Erich Solomon’s path to building guitars began in 1995 with a vision he had as a 17-year-old living in Anchorage, Alaska. He was sitting on a couch in the early morning hours after playing guitar all night with his adoptive brother—head tilted back and eyes closed—when he saw a deep, translucent, non-cutaway guitar that was cobalt blue. The mental image was fleeting and didn’t mean much to him at the time; however, it would end up fundamentally changing and shaping the future luthier’s life.
Just a few hours later while grocery shopping, Solomon happened to pass the magazine section where he came across a publication with a D’Angelico on the front cover. He bought the magazine because the instrument reminded him of the one in his vision. After reading the short blurb about John D’Angelico, Solomon was “kind of amazed,” because he had never considered that such a guitar could be made from scratch by just one person, and not in a factory.
He soon felt the calling to build guitars. “It was that simple and perfect for me,” says Solomon. “Within a month of seeing that magazine, I was so bedazzled by those big, beautiful guitars from the 1940s, that I decided I wanted to build archtops, despite the fact that I had never seen or heard one in person.” With no tools, no wood, and no idea about how to take the first steps, Solomon began his journey.
Foregoing the traditional route of lutherie school, Solomon is, for the most part, self-taught. The luthier used a combination of instructional materials produced by Bob Benedetto, a week at Tom Ribbecke’s archtop construction camp, and valuable time with the Hartvigsons, a family of woodworkers and artists in Anchorage that took Solomon under their wing after the budding luthier expressed an earnestness and passion for the craft.
Almost 20 years later, Solomon now practices his craft in Southeastern New Hampshire where he specializes in building archtops that actually sound more like flattop guitars. “They retain the punch and the essential ‘archtopiness’ that generally defines the instrument, but have more bass response, articulation, and volume than most jazz guitars,” shares the luthier. “I also like for the guitars I make to have excellent sustain, dynamic responsiveness, clarity, and separation.” Though Solomon says his guitars are best suited for fingerstyle players, several of his clients are primarily Gypsy-jazz or bluegrass players who are able to utilize the instruments well. “In addition to traditional jazz guitar, my goal is for my guitars to suit a wider variety of music.”
Pricing and Availability
The current wait time for one of Solomon’s
custom instruments is approximately 1 1/2
years. Solomon does his best to keep a couple
of slots open for builds that are for new ideas,
exhibitions, or the occasional guitar he’s able to
get to Rudy’s Music in New York City. Given
the time-intensive nature of Solomon’s style
of building, he produces only 8 to 10 instruments
a year. The builder aims to keep most
of his guitars in the $6,000 to $9,000 range so
that they are accessible for serious, professional
players. More than 50 percent of his commissioned
builds from the past two years have
been from repeat customers, which he sees as a
real compliment to his skills as a builder. “The
only downside is that I don’t have as many
guitars out there in circulation in different geographical
areas,” shares the luthier.
Baritone Phidelity
Solomon’s take on a baritone is an 18" noncutaway
archtop version of his Phidelity model.
It features a handcarved European spruce top
with X-bracing and European maple for the back
and sides. The beautifully understated Baritone
Phidelity boasts a quartersawn, 1-piece maple
neck and—like all his instruments—the guitar is
fi nished using a hand-rubbed, French-polished
shellac. Other features include the laminated
soundport on the side, an adjustable African
blackwood bridge and saddle, and quartersawn
holly or cherry binding.
Sweet Sixteen
The Sweet Sixteen is a more traditional 16"
cutaway archtop with f-holes. Also utilizing
European spruce for the handcarved, X-braced
top, the 25"-scale instrument has an
unbound, quartersawn ebony fretboard and a
neck/body junction at the 16th fret. Other appointments
on this Sweet Sixteen include the
traditional brass and ebony floating tailpiece
and a handwound Kent Armstrong pickup.
Phi-Tomic
With a distinctive, beveled “atomic-style”
soundhole, the Phi-Tomic is a 16" cutaway
guitar for those looking for something a
bit different than a traditional archtop. The
body joins the neck at the 14th fret and this
25"-scale beauty’s handcarved, European
spruce top is adorned with a decidedly modern
pickguard, which compliments the modern
lines of the skeleton headstock.
Grand American
The 18" non-cutaway Grand American gives
an elegant nod to the golden age of archtops.
Utilizing handcarved, master-grade European
spruce for the top and master-grade curly
European maple for the back and sides, the
Grand American’s headstock, inlay, tailpiece,
and floating pickguard embrace the timelessness
of classic art-deco design.
Abraxas
Blending modern with traditional, the Abraxas
is an 18" cutaway archtop with a fresh
twist to conventional f-holes. This guitar’s
25.5"-scale neck joins the body at the 14th
fret, and the open and unbound “skeleton”
headstock housing the Waverly tuners with
ebony buttons mirrors the distinctive skeleton
pickguard and tailpiece.
Axis
Weighing in at a very svelte 4 1/2 pounds,
the hollowbody Axis is one of Solomon’s
newest creations. This ergonomic, handcarved
archtop gives a nod to the styling of
a Jazzmaster and its contoured mahogany
body is topped with the European spruce
Solomon favors. Outfitted with a single Kent
Armstrong humbucking pickup, the guitar’s
volume and tone controls are located under
the eye-catching pickguard.
Hotone Wong Press
Cory Wong Signature Volume/Wah/Expression Pedal
Renowned international funk guitar maestro and 63rd Grammy nominee Cory Wong is celebrated for his unique playing style and unmistakable crisp tone. Known for his expressive technique, he’s been acclaimed across the globe by all audiences for his unique blend of energy and soul. In 2022, Cory discovered the multi-functional Soul Press II pedal from Hotone and instantly fell in love. Since then, it has become his go-to pedal for live performances.
Now, two years later, the Hotone team has meticulously crafted the Wong Press, a pedal tailored specifically for Cory Wong. Building on the multi-functional design philosophy of the Soul Press series, this new pedal includes Cory’s custom requests: a signature blue and white color scheme, a customized volume pedal curve, an adjustable wah Q value range, and travel lights that indicate both pedal position and working mode.
Cory’s near-perfect pursuit of tone and pedal feel presented a significant challenge for our development team. After countless adjustments to the Q value range, Hotone engineers achieved the precise WAH tone Cory desired while minimizing the risk of accidental Q value changes affecting the sound. Additionally, based on Cory’s feedback, the volume control was fine-tuned for a smoother, more musical transition, enhancing the overall feel of volume swells. The team also upgraded the iconic travel lights of the Soul Press II to dual-color travel lights—blue for Wah mode and green for Volume mode—making live performances more intuitive and visually striking!
In line with the Hotone Design Inspiration philosophy, the Wong Press represents the perfect blend of design and inspiration. Now, musicians can channel their inner Cory Wong and enjoy the freedom and joy of playing with the Wong Press!
For the first time in the band’s history, the Dawes lineup for Oh Brother consisted of just Griffin and Taylor Goldsmith (left and right).
Goldsmith’s lyrics spoke to me the loudest, with lines like “Well, you can judge the whole world on the sparkle that you think it lacks / Yes, you can stare into the abyss, but it’s starin’ right back” (a casual Nietzsche paraphrase); and “Oh, the snowfall this time of year / It’s not what Birmingham is used to / I get the feeling that I brought it here / And now I’m taking it away.” The way his words painted a portrait of the sincere, sentimental man behind them, along with his cozy, unassuming guitar work and the band’s four-part harmonies, had me hooked.
Nothing Is Wrong and Stories Don’t End came next, and I happily gobbled up more folksy fodder in tracks like “If I Wanted,” “Most People,” and “From a Window Seat.” But 2015’s All Your Favorite Bands, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Folk Albumschart, didn’t land with me, and by the time 2016’s We’re All Gonna Die was released, it was clear that Goldsmith had shifted thematically in his writing. A friend drew a thoughtful Warren Zevon comparison to the single, “When the Tequila Runs Out”—a commentary on vapid, conceited, American-socialite party culture—but it still didn’t really do it for me. I fell off the Dawes train a bit, and became somewhat oblivious to their three full-lengths that followed.
Oh Brotheris Goldsmith’s latest addition to the Dawes songbook, and I’m grateful to say that it’s brought me back. After having done some catching up, I’d posit that it’s the second work in the third act, or fall season, of his songwriting—where 2022’s Misadventures of Doomscrollercracked open the door, Oh Brother swings it wide. And it doesn’t have much more than Dawes’ meat and potatoes, per se, in common with acts one or two. Some moodiness has stayed—as well as societal disgruntlement and the arrangement elements that first had me intoxicated. But then there’s the 7/4 section in the middle of “Front Row Seat”; the gently unwinding, quiet, intimate jazz-club feel of “Surprise!”; the experimentally percussive, soft-spoken “Enough Already”; and the unexpected, dare I say, Danny Elfman-esque harmonic twists and turns in the closing track, “Hilarity Ensues.”
The main engine behind Dawes, the Goldsmith brothers are both native “Angelinos,” having been born and raised in the L.A. area. Taylor is still proud to call the city his home.
Photo by Jon Chu
“I have this working hypothesis that who you are as a songwriter through the years is pretty close to who you are in a dinner conversation,” Goldsmith tells me in an interview, as I ask him about that thematic shift. “When I was 23, if I was invited to dinner with grownups [laughs], or just friends or whatever, and they say, ‘How you doin’, Taylor?’ I probably wouldn’t think twice to be like, ‘I’m not that good. There’s this girl, and … I don’t know where things are at—can I share this with you? Is that okay?’ I would just go in in a way that’s fairly indiscreet! And I’m grateful to that version of me, especially as a writer, because that’s what I wanted to hear, so that’s what I was making at the time.
“But then as I got older, it became, ‘Oh, maybe that’s not an appropriate way to answer the question of how I’m doing.’ Or, ‘Maybe I’ve spent enough years thinking about me! What does it feel like to turn the lens around?’” he continues, naming Elvis Costello and Paul Simon as inspirations along the way through that self-evolution. “Also, trying to be mindful of—I had strengths then that I don’t have now, but I have strengths now that I didn’t have then. And now it’s time to celebrate those. Even in just a physical way, like hearing Frank Zappa talking about how his agility as a guitar player was waning as he got older. It’s like, that just means that you showcase different aspects of your skills.
“I am a changing person. It would be weird if I was still writing the same way I was when I was 23. There would probably be some weird implications there as to who I’d be becoming as a human [laughs].”
Taylor Goldsmith considers Oh Brother, the ninth full-length in Dawes’ catalog, to be the beginning of a new phase of Dawes, containing some of his most unfiltered, unedited songwriting.
Since its inception, the engine behind Dawes has been the brothers Goldsmith, with Taylor on guitar and vocals and Griffin on drums and sometimes vocal harmonies. But they’ve always had consistent backup. For the first several years, that was Wylie Gelber on bass and Tay Strathairn on keyboards. On We’re All Gonna Die, Lee Pardini replaced Strathairn and has been with the band since. Oh Brother, however, marks the departure of Gelber and Pardini.
“We were like, ‘Wow, this is an intense time; this is a vulnerable time,’” remarks Goldsmith, who says that their parting was supportive and loving, but still rocked him and Griffin. “You get a glimpse of your vulnerability in a way that you haven’t felt in a long time when things are just up and running. For a second there, we’re like, ‘We’re getting a little rattled—how do we survive this?’”
They decided to pair up with producer Mike Viola, a close family friend, who has also worked with Mandy Moore—Taylor’s spouse—along with Panic! At the Disco, Andrew Bird, and Jenny Lewis. “[We knew that] he understands all of the parameters of that raw state. And, you know, I always show Mike my songs, so he was aware of what we had cookin’,” says Goldsmith.
Griffin stayed behind the kit, but Taylor took over on bass and keys, the latter of which he has more experience with than he’s displayed on past releases. “We’ve made records where it’s very tempting to appeal to your strengths, where it’s like, ‘Oh, I know how to do this, I’m just gonna nail it,’” he says. “Then there’s records that we make where we really push ourselves into territories where we aren’t comfortable. That contributed to [Misadventures of Doomscroller] feeling like a living, breathing thing—very reactive, very urgent, very aware. We were paying very close attention. And I would say the same goes for this.”
That new terrain, says Goldsmith, “forced us to react to each other and react to the music in new ways, and all of a sudden, we’re exploring new corners of what we do. I’m really excited in that sense, because it’s like this is the first album of a new phase.”
“That forced us to react to each other and react to the music in new ways, and all of a sudden, we’re exploring new corners of what we do.”
In proper folk (or even folk-rock) tradition, the music of Dawes isn’t exactly riddled with guitar solos, but that’s not to say that Goldsmith doesn’t show off his chops when the timing is right. Just listen to the languid, fluent lick on “Surprise!”, the shamelessly prog-inspired riff in the bridge of “Front Row Seat,” and the tactful, articulate line that threads through “Enough Already.” Goldsmith has a strong, individual sense of phrasing, where his improvised melodies can be just as biting as his catalog’s occasional lyrical jabs at presumably toxic ex-girlfriends, and just as melancholy as his self-reflective metaphors, all the while without drawing too much attention to himself over the song.
Of course, most of our conversation revolves around songwriting, as that’s the craft that’s the truest and closest to his identity. “There’s an openness, a goofiness—I even struggle to say it now, but—an earnestness that goes along with who I am, not only as a writer but as a person,” Goldsmith elaborates. “And I think it’s important that those two things reflect one another. ’Cause when you meet someone and they don’t, I get a little bit weirded out, like, ‘What have I been listening to? Are you lying to me?’” he says with a smile.
Taylor Goldsmith's Gear
Pictured here performing live in 2014, Taylor Goldsmith has been the primary songwriter for all of Dawes' records, beginning with 2009’s North Hills.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography
Guitars
- Fender Telecaster
- Gibson ES-345
- Radocaster (made by Wylie Gelber)
Amps
- ’64 Fender Deluxe
- Matchless Laurel Canyon
Effects
- 29 Pedals EUNA
- Jackson Audio Bloom
- Ibanez Tube Screamer with Keeley mod
- Vintage Boss Chorus
- Vintage Boss VB-2 Vibrato
- Strymon Flint
- Strymon El Capistan
Strings
- Ernie Ball .010s
In Goldsmith’s songwriting process, he explains that he’s learned to lean away from the inclination towards perfectionism. Paraphrasing something he heard Father John Misty share about Leonard Cohen, he says, “People think you’re cultivating these songs, or, ‘I wouldn’t deign to write something that’s beneath me,’ but the reality is, ‘I’m a rat, and I’ll take whatever I can possibly get, and then I’ll just try to get the best of it.’
“Ever since Misadventures of Doomscroller,” he adds, “I’ve enjoyed this quality of, rather than try to be a minimalist, I want to be a maximalist. I want to see how much a song can handle.” For the songs on Oh Brother, that meant that he decided to continue adding “more observations within the universe” of “Surprise!”, ultimately writing six verses. A similar approach to “King of the Never-Wills,” a ballad about a character suffering from alcoholism, resulted in four verses.
“The economy of songwriting that we’re all taught would buck that,” says Goldsmith. “It would insist that I only keep the very best and shed something that isn’t as good. But I’m not going to think economically. I’m not going to think, ‘Is this self-indulgent?’
Goldsmith’s songwriting has shifted thematically over the years, from more personal, introspective expression to more social commentary and, at times, even satire, in songs like We’re All Gonna Die’s “When the Tequila Runs Out.”
Photo by Mike White
“I don’t abide that term being applied to music. Because if there’s a concern about self-indulgence, then you’d have to dismiss all of jazz. All of it. You’d have to dismiss so many of my most favorite songs. Because in a weird way, I feel like that’s the whole point—self-indulgence. And then obviously relating to someone else, to another human being.” (He elaborates that, if Bob Dylan had trimmed back any of the verses on “Desolation Row,” it would have deprived him of the unique experience it creates for him when he listens to it.)
One of the joys of speaking with Goldsmith is just listening to his thought processes. When I ask him a question, he seems compelled to share every backstory to every detail that’s going through his head, in an effort to both do his insights justice and to generously provide me with the most complete answer. That makes him a bit verbose, but not in a bad way, because he never rambles. There is an endpoint to his thoughts. When he’s done, however, it takes me a second to realize that it’s then my turn to speak.
To his point on artistic self-indulgence, I offer that there’s no need for artists to feel “icky” about self-promotion—that to promote your art is to celebrate it, and to create a shared experience with your audience.
“I hear what you’re saying loud and clear; I couldn’t agree more,” Goldsmith replies. “But I also try to be mindful of this when I’m writing, like if I’m going to drag you through the mud of, ‘She left today, she’s not coming back, I’m a piece of shit, what’s wrong with me, the end’.... That might be relatable, that might evoke a response, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily helpful … other than dragging someone else through the shit with me.
“In a weird way, I feel like that’s the whole point—self-indulgence. And then obviously relating to someone else, to another human being.”
“So, if I’m going to share, I want there to be something to offer, something that feels like: ‘Here’s a path that’s helped me through this, or here’s an observation that has changed how I see this particular experience.’ It’s so hard to delineate between the two, but I feel like there is a difference.”
Naming the opening track “Mister Los Angeles,” “King of the Never-Wills,” and even the title track to his 2015 chart-topper, “All Your Favorite Bands,” he remarks, “I wouldn’t call these songs ‘cool.’ Like, when I hear what cool music is, I wouldn’t put those songs next to them [laughs]. But maybe this record was my strongest dose of just letting me be me, and recognizing what that essence is rather than trying to force out certain aspects of who I am, and force in certain aspects of what I’m not. I think a big part of writing these songs was just self-acceptance,” he concludes, laughing, “and just a whole lot of fishing.”
YouTube It
Led by Goldsmith, Dawes infuses more rock power into their folk sound live at the Los Angeles Ace Hotel in 2023.
Reverend Vernon Reid Totem Series Electric Guitar - Shaman
