Hello, It`s the weekend but that doesn`t mean I`m not blogging, songwriting, forgetting to eat and here ready to update your knowledge of the guitar from A to Z.
So check out Rick Toone` guitar luthiery here. Rick fuses the history and tradition of guitar luthiery with contemporary knowledge, physics science and materials. Check out Ricks site because it is a highly informative resource for anyone interested in how guitars actually work and how they could be improved. Rick has taken this thinking forward to pioneer such ideas as:
• Acoustic instrument with tremolo/vibrato
• Simple realtime at-the-bridge player-adjustable intonation and action
• Alternative neck-to-body joint designs for improved upper fret access
• Easy inclusion of electric guitar pickups in an acoustic instrument
• Asymmetrical ergonomic body shapes
• Use of locally grown sustainable woods for body and neck construction
Yesterdays Teye guitar post proved to me that indulgent, exorbitant and outrageously decorous rococco influenced design could look stunning even on a guitar. Personally I feel guitars look overdressed with too much design sauce poured across them so its testament to Teye that their take on 18th Century Gypsy Maverick meets Mayan Voodoo guitar god looks so damn good.
Today though I`m going to take a look at design that`s got just as much art in it but feels more like a pair of family boots – handmade, well worn, exquisitely crafted from quality materials, but earthy, individual and unique in every way. Here they are Spalt Totem Guitars – I `ll take three of each please cause I just can`t dance. Yeah!
When I first fired up my macbook I was working on a piece with two main riffs. Then the technology died. This is why simplicity is the key in innovating new ideas. Anyway. I still had fun with these two jams until things went awry, like the best laid plans of mice and men…
I have resurrected the unfinished riffs, and although inspiration is long gone, unmixed and unfinished HERE THEY ARE…We used on eof them for our Xmedia Lab presentation.
I`m always looking for a sweet guitar machine and here are some completely indulgent guitars from Teye Guitars. These beauties start out at a surprisingly lightweight three and a half grand U.S. dollars! Lucky. These guitars are hand made to varying degrees in Austin, Texas. If you want to look like a killer mayan gypsy guitar god then these are definitely the cup of tea you wanna be pouring! Yeah! Straight at you from the home of Johnny Winter…if you feel like a bit of a blues education try starting with Winters collection of albums. He can do it all.
Back in the 90`s I used to jam with Dylan and Kenny Jones (of The Who, The Faces, and Small Faces). I virtually lived at their studio for a few years and Dylan and I enjoyed alot Guinness. Kenny Jones could play the drums like nobodies business, in any style – he was seriously world class without any shadow of a doubt. I think his favourite drummer was Kenny Clarke when he was a young boy.
Anyway, one of the benefits of hanging out with these guys apart from the exposure to great, great musicians, was the equipment laying about. Drumkits from The Who were readily available as well the original Small Faces Hammond Organ and art Deco Style Leslie Cabinet and plenty of other bits and pieces!
The leslie cabinet contains a rotating horn speaker and a bass woofer above a rotating chamber. Beware!! a big cabinet can suck you right in! Which brings me to the new Hammond Suzuki Guitar Leslie cabinet! Wow, it has a real spinning horn just like the real thing so you can produce those genuine helicopter whirlwind sounds and blow the windows out! Yeah.
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