polara

Some hugs. A big Swedish dinner. I ate too much sil! The Bob Mould biography. Sweaters.

Ouch. Sorry to hear, but maybe you dodged a bullet there?

I'm not really keeping track but to me the most righteous ain't the prettiest or most desirable but the ones that have the richest HFC history and keep getting sold back and fort, round and round. Seems like the big factor is if they are known immediately amongst us by their "The" title. Examples: The PunisherThe CreamsicleThe AceburstThe Phantoglide

A guitar doesn't get that much wear unless it's a hell of a player.

Nope, doesn't count. Next thing you know, you'll be telling me that some had Kahlers on 'em. I like that one, but...would it have killed the boys from Kalamazoo to install two more dots on the fretboard? I mean, it looks a tad incomplete, as is. The extra dots seem to have materialized in the form of several extra switches and knobs. I keed, I keed. Someday I'll try a Heritage. I never see 'em around here and I have to admit none have ever looked very sexy to me. But we don't play looks, we play sounds and feel.

Nathan and I did a little horse tradin' this week, and he will soon the the proud owner of The Swiss Cheese Sustainiac Chap I scored for cheap off eBay. In return I got The It's Green Eclipse. I've never been a fan of the Eclipse shape. It's like someone took a Special and did all the RIGHT things ergonomically - cut away the treble side for better access to the high frets, beveled the top and back - but they WRONG things aesthetically. Looks...lumpy. And then to make it all-mahogany with no maple cap, a wrap-tail, and mini-humbuckers... all cool features but unusual. Strip the controls down to master volume and master tone + a pickup selector, make most of the finishes opaque and/or metallic (was there ever a 'burst Eclipse?) and the result is unique. A little bit Gibson, a little bit Ric and all Hamer I guess. So I pick up It's Green. Medium weight, bordering on substantial. Typically terrific build quality, slinky-low action. Beefy ol' neck, a nice handful. A Real Man's Guitar, people. Plug it in... Sparkly, jangly, very articulate. Now, instead of the stock Duncan mini-buckers this guitar has Lollar Firebird-style pickups, which Lollar's site says are not constructed like mini-humbuckers but have their own thing going. I had a guitar with Lollar P90s once and the sound is not so different. I think Jason Lollar must like low-ish output, clear, balanced, very... detailed-sounding pickups.Very sensitive to how you play, and even with some gain on tap I hear each string very distinctively, no murk and thump, very tight low-end on these. I A-B-C-Dd it against my Giffin Vikta (Dimarzio P90s), the Hamer Studio (JB/59) and a Squier Strat I have for kicks and giggles. It fell between the Giffin and the Strat for jangly, chimey, clear sound. NOT a humbucker sound at all, and really surprising. I'll be curious to hear what it's like through the Valvetech at full volume this weekend. Anyway, Most Esteemed Missus Polara at first said she liked the Giffin's sound better, but upon reflection preferred the clarity of the Eclipse. Since the planets have aligned so that my favorite drummer in the world and my favorite bassist in the world are on board to re-start the band Missus and I had prior to her doing PhD coursework, I take this as a good sign. Maybe the Eclipse will be the guitar of destiny.

I'm wowed by how CLEAN everything is. Clean cuts, precision, no slop. This is hard-edged workmanship. Part of me likes seeing the pics because I've no idea which is mine (and I don't wanna know 'til it arrives.) Kind of cool to see a bunch of wood and imagine which one will become the vintage natural with dots, à la Zandard 0004....

Not much. I've gotten a couple cheap guitars that were just too tinny and abrasive sounding and swapped for whatever was handy and decent. Good guitars usually come with good pickups and I kind of like that they have unique voices. I will say that the Rios that came in the Koa Studio absolutely did not do it for my ears/amp and I put Seth Lovers in the next morning. I keep going back to Dimarzo Super Distortion and PAF for humbuckers and whatever come stock in Daytonas for singles, but it's not a burning enough need for me to remove the stock 59/JB combo from my Duotone or Studio. As long as they basically sound "good" I learn to appreciate the unique feel and tone of each guitar

I useta play 11s and then for some reason put 10s and have stuck with that. You just have to play more gently with 10s, but I don't feel like one or the other is better for me. Just different feel. 9s feel kind of weird to me, like I just woke up with gorilla hands.

Giffin Vikta. I loves my Hamers but this is what I'd a designed if someone gave me a blank sheet of paper. All mahogany and LIGHT as a cloud Contoured top and back for comfort Chubby neck goes from a soft V at the nut to a round profile at the body I do tend to think a single-cutaway guitar is more solid feeling, more vibration-y. Might be in my head. P90s by Dimarzio Intonatable aluminum TonePros wrap tail Simple V-V-T controls and a selector switch I can reach quickly Straight string pull at headstock, stays in tune Bone nut, nice fretboard, perfect frets As a bonus built by the Baker crew at PBG. Feels solid.

I agree with everyone. Run. But. IF you can take a very serious look at the balance sheets with a hard-nosed accountant.. IF it's your passion IF you can find an unfulfilled market niche best filled by print, i.e. a shopping weekly or a local music and arts rag or something best read outside and away from it all like like an outdoors/hunting/fishing/backpacking paper and IF that subject is your passion too and IF you have a partner with income/trust fund... Go for it.

Mine was my old Dual turntable. The best I could get for my budget. I still have a Japanese import Stranglers LP and some old vinyl my bands did that are gonna get put on this JVC.

Kiz, I'd take it... I JUST dug out my old vinyl, including a translucent gold Cheap Trick at the Budokan, and have been jonesing to build a vintage hi-fi rig at the family cabin up the road. PMing ya!

Hiram was killin' on guitar there, too. Good stuff.

No dUg?

No, I got the question! Seriously even if I were in The Biggest Band Ever, I'd play the PRS and have an identical backup. It sort of annoys me when the guitarist is switching instruments all the time, and none of the drunks in the audience can hear the difference between a White Falcon and a Tele anyway.

I completely honestly prefer to play one guitar. Even if could have a roadie handing them off song to song. I own six electrics but for gigging it's the PRS, period. That way I focus on playing and doing stupid poses instead of adjusting knobs or even subliminally adjusting to neck or balance or whatever.

Been playing the Alvarez Yairi nylon-string. It's like learning a totally different instrument. Thumb pivoting on the back of the neck. Fingers like...so. No, it rests on THAT knee. Stop making so much sound with the fingerpicking. I love learning.

Nathan, I think you won't regret this. I don't own a lotta electric guitars. But I can pick up... MotorAve no. 0004 A Giffin A Hamer Studio Custom my cheap but nice Fernandes Tele ...and I always pick up my PRS to actually gig.

I'd want to play one but the look is great.

If only it had a Khaler.

My Shishkov Ultimate will be my most expensive ever by a large margin. Hence my recent selling spree to finance it. But I couldn't resist the chance to be in on a little piece of guitar history and help keep the Hamer DNA alive. I will say my MotorAve might be WORTH a good bit, as it's Number 0004 of Mark's builds and I got it for a steal. If i were practical and still making student/working musician money I'd just have a couple $350 Japanese Teles and not even think about value and collections and stuff. Man, age and a little discretionary income can warp our values, eh?

For most of history music was a tribal or family or very local thing for spiritual and communal sharing. It's also long been a form of storytelling, oral history, a way of keeping a culture vital. Folk music, field hollers, blues, reels and jigs, drum circles. No rock stars. Beethoven was a rock star but usually professional legit composers were dependent on wealthy sponsors and their music was for a rarified few. Recording technology allowed the rise of the music star, letting more people hear a Caruso, a Sinatra, an Elvis, a Hendrix, a Miley Cyrus than was possible when music was tribal, communal, of the heart for loved ones. Recording technology allowed the long-playing record. Before that it was songs, sheet music, singles, radio. I'm just saying that thinking a really weird period in history when guys with lots of hair made lots of money making recordings onto big vinyl discs is somehow the NORM is wrong. Might be personally important because the peak of your high school studliness coincided with LPs and rock stars, but music is dynamic is about the heart, the guts the balls. It'll live on as long as we still breathe.

I feel all tingly. And the tuner buttons and the gold old-school knobs are perfect... I'm very excited about my order!

Y'know, that font works better caps and lower case than HAMER ALL CAPS... but still looks kind of comforting. An auspicious start! Thanks for sharing photos.