Guitars... what you've got / what you want

I went to that soho location once about five years ago but couldn’t tell you much about it except that I think Rudy’s daughter is running the place.

I've met Rudy and the daughter at the Scarsdale shop (the D-55 I bought actually belonged to Rudy!). Rudy does seem to always be at Scarsdale so it may be his daughter running it.

I think the shop definitely can give off the impression that it's luxury guitars only, but they do actually stock new midrange and even some cheaper guitars. If you go on the website and filter by new electric guitar, you can see they have a ton of <$1000 and <$2000 stuff.

I am kind of curious now why it's so hard to find new guitars in NYC, I hadn't really thought about it but all the shops I could think of I checked their websites and it's p much all used. Interested in the economic reasons for that.

Um, maybe people buy them at those superstores or mail order or out of the city? Not enough markup to make it worth it in the city? Dunno, grasping at straws.

yeah, i assume guitar center has driven almost everybody out of business except for the vintage shops.

I think it's very hard for small stores to be able to carry the big brands. Not sure if it's like a dealer exclusivity range (such as GC etc is the only dealer for a given product line within 10 miles or something like that) or its simply down to the minimum orders that have to be made to get a wholesale account. I know for a fact the latter was a thing years ago during the rise of Sweetwater etc, there was a TINY guitar store in my tiny hometown but they did stock new Gibsons until they changed the rules to basically only make it feasible for superstores to afford to carry the product line.... as I was told and best I can remember. I think the margins on new guitars are really small, and you probably have a lot of people beating you up to price match GC and whatnot.

And even GC itself seems to do some sort of “strategic bankruptcy” every several years or whatever it is they do.

Buy in for anything in a music store is pretty crazy in how much you have to buy to get even stuff like strings, picks etc. and that stuff has negligible markup.

A few years ago Gibson really pushed up their initial order to something crazy like 1/2 million or a million and you got to take one of nearly everything, including all the wacky shit they put out that very few want.

This is where I repost the bizarrely satisfying video of Gibson driving an excavator over some of its ill-conceived robot guitars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd7ySopIwog

Almost forgot about that one

the crucial comment on that video: "the real tragedy is that they weren't all plugged in for this"

"They must be counterfeit, as the headstocks didn't break."

lolz

oh lordy i want this so bad

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/yPzmsVrJVP2kZXBt9vD2aD-1920-80.jpg

https://www.musicradar.com/news/a-jazzmaster-12-string-squier-steals-the-limelight-from-fender-with-its-new-paranormal-series-guitars?fbclid=IwAR3Q8CwZX6MbUoqPWgyOMN6VroKHN2ric5K54R9VobIbD-RJVFXwE77mP0g

Damn
That’s a lot of tuning

also this tho:

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/25VmU5CeRzmNLFz47sHERD-970-80.jpg

i think the new john 5 tele is stunning but ymmv on that type of thing. and its 3k pricetag is like masterbuilt custom shop pricing lol.
https://www.fmicassets.com/Damroot/ZoomJpg/10001/0111052880_fen_ins_frt_1_rr.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cNWjujVuFw

Green funk

fun fact, the Rascal bass above is the only time they've re-used the Bass VI body

damn that john 5 tele is gorgeous.

That Sherwood Green Rascal is gonna be mine at some point, love that Squier is doing cooler stuff than Fender these days. Epiphone's getting there too, Guitar Center had one of the matte green Casinos that are $150 cheaper than a regular one despite better electronics and I thought it was great.

Not a guitar but this Farfisa is the coolest looking keyboard I've seen in a while (also $3000 and 2500 miles away so c'est la vie). My dreams of Kate Pierson and Martin Rev cosplay are still waiting on one to pop up on Craigslist.

https://images.reverb.com/image/upload/s--8NokleIE--/a_0/f_auto,t_large/v1622743810/oqdjfvsdot5wjnedzu9w.jpg

John 5's Tele has a similar aesthetic as Buckethead's signature Les Paul.

https://guitar-compare.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Gibson-Buckethead-Signature-Les-Paul-Alpine-White_01.jpg

I miss the 90s when you could buy a Farfisa for $250.

And that was expensive for the 90s! My Farfisa Compact was $40 from the Golden West College swap meet in 1996. The Super Continental was a lot more: $180 (from Black Market Music on La Cienega the same year). Both of them have cost a lot more to keep running in the years since, but it's no different than owning an old vintage car.

I recently played a Farfisa, a small orange one that looked awesome. It sounded really cool but was semi fucked up of course. I couldn't believe how heavy it was though! Getting it up and down the stairs with the small, hard handle was tougher than I ever would have guessed. Those big Continentals or the two keyboard ones must be brutally heavy.

can you still buy old teisco’s for cheap? I really wanted to buy one when I was in high school and this shop in Berkeley (Fat dawg) had a bunch of them but the dude at the store kinda refused to show them to me and tried to get me to buy some fancy boring strat clone that was actually “well made”

You probably can in small town pawn shops/thrift stores. Bigger city shops probably have an inkling about the kitsch dollars they can add to the sale price.

When I see '60s Japanese guitars pop up on local classifieds they're still cheap (except for people who think all old stuff found in grandpa's garage = $$$$) but things on Reverb not so much since they've got to be worthwhile to ship.

What songs feature farfisas in prominent roles?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_dXp0eF8s0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOjAzI5zALo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c0EDM-Yu9o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z4lH8XFjGY

(pretty sure about this one)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL3O10mNNbs

FWIW, the Yamaha Reface YC has excellent built-in Farfisa and Vox voicing. (I couldn't help but notice that Stereolab's current keyboard player was using one). If you happen to see one under $300, I think it's worth it.

I was gonna say you missed the grandaddy of them all, but google immediately informed me that 96 Tears was recorded with a Vox.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WUAEtgrhDE

Link Wray's SG looks like it has been to war. Very idiosyncratic details on it.
https://reverb.com/item/68120288-gibson-sg-standard-ex-link-wray-rumble-1962-cherry

Woah. No headstock break.

40+ years of buckle rash in that sg. I wonder how many times it was refretted.

That's awesome. I guess moving the vibrato down makes whammy go that much deeper? I had an SG with a Vibrola, loved the look a lot more than the functionality. Definitely not the Rumble (released in 58) guitar though, the seller is being a wee bit misleading there I'd say.

My first thought was they'll never sell it for that high, but considering Kurt's "Teen Spirit" Mustang went for 4 million, seems like a bargain.

I want a small body acoustic an 8 year old can learn on. Anyone have strong opinions on semi-affordable parlor guitars? Guild p-240 looks interesting. Do Martin LX1s suck? Said 8 year old is an ed sheeran fan, but I don't know.

If you can find one used, a friend had one of these mid-'00s Gretsch parlors that played and sounded really good + an 8-year old might enjoy the aliens.

https://reverb.com/item/3620669-gretsch-gretsch-americana-way-out-west-2003-alien-green-mint-in-original-box

I’ve not tried one but the Gretsch Jim Dandy is a 24” scale parlour and always seems to get raves. Several colour options too.

Thanks, these gretsch parlors are cool.

I am not now, nor have I ever been an Offspring fan, but I find this Ibanez Noodles signature model to be charming in a simple kind of way.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0268/0972/9087/files/ba281927-5841-42e3-9f9d-06072bf5ea34_2000x2000.jpg?v=1686887204

PRS managed to make a guitar even uglier than their usual!

https://www.americanmusical.com/prs-nf53-electric-guitar/p/PRS-NF53-80

my dad just bought one of those Kirk Hammett Les Paul Greenys

not a big fan of the "barn wood" looking trend

Nice of PRS to throw in a gig bag for a $3000 guitar.

But they surely know their customers are more likely to hang it on an office wall than to actually play it.