The Teisco SD4L is designed with a thick metal plate that attaches the pickups to the body.
I learned about Iwase through my American book publisher, Ron Middlebrook, who has known a bunch of excellent pedal-steel guitar players all over the world. In Japan, he knew a fine player named Kiyoshi Kobayashi, otherwise known as “Lion.” Lion referred to Iwase as the “maestro,” and in a few months, arranged for us to meet in Tokyo. So imagine this, good reader: Here I am, about the size of a refrigerator, and I’m ambling into this old jazz club to meet all 5'4″ of Iwase-san, smiling as wide as the moon! One of the first things he said to everyone was to the effect of, “No wonder Japan lost the war, because of the size of Americans!” He had an excellent sense of humor and an excellent memory, and provided me with so much of the early guitar history of Japan, and I am forever grateful.
Iwase-san had left the original Teisco Company in the early ’60s, so I wanted to highlight one of the guitars he helped to design and produce during his tenure at the first factory. The uber-strange Teisco SD4L was introduced to the guitar-playing world in the spring of 1962, and was apparently inspired by an old Italian electric guitar of the time. Perhaps a Wandre? Iwase wasn’t quite sure.
Yukichi Iwase, who passed away earlier this year, was one of the early innovators of Japanese instrument making.
The SD4L features an offset body design with extreme and abrupt lines. I believe this was the only truly made Teisco to feature a plywood body. Made with a lot of thin veneers, the guitar is on the heavy side, and at the time of its design, the thought was that a plywood construction of this sort would survive the climate changes of players outside the Japanese mainland. To be honest, not many of these left Japanese shores.
But the coolest feature of this model is the hard kitchen formica covering on the front and back. Simply glued on and formed to the shape of the plywood body, this guitar has a tendency to dig into your body in unpleasant ways, but who cares! It’s like something straight out of an old American diner! Iwase described the material as what was found on “kotatsu” tables, which were like coffee tables, but heated.
“Here I am, about the size of a refrigerator, and I’m ambling into this old jazz club to meet all 5'4″ of Iwase-san, smiling as wide as the moon!”
The cutout on the headstock was another Iwase original, as was the electronics layout. This earlier model features four pickups that were taken direct from the lap-steel guitars that Teisco was producing at the same time. Later editions of this model have the very first, and now famous, Teisco gold-foil pickups that became popular with all sorts of American players, including Ry Cooder.
Each pickup has an on/off switch, two volumes, and preset tone controls for rhythm and solo settings. The sound of these early SD4L guitars can get a little destructive since the pickups can be a little microphonic, but they are controllable in the hands of a capable player. There is a nice hint of resonance that tends to come from all the guitars that were designed with a thick metal plate attaching the pickups to the body. It’s subtle, but cool.
I have all my interviews taped, and I went back to watch all the times that Iwase and I met. Of course, we had to have translators, but we were able to enjoy our time together, and I am extremely happy to have known him. I remember that he was surprised that someone from outside of Japan had an interest in him, as are most of the older people I have interviewed over the years. He was humble and creative and kind, and I will miss him dearly.
1962 Teisco SD4L Guitar Demo
At first glance, this guitar was immediately weird, with four pickups, two volume dials, and six switches. But what really caught my eye was the neck, which was unusually long compared to the frequent flow of other Teisco, Guyatone, and Kawai relics that come in. This was obviously a Teisco of some kind, I thought, but some research was in order. Especially since the manufacturer made a mess of the brand name on the headstock, which looks like a doctor's scribble at the bottom of a prescription.
As my fellow PG columnist Frank Meyers often explains in his monthly “Wizard of Odd," these inexpensive Japanese guitars from the '60s—regardless of the names on their headstocks—all have a pretty similar aesthetic. I felt like this one had a Teisco body, but the pickups looked like they were made by Guyatone. Maybe that's because both companies were helped along in their development by a guitar designer named Atsuo Kaneko? But I digress.
Dig these crazy controls! Mic. 1-4 on/off switches, R and S settings, and a pair of volume wheels are all ready to take the sound of this VN-4 for a spin.
With some sleuthing, the answers started coming in. What we were very lucky to have was an extremely rare Demian VN-4 baritone electric guitar from 1964 made by the FujiGen instrument manufacturing company in Matsumoto, Japan. This was extra exciting for me, because the history of this company is extraordinary. FujiGen has been a keystone in Japan-based guitar building for ages. In addition to the brands St. George, Zim-Gar, and their own Demian imprint, they've made guitars for Teisco, Guyatone, Kawai (think Hound Dog Taylor's S180), Ibanez, and even Fender. I was holding a part of that historic lineage in my hands. A VN-4 in good shape, like this guitar, might sell for up to $750, or scale down to $400 if it's had a rougher life.
This Demian VN-4 and its cousins were made to cash in on the baritone guitar craze that started in the late 1950s in the U.S., where the instrument became a staple of surf music, Duane Eddy's twangy hits, and country music sessions, and later figured prominently in spaghetti Western soundtracks and Jimmy Webb's orchestrations for Glen Campbell's hits “Galveston" and “Wichita Lineman."
The headstock says … what? Is Demian really spelled with three Ms? This is more of a mess than a logo or brand name.
Not only does the VN-4 baritone have the cool “surfcaster" look of that era, I think it's also got more versatile tones than, say, a Fender Bass VI. That's because of the controls under the guitar's metal and chrome panels, which remind me of many Teiscos I've seen. With four single-coil pickups, two volume dials for those pickups, and six switches—three for each pickup—there are plenty of sonic options, from twangy to tic-tac to warm and fat to bright and spanky. Other than “on" and “off," it's not exactly clear what these switches do under the hood. But the ones marked “R" and “S" for each pickup provide a beefier tone when set to “S."
As for the rest, this VN-4 has a solid mahogany body, a fat, baseball-bat-style C-shaped neck with 19 frets, and a rosewood fretboard with rectangular block inlays. The finish is a quirky cherry burst that slightly varies in hue from the headstock to the body. The neck has a 26 3/4" scale and there's a vibrato system with just the right tension for classic surf and Western-movie single-note styles of playing.
The small frets, block inlays, and vibrato tailpiece are all visible from this angle. And yes, there is a truss rod inside the neck, for intonation tweaks.
I truly love this FujiGen Demian VN-4 baritone. I can't put it down. There are so many tones, and the emotions that the lower register sound conjures up seem limitless. In fact, I think I'm buying it!
Check out Mike Dugan's demo of the burly and beautiful 1964 Lindell VN-4 electric baritone—the same instrument as our Demian—and enjoy his nods to Dick Dale, Duane Eddy, and the Chantays.