A pair of eye watering vintage guitars…

I don’t usually do stories on 50′s Fenders. Not that I don’t like them… quite the opposite. It’s just that I rarely come across one to do a story on them. I’ve only played two 50′s Strat’s in my life. The first was a 1954 Strat at a tiny shop in Bondi, Sydney back in 1991. I’d only been playing guitar for a few months, but the guy in the shop insisted that I try the Strat. It was apparently one of the first 100 made and the price was $14,500… which today I guess you could add a zero on to that. I played the few barre chords I knew on it and all I can remember was the neck was beautifully worn so that it melted into your hand. Up until that point I’d only been playing my Squier… this guitar was in another universe. After adding in my head how many rockmelons I’d have to pick to afford the Strat, I handed it back to the guy suitably impressed but spoiled forever. I mean… how was any other Fender going to compare to a ’54 Strat?

The other 50′s Strat I’ve played was a ’56 hardtail at the now defunct Jackson’s Rare Guitars a few years ago. I was playing a gig at the Annandale up the road, so as usual after a quick beer I ran up the road to check out the guitar shops. The young guy at Jackson’s saw me staring at the ’56 and told me to try it. Obviously he knew I’d never be able to afford it (I think it was $75,000 or something) so it was VERY nice of him. I picked it up and it almost floated… it was one of the fabled featherweight Fender’s. The neck had a delicious V profile and even just strummed acoustically, the guitar sang. So that’s my experience with 50′s Strats…. they’re awesome.

A week ago, my friend Watto sent me this story of his new toys. Enjoy!

It started last year around June when I walked into my music room and saw so much gear that I had collected over the years, there was 12 vintage Fender amps and 9 guitars . I thought, you never use this stuff so why not sell a heap of it and only keep the pieces you really really love, so I started selling everything. I opened a Gbase account and started advertising that way.

I sold – 1 x 1946 woodie ( I kept the other)
1 x 1957 Harvard
1 x 1962 Vibrolux
1 x 1960 Princeton
1 x 1957 5E3 Deluxe
1 x 1946 Fender Lap Steel
1 x 1990′s Kids SRV strat
2 x Edwards Les Paul Gold Tops
1 x Edwards LP Junior
2 x Fender JV strats
15 x Vintage Ibanez/Maxon TS808 era pedals
and a bunch of other stuff.

Once they were all gone I realised I had myself a nice little kitty , I thought I’d never own a vintage 50′s strat, but I always cruise the web and have my feelers out because you never know. I stumbled across this guitar in a shop in New Jersey , it was an amazing price and I thought it was too good to be true, so I rang the guy and asked him why so cheap, he said it was on consignment and the owner needed the money fast so it was priced accordingly.

It was only on the internet for 5 hours when I found it, so right place right time. I’m aware of all the fakes out there so I asked for pictures, he gave me a link to over 200 hi res picts and every detail was photographed. I went through it thoroughly and it all checked out as an original paint 56 , so I bought it. 2 weeks later it arrived and it is amazing, so light, such a great action and feel, it has been played so much over the years but it hasn’t been abused, the only real issue was that it had been routed under the pickups to put some deeper ones in, otherwise it was pretty original.

Original bridge & saddles…

Original Tone pots, 60′s volume pot, original 3 way switch.

October 56 neck

50′s extreme contoured body one piece light weight alder.

Body date 9/56

Original frets and nut, with original paint.

I had enough change left over for a 1959 Les Paul Junior. Here’s the bargain of the century, a 1959 Junior that is 99% original, the only non original parts are a refret and a new nut, otherwise it is as it left the factory.

I stumbled across this on on US ebay, after many emails back and forth and a friend in the states who lived near it going and checking it out I bought it. It’s pretty ironic that an original 1959 LPJ was cheaper than a Historic Custom shop replica.

The pickup is the fattest most articulate P90 I have ever heard. The 59 P90′s are supposed to be the best ones they made and after hearing this it’s 100% true.

The amount of variations in tone that you get from one pickup and 2 knobs is amazing, I can get hollow body jazz tones, single coil strat tones and even bucker type tones. It’s an amazing all in one guitar.

Ladies & gents, let me introduce to you… the DOOM BRINGER!

This Thursday, I have the absolute pleasure of going to see Black Sabbath. I am beyond excited… as I detailed in the previous guitarnerd story, Tony Iommi is pretty much my favourite guitarist. So as soon as tickets were available, I splashed out on Gold Class tickets for me and my brother and waited the loooong months for the day to finally arrive. In the meanwhile, I’ve been listening to Black sabbath non-stop. This isn’t anything unusual, as that’s what I pretty much listen to anyway. But this time I REALLY was listening to them all the time. Eating, walking to work, working, in the shower. ALL THE TIME.

This had an effect on my guitarnerdom. I started having an irresistible urge to start my Death ‘N Roll band again that I’d started with some mates a few years ago. We jammed a few times and it was really fun playing those huge riffs, but kids and other responsibilities put a hold on the band for a while. Now thanks to Mr Iommi I was fired up again, so I emailed the gang and said ‘August. We’re on. Let’s do it!’

So, of course I needed the right guitar for this band. I’d been using my Les Paul Custom, but thanks to playing bass in my cane punk band, my neck isn’t what it used to be. My main workhorse is my white pinstriped SG, which I absolutely felt at home on more than any of my other guitars. But I didn’t want to re-setup the guitar to C# as I used it for my other bands, the Horrortones and the Arcolas, so I needed another solution.

Well, I’d just have to get another SG, wouldn’t I?

I’d recently sold some of my music gear, so I had a little budget to work to for my Doom Stick. I’d absolutely would’ve LOVED a Jaydee Old Boy and was even contemplating getting one for my 40th birthday next year. But I really couldn’t justify spending $3,500 and also the 18 month waiting list was a factor. I needed it now! The next best thing was I contacted John Diggins from Jaydee (OMG!) and asked if I could buy a set of Old Boy pickups. He said fine… I paid my deposit and he said to expect them in 6 to 8 weeks. These were the exact pickups Tony Iommi had used in his guitars since 1978, handmade by the guy who makes Tony Iommi’s guitars. I was feeling pretty…. emotional.

Next up was to find a guitar worthy of these mighty pickups. It had to be an SG (obviously) but I had my mind set on an old one. To tell the truth, I’m not really a fan of some of the recent Gibson instruments I’ve seen. I fully realise that most of the woods we’ve come to expect from Gibson just isn’t available anymore… but I’ve heard some horror stories about ‘new’ Gibsons which I won’t repeat here, so my rule is that if it’s made after 1999… I don’t want it.

So, for months I kept on eBay. The most promising looking guitars were the SG Special’s from the 70′s with the mini humbuckers. The Old Boy’s should fit in no problem… or maybe with a little help.

But none of them really came up for the right price… plus they didn’t ‘grab’ me. Also a lot of them were brown or close to it, and I wanted cherry. Up until this point I’d only been looking at SG’s with the smaller ’62 pickguard. But while reading on John Birch SG’s on the web, I came across this pic in a forum…

This changed everything. Up until now I hadn’t considered the full ‘bat-wing’ SG Special, but with the John Birch pickups in it… it looked amazing. A quick search on ebay and I found this 1970 SG Special in the US… and the starting bid was 99c.

It was absolutely gorgeous. It had a headstock repair (which I don’t mind if they’re done well) and the P90′s weren’t the originals, which was perfect for my plans. The price was still low… so I put in my bid, and apart from some last minute competition, I got it for a song.  I then had a week to contemplate my new axe whilst it made it’s long trip from sunny California to sunny Queensland. Being a nerd, I had to see what it was going to look like…

Holy crap! It was even better than I thought. I added a BadAss bridge in honour of Tony Iommi’s original Monkey SG and also to help with the C# tuning. So I kept on the USPS tracking page and watched the guitar make it’s way through LA, Hawaii, Sydney and then Brisbane. Last night I came home from work and found a very well packed box waiting for me. After cooking dinner for my family and changing my new bub’s nappy, I tore the box open. Halle-freakin’-luyah!

The first thing I noticed was that the condition was a lot better than I was expecting. Apart from the headstock repair (and the typical stinger headstock paint job) it was in GREAT condition for a 43 year old guitar! It had a few chips here and then but I was in love with it. The colour was a beautiful deep cherry, with almost no fading.

The original bent metal tremolo had been taken off recently, which was also fine (I hate those things) and the bridge looked to be a new replacement. No worries, I was going to BadAss it anyway.

I was stoked with the body checking. Man, I love old nitro guitars…. they’re just mojo machines. The scratchplate had a tiny corner missing, but it was the original and I wasn’t fussed. The whole scratchplate is going to get replaced when the Old Boys arrive. I’ll pack it away safely.

The neck is so very, very comfortable. It has the narrow nut width which I love, along with a bit of meat that keeps getting bigger the further you go up the neck. Very similar to my 60′s Epiphone Olympic. And the fretboard is beautiful Brazilian Rosewood with some very nice dot inlays.

The original 3×3 tuners have been replaced with typical Gibson snot green tulip copies. I’m going to search for some vintage Grovers, as I love the look of them and I think it will suit the overall vibe of the guitar.

The body itself is one piece, which is a rare thing in new Gibsons. That’s why I prefer hunting out for old bargains like this. You really get your moneys worth. The whole guitar is really light, with the typical slight SG neck dive. A wide suede leather guitar strap fixes that.

Anyway, after all this… how does she sound?

Well, as I have a newborn baby in the house, I can’t exactly blast this through my rig. So I plugged into my favourite toy… my Vox ‘Heavy Metal’ Amplug headphone amp and played the intro to ‘War Pigs’. The hairs on my arm stood up… it had ‘that’ sound. This guitar just RIIIIIINGS… it has loads of sustain and is so light that you can feel the whole guitar vibrate when you strum the strings. Again… this is very similar to my vintage Epi Olympic.

So, as you can tell… I am beyond stoked with this guitar. I love a bargain and I love vintage SG’s, so it just shows that if you keep your eyes open, there are still great finds out there. As soon as she gets the Jaydee pickup and hardware transplant, I’ll post up some new pics. Stay tuned.

Here’s a taster of what my band Battlekått is going to sound like. This is a rough recording from one of our rehearsals a few years ago. Enjoy!

A pretty amazing story about my favourite ever guitarist and his biggest fan… who happens to be a pretty amazing luthier.

Growing up in my little hometown, there wasn’t much else to do other than watch Star Trek and listen to heavy metal. My friends Rish & Ben had been listening to NWOBHM a lot longer than me and turned me onto a lot of cool stuff. But when I heard Black Sabbath, something really clicked. The sound and the riffs… I know they’ve been talked about a million times but there’s a reason for that. He wrote the rule book on riffs. But I never see anyone talk about his solos. He’s such an underrated lead guitar player… listen to his work on Technical Ectasty. Personally I can hear a lot of Mastodon in there… you can tell they were influenced by this album for Crack The Skye.

And then there’s the Sabbath albums that no-one really likes. The Tony Martin era. I love them… ‘Eternal Idol’ is frikken’ fantastic. It just blows me away to listen to ‘Master Of Reality’ and then put on ‘Eternal Idol’ and think… “wow, this is the same guitarist”. Tony Iommi’s playing and songwriting just kept getting better and better.

So, whilst trawling through some Black Sabbath forums, I found a guitar built by a guy named Lou. Lou had made his own version of Tony Iommi’s Monkey SG, which was impressive. What was even more impressive was he hand built from scratch his own version of Tony Iommi’s Jaydee ‘Old Boy’ SG. But the best was yet to come. I got in touch with Lou and he was nice enough to share his story. Enjoy!

Hi Guys ! I have been a Tony Iommi / Black Sabbath fan since I can remember and I always wanted a guitar like Tonys. Several years ago I purchased a used 1965 SG Special with the intentions of making this replica. It had a broken headstock repair , which by the way was done properly and to this day it’s as solid as a rock. Anyway, I stripped the guitar, re finished it in Cherry and began the search for the proper John Birch pickups. Found one on Ebay and the for the other I traded 2 brand new Lindy Fralin P-90’s to a mate in Ireland .

I had a Iommi Forum member give me Tony’s guitar tech, Mike Clement’s email address and I explained to him what I want to do and if he can give me as much info on the guitar as possible. He told me that I can check out the original at the Hard Rock Café in NYC. I called the Hard Rock, talked to the manager there and asked them if I can take several pictures of it. With that I was off to NYC, camera in hand. They let me in about a 1/2 an hour before they opened and let me take as many pictures as I wanted.

With 45 reference pictures in hand I reproduced the pickup rings and cut the pickguard up like in the photo’s. I than took a picture of the Monkey decal and reproduced it in Microsoft Paint program.

All the while I was send progress pictures to Mike and asked him if he can show Tony. Got replies back that Tony was impressed and wanted to see it when it was finished. You can imagine how excited I was when I read that. When Heaven and Hell was in my area for a show Mike called me, told me I was on the Guest List and directed me to the back area of the arena. I met up with Mike, got my Ticket and Back Stage pass and the rest as they say…………is History !

Then I decided to scratch build a copy of Tony’s road Old Boy. Again with Mike’s help along with the original builder John Diggins of Jaydee Guitars’ I made my own replica. Sent progress pic’s to Mike, Mike in turn showed them to Tony. Once again I’m back stage, and after the show in Tony’s dressing room, he’s checking out the guitar.

Tony loves to bust chops and he says to me again, just like he did when he saw the Monkey, “It’s awesome, looks great, nice job etc, etc, but it’s not left handed.” I laughed it off and told him that I built it for myself so that’s why it’s right handed.

He’s hinting on having me build him an SG ! So now lets go to November 2011, Tony was on his book signing tour so I stood in line to get my copy autographed. When I got up to Tony we shook hands, asked me how I was and then he drops the bomb on me. “So have you built me a guitar yet? “ I asked him if was serious, he said yes and I said you got it. The following day I began gathering the supplies, emailed Mike, he told me the spec’s Tony likes and begun the build.

Once finished I shipped it off to Mike and waited for a reply.

Mike replied back that Tony loves it and other than making a few adjustments to Tony’s liking it’s perfect. The SG is used during Sound Check at the Birmingham Black Sabbath Show. Got many emails from Tony’s producer, Mike. etc, on how great it sounds and congrats on a job well done.

Then along comes the recording sessions for the new album 13. Mike sends me an email saying the SG was used to record one track. Another email a few weeks later saying the SG I built will be used on the upcoming tour ! Man I’m so high right now ! Never I my wildest dreams did I think that not only would I get a chance to meet my Guitar Hero but….I build him a guitar, at his request and then that same guitar gets used to record an album and used on the tour !

Congrats Lou on a fantastic job. I hope Tony brings this Monkey on the Australian Black Sabbath tour so I can see it in action!

Check out more of Lou’s work here: St. Moritz Guitars

And here’s a whole pro-shot concert of Tony Iommi playing the original ‘Monkey’.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuFXX9pkSho

And here’s Tony Iommi playing the 2013 Monkey live in Auckland!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2xz_cNVuCA

A guitar so heavy metal that it’s literally made out of heavy metal.

Apologies for it being quiet on the guitarnerd front lately. The guitarnerd family has grown… I’m now the proud daddy of a baby boy. As many of you out there know, my time is now split between sleeping, nappy changes and working. If I’m lucky I find a few minutes a week to pick up a guitar… and then put it down quickly as the baby needs another nappy change.

Anyway… as I’ve been housebound for the last month, this makes it hard for me to get out there chasing stories for guitarnerd. So I asked the guitarnerd facebook community if they had any cool guitars out there that I could stories on. My friend Mike reminded me that he had an EGC Baritone that I could borrow, so I scooted around and grabbed it yesterday. I was really excited as I’d never seen an EGC guitar in the flesh, so to speak.

What we have here is a Series 1 body EGC baritone with P90′s and Bigsby tremolo. The bridge is Mike’s favourite Mastery bridge that’s been on about 4 of his favourite guitars. Looking at the EGC, it’s a different beast to a Travis Bean. EGC’s seem more…. engineered. The edges are precision sharp and everything fits together like a Swiss watch.

I have no idea how EGC get their frets in the aluminium fretboard but it’s faultess. The neck profile is narrow and slim, which is really comfortable for someone like me who has small hands. The strings tension is quite tight, which is great for a guitar tuned to B. I found doing string bends a little hard up top, but someone who has decent strength (unlike me) shouldn’t have a problem. The neck join is gorgeous and gives total fret access. This thing is a work of art.

The weight of the guitar is quite hefty. It’s in 1970′s Norlin-era Les Paul Custom territory. As in it’s ‘you could tie this guitar to a body and dump it in a lake’ heavy. Sitting down it balances quite well but with a guitar this cool looking you’re not really going to be sitting down often.

The body is hollow, so it’s got a fantastic acoustic quality that actually sounds quite superb. I’d love to hear one of these with a piezo pickup. It’d be Shellac-city.

Plugged in, there two things with this guitar. Clarity and sustain. I’m pretty unfamiliar with baritones and what you’re supposed to do with them, so I started playing sludgy dddddddoom riffs. I’ve been playing around with my Les Paul tuned down to C# and the difference is remarkable. With the added string length and tension, this guitar stays in tune much better. You can really smack a chord and the notes won’t be wavering out of tune all over the place like on a regular scaled guitar.

I’ve heard people say that aluminium necks feel cold and alien but that’s not really true. You soon forget you’re playing an aluminium neck and fretboard. It just feels like a guitar… a very heavy, shiny guitar.

Here’s a track I recorded using this beast. Enjoy!

And for anyone who is interested, this guitar is for sale. Contact me and I’ll forward your details to Mike.

A long lost Maton prototype? No! Another creation by Ian.

Guitarnerd has let me meet some pretty cool people, who love guitars almost as much as I do. (I said ALMOST.) One such person is Ian, whom you may remember as the creator of the original Flamingbyrd… a heavily (and tastefully) modified 60′s Maton Flamingo. (check it out here.)

In November, I received an email from Ian saying he was starting up a very ambitious project… a guitar based on 4 or 5 different classic Matons.

I was pretty damn excited. This wasn’t just a copy, this was something new. It was like a lost prototype from Maton’s golden era. Over the next few months, Ian sent me detailed progress photos, and each time I was blown away. This was such a cool idea.

First up was cutting out the body shape. The body is a mix of Flamingo, sharkbite Fyrbyrd, Wedgtail & Goldline. And I think it works. It’s kooky in a Maton Ibis kind of way.

Next up was starting the routing. One cool element was sinking the Bigsby into the body, like the Wedgtail. To achieve this, Ian extended the end out, which was pretty clever and adds another cool design element.

Ian prefers P-90′s, so this guitar gets routed for a triple set. Also, being a Maton, it needs a rotary switch, which is routed from the back. Ian had help figuring out the 6 position switching from Paul Gomes (USA)… a wiring guru. It runs Neck,neck & middle,neck & bridge, middle, middle & bridge and bridge.

The scratch plate design is part Fyrbyrd and part Flamingo. It suits the shape perfectly. You can start to see what the finished design will look like, and by this stage I was getting very excited. I was also amazed how quickly Ian was putting this together. I’m used to luthiers taking a year to build their guitars! This was all getting done within a month.

Now, the fun bit… paint. I asked what colour Ian was thinking of… I suggested white with a red guard, but Ian had decided on black with a white guard, which was also nice. The main element was that the edges were gold, as per the Goldline. Black & gold go great together.

It so happens that Ian owns a Goldline, so you can see what a great tribute this guitar is.

By this stage I was losing my mind. I couldn’t wait to see this guitar finished. It didn’t take long… A few weeks later and Ian sent me the following pics.

The P90 covers are just for until Ian tracks down some metal versions. That will really drive the Maton look into overdrive. For the headstock, Ian went for the Wedgtail design. Although a Fyrbyrd style might’ve been my pick, this design suits the overall ‘lost prototype’ feel of the guitar.

Ian is still sourcing some knobs that will suit. Those, along with the pickup covers and the guitar is done! Congratulations Ian on some really outstanding work. Instead of it just being a Maton clone, you’ve created something new that slots right into the Maton Byrd family tree.