Guitar Info

Still not a superstrat fan but this Framus Camarillo Custom really caught my eye! It's probably because I have a fetish with black color, but this transparent satin black finish is just gorgeous, and fits perfectly the curves of an archtop superstrat, with the help of black hardware (also like how the knobs are emerging from the top)...

The Camarillo is a model of the revived Framus company (that started again in 1995 after 20 years in limbo), only available from their custom shop.

Just a Fender Telecaster, not a vintage model but a particularly beautiful one, the thinline Jim Adkins signature model with Seymour Duncan P-90s, Adjusto-matic bridge and magnificent transparent black finish. 

The way it combines the simplicity of the good old Tele with a jazz guitar sophistication, how can one not love this guitar?

I know that I probably spend much too much time ranting here about how unimaginative guitar making became in the last decades, so let's cut the crap and rejoice over creative luthiers and small companies that can still produce guitars such as the Custom 77 Roxy, an original yet sober, timeless and classy semi-hollow wonder that has everything it takes to become a new classic.

I love this guitar, firstly for its beautiful bevelled outline, both sensual and dynamic, and the fact that it's a semi-hollow that doesn't have to be a copy of an ES-335 to have credibility. I also appreciate the Duesenberg-style bridge humbucker + neck P90 combination, the simple pickguard, the wraparound bridge, the old-school F-hole on this radical body, and the controls positions seem to be well thought - not just placed where tradition tells... I just wish it was bigger but it's just because I'm big and I'm still looking for my dream semi-hollow guitar!

Custom 77 is an interesting French guitar company that released nice original models, on top of producing the inevitable Fender/Gibson copies (it's probably necessary to generate basic income, but that's the buyers's fault, isn't it?) - all with Iggy/Ramones/Clash inspired names - plus basses and acoustic guitars, also drums and cymbals and they just started an effects boutique line. I will keep an eye on this company because I'm sure that they will keep releasing new cool stuff and one day I will want some of it... 

Whoever loves pure design and natural wood can only fall for this über-sexy Rickenbacker 650 Sierra with its oiled walnut body and gold-plated hardware. I'm never bored with contemplating the 'cresting wave' of its upper horn (I'm the 25-year lover of a 620!), an acme in woodcraft! 

And I love to see this guitar worn, because with its elegance, the beautiful wood and all that gold, it could easily pass for a precious work of art to be kept in a window, and this one has been obviously extensively played on stage. For those who think that an artificially worn guitar has any value, look at the real thing!

I regularly check what's going on at Berliner luthier Nick Page (I evoked here a couple of time his Baron model and mentioned his metal front or paisley ultra-cool telecasters), and I'm never disappointed. Today I want to show the res-o-glas body Strich-2, again a perfect combination of old school design and contemporary spirit. The shape is reminiscent of Rickenbacker Combo 600 or Gretsch Astro Jet, with its big upper horn and German carve, but more rounded, probably to increase the resonance of a bigger hollow body made of the res-o-glas you find in 60s original Airline guitars. 

This model has Filtertron pickups, but other ones are equipped with Nick Page custom ones, that is not so common amongst small luthiers. Gear and headstock are also original, and all this confirms that German guitars legacy is still alive, and that small companies keep the spirit high, where fat ones just manage to stay fat.

This  Gibson Les Paul Custom (aka the Black Beauty, aka the Tuxedo since Mister Les Paul himself allegedly requested a black guitar that could be played wearing a tuxedo - that were other times) is some serious vintage stuff since it's a 1955 model - just 3 years after the Les Paul was first released...

And as you can see it has lived a long and active life and grew old honestly and harmoniously, not like these stupid sandpaper relicked fakes that some soulless ignoramuses think are cool.

It's a pre-humbucker model - the Gibson PAF humbucker is from 1955 also - with a bridge P90 and a neck Alnico V. Like the Custom models of the time, it's a full mahogany body, without the usual maple archtop - it makes it lighter with a darker tone.

I always enjoyed showing some ultraclassic guitars here sometimes, hard to do better than this one, isn't it?

Whenever I see an Italia guitar, I have the feeling that Trev Wilkinson who conceived them really did it for his own pleasure, and that it's kind of him to share...

Not a fan of sparkle finish but I have to admit that this lefty Italia Maranello has the chic of vintage Italian guitars from the 60s (even if this one is actually based of an Hagström model) plus for sure the qualities of modern guitar making (plus the innovative contribution of Mr Wilkinson's hardware...)

Or how to be both tinsel and elegant at the same time...

This week, on my way to rehearsals, I've been passing everyday in the metro by some ugly poster for I don't know which discount shop trying to convince suckers that their lives will be more complete if they watch TV on a flat screen. For some reason there was on this poster a photo of a caricature rock musician holding a engraved metal front guitar with a bizarre headstock...

I managed to not really see it for three days but this morning I realized that, beside the fact that it's quite exceptional to see on a mainstream media an electric guitar that is not Fender or Gibson, I knew this guitar, and I even love it!

It is actually a new version of Nick Page's Baron, a guitar I presented on this very blog last year, and if at that time you didn't check this Berliner luthier's website, I recommend to have a look there; I really appreciate what they do (and I don't say this because their workshop is in my neighborhood  or because they gave me a hand with some of my projects!). They have some cool guitars - original models and standards - and are particularly good with finishes, including aluminium fronts and better paisley Telecasters than Fender ever released!

Let me add here a more dignified picture of the 'Iron Baron', a real beauty with its Rickenbacker-inspired 'crest wave' horns, sober floral pattern engraved aluminium front, sophisticated binding, big stoptail and acoustic guitar-like headstock. Honestly, if I ever get to buy a luthier's guitar, it would be this one!

Another brand about which I have very little to tell (in these times of vintage worship, I wish someone would seriously write the ultimate book about unknown electric guitars), this time from East-germany. This Marma is not as exuberant as the guitars from West-Germany of the time, but it's very elegant with its classic shape, curved pickguard, sound holes, control plate and tail, and its long tremolo arm.

Marma produced also solid bodies, banjos and some guitar devices that I will present soon here (and all information about Marma is welcome).

The Gretsch Historic G3156 Streamliner is not Gretsch's most famous hollow body but its discretion is part of its elegance - and the cat's eye sound-holes are beautiful. It's a guitar that doesn't to belong to any musical style, neither with the look or the sound (based on the reviews I read), with its typically Gretsch fat single coils that sound like nothing else.

Not a weirdo, not a one-off, not a rarity, not a vintage guitar, just a Rickenbacker 330/12 - because I love Rickies, 12-string guitars and white finish with a black pickguard... 

It's both classic and surprising with its unique crescent moon double cutaway, the famous R-shaped stoptail, the 3+3+3+3 headstock and the trade mark slash soundhole. Though it's been played by the greatests, it kept un-hackneyed over the last 50 years. 

It's my birthday-and-half today, I will heartily accept this guitar as a present.

A smart and discreet mod makes this Tele-Galaxy (I made up the moniker) a very elegant guitar. 

Based on the classic Höfner Galaxie reissue - that originally has 3 mini-humbuckers in a strat-like body -, this hybrid has now a Duesenberg P90 in bridge position and a neck Telecaster single coil (the pickguard has been completely redone and the knobs positioned lower). This - together with the vintage  Hofner trem - looks very good though a little bit strange, and I'm very curious about the sound...

This Eastman El Rey is exactly the kind of guitar I love: an ultra-classic archtop jazz guitar design smartly distorted to personalize and update its line in an extremely elegant way, and a few killing details, like the round cutaway and the ebony tailpiece and pickguard on a white finish...

Another archtop/F-holes acoustic guitar, the Godin 5th Avenue Kingpin is one of the coolest recent guitars - the Kingpin being the electrified version, with a P90 in neck position. 

It's just perfect, and Godin rules!

On the top of my GAS list!

My main reason to show here a white Rickenbacker 620 is that I love this guitar ever since I bought one more than 20 years ago - I spent more time with this guitar than without, and it's been my first serious guitar.

The 620 is a brilliant guitar, the 6-string equivalent of the legendary 4001 bass, but the 80s short lived white finish/black hardware emphasize perfectly the supreme elegance of its line, the ultimate expression of the historical modernity that exists in a few human productions of the 20th century... And I don't even talk of the sound.