bridge hot rails.) 

Maybe I’m not being clear, or editing myself very well. It was the size and location of the single coils Kurt liked. They were small, and not in the way with his whirling dervish strumming / assault. Fender again got this wrong on the JagStang, instead installing a full-size generic humbucker at the bridge (which Earnie immediately swapped out for a Duncan JB.) The electronics didn’t matter -- All Kurt’s selector switches were taped off and effectively ‘locked.’ 

I believe it was the shape of the offset guitars that Kurt liked. However, he was at odds with the sound they made. He preferred the shape and location of two single coil pickups, but wanted the roar of humbuckers. 

Which brings us to the Telecaster. In a lot of ways, it should have been the perfect guitar for Kurt. Simple bridge. Two single coils. Essentially, a slab with a neck. A weapon. But Kurt had an adversarial relationship with the Tele. Just before ‘Nevermind’ was released, he acquired a Japanese sunburst 60′s reissue, which he painted with blue latex house paint, and scratched ‘Courtney’ and a few hearts into. He played this guitar in its stock form, but found the pickups too shrill. Unfortunately, simply swapping out the bridge pickup for a hot rails wasn’t an easy option, as the tele bridge pickup is an odd, unique shape. This instrument met its demise at the 1993 ‘Rock in Rio’ concert. (several pictures above, at bottom left note the Tele sticking out of the Marshall cabinet, and at top right, Kurt throwing the body at Krist Novoselic. The actual neck from that guitar is shown at bottom, having been retrieved by the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ road manager.) 

In late 1993, Kurt was in a bad place. He hated his image, hated his bodily limitations and illness, hated his band. Earnie thought that a change from the guitars he was so closely associated with might perk him up. The guitar shown at top left was Earnie’s solution. A Japanese Telecaster Custom was found, and modified by Earnie. A Duncan JB was added at the bridge, and a Gibson PAF in the neck. This was the guitar that never left Kurt’s side in the last months of his life. He didn’t use it onstage, but rehearsed with it, wrote music on it, and it went with him from hotel room to backstage dressing room to home to bus for months. There is even a story from that fateful period after his coma in Rome when he was forced to enter rehab, he left for the plane with only the clothes he was wearing, and this guitar thrown over his shoulder, no case. 

Telecaster Love. 

[six-string-survivors]

Studio Trickery

On Jimmy Page, master of the 'who the heck thought of THAT' recording technique: during 'Houses,' one track saw him DI'd to a Helios board which was overdriven, that signal was squashed by a compressor and sent to tape. The tape monitor output went to a mic'd amp which was returned to the board, sent to tape, and the output of THAT track went to another amp in the same room as the first, which was turned up to just below the point of feedback and distant mic'd. Reverb and echo were then added at the board, and the whole mess went to a track.

[six-string-survivors]

When I first heard Weezer, I was pretty sure I’d never love any music or any band ever again. In April 1994, Kurt Cobain committed suicide, and as a seventeen year-old, I was truly devastated. I felt like I had really lost something personal that I would never regain (and maybe I haven’t.) Luckily, 1994 was a damn good year for music. I first heard Green Day, Rancid, Fugazi, The Offspring, Oasis and Bad Religion in 1994. But the band that stood out was Weezer. They were a little odd, they were decidedly uncool, but there was a melody, a hook, some subject-matter that was comfortable to me which started me down the road of once again loving a band the way I told myself I never would, ever again. Twenty years down that road, I can pretty safely say that many of Weezer’s albums and many, many of Weezer’s tunes have become my favourite albums and songs of all-time. That feeling just doesn’t go away.

Rivers Cuomo is the singer / songwriter / lead guitarist of Weezer, and is / has been by all accounts a pretty strange dude. He has battled some pretty heavy personal demons, some very publicly, but through all that and almost two decades of fame and infamy, highs and lows, his band continue to conquer near and far in the name of geekdom everywhere.

Rivers started life as a shredder, ingesting a steady diet of Slayer, Iron Maiden, Metallica, and a whole lot of other hair metal. It wasn’t until the late 80’s that record store co-workers introduced him to the Beach Boys, Velvet Underground, Nirvana and the Pixies. To Rivers, as a teenager, lyrics and songwriting were secondary to guitar solos. Some of that hidden ability to shred lies dormant in Weezer tunes, ready to bust out at a moment’s notice.

Weezer’s first album, colloquially known as ‘The Blue Album,’ stands proudly in Alternative music lore. It is a benchmark for alternative music, and if you were to ask Rivers today, I believe it is an album every subsequent Weezer album is measured against. Certainly many of the fans think so. The Blue Album was produced by Ric Ocasek of the Cars, and much of Rivers’ guitar sound stems from exposure to Ric’s collection in the studio. Classic Weezer sound is a combination of Ric Ocasek’s 50’s Les Paul Junior (for crunch and dirt) and his vintage Fender Jaguar (for cleans.) Rivers purchased a vintage Les Paul Junior after the recording of the ‘Blue Album,’ but the guitar was too fragile for the rigors of the road, and also didn’t have the clean sound that was needed for much of Weezer’s early work.

This resulted in the creation of Rivers’ famous Blue guitar. Necessity is the mother of invention. The Blue guitar was Rivers’ workhorse from 1994 to 2000, and was apparently so solid and stable that it literally never went out of tune, and broke a total of maybe six strings in that time.

The guitar is a ‘kit’ built from parts out of a catalogue, and is influenced by Rivers’ musical heritage. The body and neck are from the Warmoth catalogue, an alder Strat-shaped hard-tail (in Fender slang, hard tail means non-tremolo equipped) sonic blue body with a maple neck and rosewood fretboard. The electronics are very much inspired by Rivers’ time as a shredder: a Seymour Duncan TB-59 ‘Trembucker’ in the bridge position, and A DiMarzio Super II in the neck position. (following excerpt borrowed from Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar – great site!!) “Both pickups are a bit more polite than you might expect given Rivers’ wildly overdriven tone on both ‘Blue’ and its proto-emo follow-up, ‘Pinkerton,’ the DiMarzio Super II measuring at 8.7k and the Duncan TB-59 at 8.3k. With many modern players gravitating toward hot pickups, there is a tendency to default to louder models for thickened tones. I’d argue that there is sound logic in the choice of lower-output pickups when you’re looking to get heavy: muddying up a muddy, loud pickup results in – you guessed it – a muddier sound, but over-overdriving a really clear, not too hot pickup results in this crunchy, thick sound. Allowing the amp to do most of the heavy lifting really brings out the punchy nature of the guitar.”

The slightly strange (many guitarists would ponder the choice of a hotter neck pickup rather than the usual preference of a hotter bridge pickup) choice in electronics is partly due to the Blue Strat attempting to replicate what was going on in Rivers’ previous stage instrument, a Red Fender Stratocaster that had been heavily modified by former Weezer rhythm guitarist Jason Cropper. That guitar also had a Seymour Duncan TB-59 at the bridge, and a different DiMarzio neck pickup called a "Humbucker from Hell." The mid-position pickup was some sort of flat lipstick style pickup. The re-wiring of the red Strat was apparently pretty bad and less-than-reliable. Rivers had replaced the volume knobs with 20-sided D&D dice, which were melted onto the metal knobs. Also, the original Fender neck had been replaced with a thicker non-Fender one he had ordered from a catalog.

I can see the pattern developing here: TB-59, DiMarzio neck pickup (though a more usable version than the oddly-voiced HfH,) thicker neck shape (Rivers has big hands,) and a yearning for simplified controls, after the fiasco of the bad soldering in the Red Strat.

The Blue Strat ended up with a dual-volume control layout, and a simple three-way switch. Most Strats have a V,T,T layout (master volume, neck and mid tone controls, Leo Fender’s reasoning being that the Bridge pickup in a Strat, being slanted and so close to the bridge, didn’t require a tone control.) Rivers had a custom pickguard made that did away with one of the control pots, and added a ‘Black Ice’ module to the second volume control. The ‘Black Ice’ module is a passive overdrive that takes the place of the standard tone control, and adds a subtle tweed-like overdrive. It’s a pretty simple effect, but essential for nailing that ‘Blue Album’ era sound.

The non-trem body of the Hard-tail Strat is worth noting. A standard Stratocaster with floating vibrato is very much a unique beast in the guitar world. The addition of the Fender-designed vibrato requires the removal of a great deal of material from the body to create cavities to hide the springs and trem block of the vibrato, but (some would argue) that removal of wood from the juncture where strings anchor in the body negatively impacts tone and sustain. The hard-tail Strat remedies this issue, but creates a guitar that well, doesn’t exactly sound like a typical Strat. Obviously, this was something that didn’t bother Rivers, who wasn’t opting for the usual Strat sound in any way. Lastly, and something I would never have noticed (thanks again, Weezerquest!) The Blue guitar does not make use of the standard Fender hard-tail Stratocaster bridge, which is a thin, stamped steel plate affixed to the body with three screws. Rivers chose an aftermarket Charvel Jake E. Lee bridge, which is a heavy, thick brass unit. This is again a nod to Rivers’ heavy metal upbringing, as Charvel started out as one of the original ‘hot rod’ guitar companies offering aftermarket parts to guitarists looking to turn their Strats up to 11. Maybe it was something he just had lying around? (Rivers’ first guitar used in Weezer was an old Charvel model 2, though that guitar had a Floyd Rose trem.)

So there you have it. Who would have guessed that a hair-metal guy and a band full of Sunset Strip rejects would craft such tunes as ‘The World Has Turned and Left Me Here,’ ‘Say It Ain’t So,’ ‘El Scorcho’ and ‘Only in Dreams?’

By the way – the Blue Strat was only retired because it suffered a fall in 1997 and developed a crack that ran clean through the body. The neck and pickups were transferred into a different, blonde Strat body for the 2001 ‘Green’ album and tour. Rivers went on to use Gibsons (V’s, Explorers and SG’s) throughout most of the 2000’s live and in-studio, but resurrected the Blue Strat for the recent Pinkerton / Blue Album tours. Though it hasn’t been confirmed by the band, my guess is that the ‘New’ Blue guitar is the original Blue guitar neck and pickups, in a new Warmoth body.  

[six-string-survivors]

Somewhere under all the punk, there’s a Gibson EB-3 lurking. Today on Six String Survivors, we’re taking a look at Mike Watt (Minutemen.) First things first – Mike is a bass player of epic talent, tone and tenacity. His instruments are a gigging musicians’ dream, but a purists’ nightmare. These are the tools of a hard-working professional with a serious ‘get in the van’ attitude. I didn’t know where to start at first: the ’56 P-Bass, the ’66 Firebird Bass, the ’59 EB-2? All are similarly worked to the bone and road-weary, modified to suit Mike’s particular sound and style. No, it had to be this early ‘60’s Gibson EB-3.

Watt’s first guitar was an EB-3 with a slotted headstock called ‘Pedro’ that was retired after the Minutemen’s first album, and eventually given to Flea (it was stolen in the early 90’s.) Mike replaced that bass with the EB-3 you see here, called ‘Andy.’ Though he is uncertain of the exact date, it is certainly a pre-’64 EB (Gibson-speak for ‘electric bass.’) Mike played the bass in its stock form for a few years, disliking the neck pickup, which he believed to be too close to the neck – too ‘woofy’ sounding. So it was unceremoniously removed, and a black metal plate installed over the hole (“Sistas in the Pit.”) Eventually, the stock Gibson bridge pickup was replaced with a ZBS-440 pickup (made by Bartolini - discontinued now) in the bridge, and a Lane Poor humbucker was added to the mid position (where a Fender would typically have its pickup.) An Aguilar OBP-3 preamp with bass/mid/treble EQ plus pickup blend control (chicken-headed knob) and a 400/800hz mid frequency mini-switch and preamp bypass mini-switch were added.

Sound like a foreign language? From the man himself: “With EB-3's, maybe the windings or the magnets, I don’t know… the pickups were always mismatched, so when you used a preamp it buffered everything. I like one volume knob. I like blending the pickups, but when you have two volumes, as soon as you go down or up, you lose your blend, so I like one volume knob and a blend control. So the chicken head knob, I turned that into a blend control and then one of the volumes is the volume and the other three knobs are bass, mid and treble. Simple.” Finally, a Schaller bridge which allowed for proper intonation replaced the stock stop-bar.

A weak point of all Gibson instruments regularly used by working musicians is the back-angled headstock, which is prone to breaks. Watt’s EB has had its headstock repaired five times “This last time I put in a new piece of mahogany because it was just glue on glue for the last repairs and wasn’t strong enough to hold. The final modifications are straight out of the DIY rulebook: A Les Paul output jack plate pounded out flat to mount the output jack where the body wood cracked, and the strap buttons replaced with bolts directly into the wood.

Get in the van. 

[six-string-survivors]

Been a while, folks. Today, a Six String Survivor to discuss an instrument I’ve been listening to a lot recently, and with good cause: John Fogerty’s late ‘60’s Rickenbacker 325 / 1996, which he played exclusively with Creedence Clearwater Revival. The Rickenbacker 325 model came to prominence in the hands of John Lennon, whose 325 was his instrument of choice for the early days of the Beatles, and while Lennon moved on to other gear in the studio, the 325 remained one of his main guitars on the road until the Beatles ceased touring in 1966. The Ric 325 model was a short-scale (20 ¾”) instrument, with a rather small (12” wide) body and a full complement of three Ric ‘toaster-top’ pickups, ideally suited for rhythm work.

Played through Lennon’s favored tweed Fender Deluxe amps, the 325 snaps and barks producing a trebly, sharp attack perfectly suited to the Beatles’ early work, a perfect counterpoint to George Harrison’s Gretsch. But fast-forward ten years, and played through Fogerty’s idiosyncratic and instantly recognizable Kustom A4 amp, with twin JBL 15” speakers, the 325 growls with a rootsy roar which was the trademark of the CCR sound.

Lennon’s 325 was a very early 1958 model, which had no sound hole at all. Fogerty’s ‘Fireglo’ example dates from 1967 or ‘68 (though the rare picture above would have you believe it is a 1969.) By that stage, Rickenbacker had been through two distinct phases in its development of the 325 model, which had nearly been cancelled in 1962, before the Beatles’ worldwide fame saved the instrument from the scrapheap. First, the 325 gained contours, and the standard Rickenbacker layout of volume and tone for neck and bridge pickups, and three-way pickup selector. At this time, Rickenbacker added a cutout to the face of the instrument, in the standard Ric ‘Scimitar’ shape – a slash following the curve of the lower bout. In the mid-’60’s, spurred on by exporter Rose Morris, the ‘Scimitar’ shaped cutout was replaced by a more traditional ‘F-Hole’ on export models, which were sold overseas not as 325’s, but as model 1996. Many of these fine instruments met their demise in the hands of Pete Townshend. Lastly, the 325 gained a fifth control knob on its pickguard – a blend control for the neck pickup (really a second, fine-tuning neck volume control to tame that pickups’ often overpowering output.)

Fogerty played A Fender Mustang in the “Gollywogs,” his pre-CCR band, and traded that instrument for the new 325 in ’67 or ’68.  It would have been an easy transition, as both the Mustang and the 325 are short-scale instruments. There is a question as to which model Fogerty actually owned. The color of his 325 more closely resembles the export color ‘autumn-glo’ instead of the US-made ‘Fireglo’ (though this could be attributed to age and fading) and the f-holes were a typical feature of the export model 1996, and only an occasional feature of the 325. Otherwise, the two models are identical.

No doubt influenced by Lennon, John Fogerty added a Bigsby vibrato to the 325/1996, a vast improvement over the stock Ric ‘Accent’ vibrato. He also replaced the stock bridge ‘toaster-top’ pickup with a Gibson humbucker, foreshadowing his eventual retirement of the 325 in favor of Gibson Les Paul models in the years to come.

This was the guitar that crafted the tunes Suzie Q, I Put a Spell on You, Proud Mary, Born on the Bayou, Travellin’ Band, Lodi, Down on the Corner and Green River. Fogerty’s adornment of ‘ACME’ on the guitar’s headstock echoes the band’s sentiment that their rehearsal space was ‘Cosmo’s Factory.’ It was a certified hit-making machine.

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Today, a new installment of ‘Six String Survivors.’ We’re going to have a look at a guitar that could have been the next biggest thing, but like the Tucker car of the guitar world, was quietly killed off by the big-name manufacturers of the day: The Travis Bean TB1000A, the famous ‘aluminum neck’ guitar.

Clifford Travis Bean was an American motorcycle racer and enthusiast with a love of tinkering with his toys – the classic recipe for an inventor, waiting for his invention. Also a guitarist with both Gibson and Fender guitars in his stable, Bean had encountered his fair share of neck warping over the years – a common enough problem with electric and acoustic guitars as the varying effects of humidity and string tension can play havoc with a wooden guitar neck.

The traditional, tried and true method for counteracting a warped neck in a guitar was to insert a steel rod in the neck, adjustable for tension at one end to counteract the effects of string tension: the ‘truss rod.’ This method works in 90% of cases of warpage, but is typically a tedious process, and a bit of a voodoo science. Having experimented with machining custom parts for his motorcycle, Travis hit upon an idea that was revolutionary: A neck made entirely of aluminum. This would forever eliminate the truss rod, creating an entirely stable neck that would withstand not only the effects of weather and moisture, but wear and tear too.

The prototype Travis Bean had a wooden neck with an aluminum headstock bolted on, to test the effect of the different material on the tone of the guitar. Ultimately, the design progressed to become an aluminum through-neck which extended under the pickups and ended at the bridge, bolted to a traditional wooden guitar body, typically made of Koa, Magnolia or Padauk. In this manner, the strings anchored in the same piece of metal that contained the bridge, pickups, neck and headstock – all a single piece of aluminum. This resulted in an incredibly ‘live,’ instrument with a lot of sustain favoring the high midrange. A truly great rock and roll sound. The prototype Travis Bean used Gibson humbucking pickups, and the first factory offerings used Fender humbuckers with ‘Travis Bean’ stamped covers, before finalizing the design of their own pickup.

I find these guitars terribly beautiful: the combination of the aluminum neck, the Koa wood carved-top body and Aluminum hardware are immediately classic, timeless. The use of Aluminum as the sole component of the neck meant that, instead of a traditional logo, a large T-shaped mass of aluminum could be removed from the headstock, both to achieve better weight balance and to act as logo. I think it is a very elegant looking headstock, simple and understated.

Unfortunately, the Travis Bean company had trouble with distribution, marketing and meeting demand. Though later neck / pickup / bridge pieces (Travis Bean refers to these units as ‘Receivers’) were crafted by the use of a metal lathe, on the original run of guitars, this piece was usually made by hand. There were complaints from some players that the necks were too cold, so some Travis Bean guitars feature a black-painted neck, using a special thick automotive finish to help insulate the players’ hands from the cold of the Aluminum. Travis Bean guitars also suffered with being neck-heavy, and the company experimented with different body thicknesses to balance the guitar, but never achieved satisfactory results vs. overall weight. Other experiments included hollowing out portions of the aluminum neck, and the use of a phenolic plastic fingerboard instead of the usual ebony, and several guitars were made with an almost flat fingerboard carve.

Ultimately, the business partnership between Travis Bean and his investors fell apart, and the company was relegated to the history books after barely five years of manufacture, during which time less than three thousand instruments left the shop. These rare instruments are now highly sought after, and have been played by many greats, including Bill Wyman, Keith Richards and Ron Wood, Jerry Garcia, Stephen Malkmus, Stanley Jordan and Lee Ranaldo.

If you’re interested in more information of this wonderful instrument, I suggest looking into this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM9yJPqcOjk   

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...Wanted to do a post on Ani DiFranco's guitar... but she plays them so hard that unfortunately, none of them last long enough to qualify as a 'Survivor.'

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Inspiring. New life for something old.

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Today, a new installment of ‘Six-String Survivors.’ God, I love Stratocasters. They are beautiful by design, beautiful to listen to, and get more beautiful with age. Being a Fender, Strats are a handyman’s dream, two planks of wood held together with wood screws, and simple electronics. But a Strat has always been more than just the sum of its parts. There is magic in its simplicity. Today, we’ll take another look at Stevie Ray Vaughan and one of his lesser-known live instruments – the Stratocaster known as ‘Yellow.’

Yellow was originally a stock 1962 Stratocaster, which meant in Fender terms it was one of a new breed: the Fender factory had just begun shipping Stratocasters with Rosewood fretboards a couple of years earlier, in 1959, instead of the maple used from 1954 to early 1959. These earliest rosewood necks used a flat-sawn slab of rosewood for the fingerboard, instead of the later practice of using a thin rosewood veneer. Though the choice to use rosewood fingerboards was a cosmetic one (maple tended to show wear) this darker wood imparted a thicker, deeper overall tonality to the Strat’s jangly, bright sound, and immediately found favor with players. Originally owned by Vince Martell, lead guitarist of Vanilla Fudge, this guitar had found its way into the hands of Austin luthier / music shop owner Charley Wirz, a friend of SRV.

When it arrived, the Strat was in poor shape. The guitar’s body had been hollowed out to somehow accept four (!) humbuckers in place of the guitar’s original three single-coil units. It had also been painted bright yellow. Charley worked his magic, adding wood to the cavity of the body to reinforce the placement of a new Fender-style aftermarket brass bridge and trem unit, and also partially undoing some of the structural damage that had been done in the late 60’s. However, a large rectangular ‘swimming pool’ route was left, much larger under the pickguard than the three individual pockets Fender had envisioned for the Strat. This gave ‘Yellow’ a completely different tone, with less mass and bottom end, than Vaughan’s other Stratocasters. Charley chose to place just a single, overwound Strat single-coil in the neck position, and cut a new pickguard to reflect the changes to the instrument, omitting the pickup switch, and the second tone control. The final cosmetic change was that the recessed Strat jack socket was replaced in favor of a black surface-mount unit.

Vaughan bought ‘Yellow’ in 1979 or 1980. The only change he made to the instrument was to add his trademark 'SRV' stickers under the strings where the Strat's mid and bridge pickups would usually reside.

It was a favored instrument for tracks like ‘Honey Bee,’ ‘Tell Me,’ and the Double Trouble live staple ‘Collins Shuffle’ right through the early 80’s until it was stolen in 1985. Several replicas have surfaced over the years, including one that was touted as the original that hung in the Las Vegas Hard Rock Cafe until recently, but the original ‘Yellow’ remains lost to time.

Damn, that guy had some cool guitars! 

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Today on Six String Survivors, we’re taking a look at Glen Hansard’s well-worn Takamine, “The Horse.” A survivor if ever there was one.

I used to follow new music fervently. There was no stopping me from purchasing CDs, and my ear constantly sought out new sounds on the radio. But I must admit, in the past decade, I’ve lapsed into a yearning for music that moves my soul, music that has an age, a weight, experience beyond the sum of its parts, which means most of the time I’m looking back, rather than forward. So it is with a certain amount of embarrassment that I admit I knew very little about Glen Hansard before writing this piece.

My only prior knowledge of Glen was as the guitarist from 1991’s ‘The Commitments,’ about a group of Dubliners playing 60’s Soul – a favorite of mine. I had no idea that in the ensuing years, he had busked for a living on Grafton Street.  The Horse was purchased in 1990, a year that also saw the formation of The Frames (named for all the bicycle frames around Glen's house,) a Dublin band that Glen tours with to this day, and is definitely worth a look. Glen rose to international acclaim for the film ‘Once,’ in 2007 along with his songwriting partner Marketa Inglova, with whom Glen tours as ‘The Swell Season.’ Once won the Oscar in 2007 for Best Original Song for “Falling Slowly.”

Glen’s Takamine is an NP-15 model, which is no longer available today. As The Horse worked day after day, a hole started to develop in the cedar top where Glen's fingernails and pick fell naturally on the thin finish. (He has a particularly strong picking style, no doubt influenced by the need to project to a possibly-indifferent crowd as a busker.) By the time the hole had worsened, Glen had developed a bond with the guitar, so rather than put it out to pasture, he just kept playing it. Today, it's one of the most recognizable and iconic instruments in guitardom.

In early 2009, The Horse required its first visit to the repair shop to fix a loose brace and stabilize the top. Glen was worried, having never played a gig without his beloved Takamine, but the repair was a success and Glen praised the work of Bernie Tusko, the luthier who performed the repair.

Astral Weeks (Van Morrison cover.) This moves my soul, has a weight, age and experience beyond the sum of its parts. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of him before.

...But that's what I love about the guitar, and about music. I'm never finished learning. There's always something new around the corner