Echopark Guitars’ Gabriel Currie has
had a whirlwind career. From his
humble beginnings as the go-to repair guy
at his high school, to working with Leo
Fender at G&L, and then building for the
great Tak Hosono, Currie has spent his life
with gear and luthiers since the early ’80s.
Predictably, that wealth of experiences led
to the formation of a company he could call
his own—Echopark Guitars.
Located in the Echopark district of Los
Angeles, Currie’s guitar building operation
is enjoying a lot of success these days.
He has amassed a pretty impressive list
of endorsees in the course of just two
years, including Social Distortion’s Jonny
Wickersham, Kyuss and former Queens
of the Stone Age bassist Nick Oliveri,
and high-profile sideman to the popstars,
Monte Pittman. And Currie’s new
Downtowner Custom Koa Limited says a
lot about why he’s a fast rising star among
big-name players: Uniting quality, craft,
and precision with a raunchy, classic rockoriented
tone palette, the guitar can be
downright devastating.
A Night on the Town
The Downtowner is a simultaneously
stunning and understated instrument that
cleverly fuses design elements from a few
famous vintage guitars—the curvy bout
of the Les Paul and simplicity of the SG
Classic—with funky Supro- and
Silvertonelike
lines. The body itself is a beautiful,
single piece of African mahogany that’s
finished in Echopark’s green-gold tint. This
finish is infused with bronze powder for a
sparkling, Cadillac-luxurious look that will
stop you in your tracks when the light hits
it right. An aged mother-of-toilet-seat pickguard
harkens to the quirkier guitar designs
that populated Montgomery Ward catalogs
decades ago, but feels sturdy and made
from quality materials.
A deep tenon joint affixes the two-piece
neck, which is fashioned from bookmatched,
40-year-old Hawaiian koa. With a deep grain
that looks exceptionally three-dimensional,
the koa is quite striking. The neck’s highly
polished nitrocellulose lacquer finish offers
protection against wear and tear.
With the 24 3/4" scale, the neck has
a very vintage heft that some might liken
to a baseball bat, but which is really quite
comfortable—almost like a big C profile. A
12"-radius rosewood fretboard caps the neck
and is dressed up with abalone dot markers,
bamboo dot markers, 22 frets of Dunlop
6100 fretwire, and a hand-polished bone nut.
The electronics and hardware in and on
the Downtowner are all top quality and are
hand-aged by Currie. A nickel TonePros
AVT2 wraparound tailpiece keeps the strings
taunt over the body, and a set of prewar-style
Grover open-back tuners keeps the strings
anchored on the other end of the guitar.
Currie’s excellent aging work doesn’t hamper
the mechanical function of the hardware in
the least. Moving the saddles for intonation
was effortless, and the tuners were some of
the smoothest-feeling machines I’ve encountered
in quite some time.
The body is home to two handwound
Amalfitano humbuckers with vintage PAFlike
output specs of 8.5k in the bridge and
7.4k in the neck. The pickups’ nickel covers
are aged by Currie, as well. Volume and
tone knobs and a 3-position toggle switch
regulate the pickups’ output.
Rock ’n’ Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution
The Downtowner is a classic rocker’s
dream, though that certainly isn’t the whole
ball of wax here. The combination of the
guitar’s exemplary build quality and materials,
a killer set of pickups, and fine-tuned
hardware result in a smorgasbord of tones
brimming with vintage rock gusto.
With a 65amps Empire and matching
cabinet, the Echopark’s bridge and neck
pickups exhibited amazing detail through
the amp’s clean channel. And just about
every pick strike coaxed a juicy mix of
mids, round lows, and a really bristling
high end. Though the high-end detail is
considerable, it’s not brash. But it certainly
commands authority and the Downtowner
purrs with harmonic richness when you hit
the strings hard.
Naturally, when I flipped to the bridge
humbucker the guitar’s high end became
more prevalent. That’s a cool quality typical
of PAF-style pickups, but probably also
attributable to the wraparound tailpiece,
which gives high frequencies an even more
cutting quality. To coax darker tones for
jazzier or Santana-inspired solos requires
using the tone knob, but this brightness
makes the bridge pickup stand proud and
tall for blusier lead work.
The Downtowner is also capable of driving
an intimidating set of barrel-chested
tones at wide-open amp settings. Fans of
Angus Young’s bristling sounds in the Bon
Scott era will fall completely in love with
this guitar’s capacity for driving the meatiest
riffs while retaining high-end and midrange
nuance. Jimmy Page-inspired lead tones
are another of the Downtowner’s strengths,
and those biting Page tones from the BBC
Sessions (which have always seemed crazily
elusive to this reviewer) pour out of the
Downtowner at every turn.
Flipping to the neck pickup, rolling the
tone control down, and adding a touch
of amp overdrive was the ticket to some
of the finest tones lurking within the
Downtowner. And relying on the guitar’s
volume knob to add and subtract dynamics
and aggression tapped an endless range
of voices. At these settings it felt almost
mandatory to delve into vintage Cream
riffage—dropping the guitar’s volume for
cleaner rhythm work and cranking it up
for that biting “Crossroads” tone. Even
with the tone knob rolled down about
two thirds, pick dynamics came through
loud and clear. The guitar’s sensitivity
through a wide range of volume and tone
settings is exceptional.
The neck pickup also sated my hunger
for mellower, more subdued tones. It’s
easy to tame the Downtowner’s high-end
tendencies by using the guitar’s tone knob
and a lighter attack—an approach that
yields some incredibly smooth and widesounding
jazz tones. Dropping the neck
pickup’s volume a touch produced delicious
Stonesy rhythm sounds.
The Verdict
The Downtowner is a guitar that rewards a
nuanced touch and a dynamic right hand.
It can be a bright instrument that highlights
every last detail of your pick attack. And for
the tones you associate with the great Les
Paul slingers of the ’60s and ’70s it’s a dream
come true. The smooth mids, stalwart lows,
and raunchy high end set it apart from even
top-notch, custom, Gibson-inspired instruments.
The styling and construction details
make it more than just another vintage Les
Paul clone. And as a whole, it shows that
Gabriel Currie has not only learned much
from the masters about putting together a
great guitar, but that he really understands
how the component parts of a guitar come
together to sound extraordinary.