Feast your eyes and ears on these 6-string mutants, monsters, and mooncalves—approved by Dr. Frankenstein, but ready to make great music.
The great American journalist Hunter S. Thompson famously said, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." So, heeding an expert's advice, when we went looking for the world's weirdest guitar mods and builds, we turned to the pros—guitarists and builders with an otherness to their aesthetic sensibilities.
We found a sampling of some truly outstanding and uncommon instruments made or modded by a diverse group from the U.S. and abroad, and from urban and rural locales. Some are famous; others obscure. A few are deceased. But all of these axes reflect their highly personal vision of what a guitar can do, or even be. So let's dive into a mind-expanding trip into the world of beautiful fretboard weirdness.
Bo Diddley's Amoeba
Photos by Jonathan Roncolato/Carter Vintage Guitars
Bo Diddley was no stranger to guitar building, but it's hard to find conventionally played guitars stranger than Bo's. This axe's amoeboid shape reminds me of the tentacled menaces from the 1968 science fiction film The Green Slime. Even the color exudes a kind of alien putrescence. And while the neck feels and plays killer, this is, indeed, a spacey beast.
Photos by Jonathan Roncolato/Carter Vintage Guitars
The foundational rock 'n' roll giant built his first truly playable homemade axe in 1945, fashioned from a cigar box, and he continued to build guitars from slabs of wood and whatever crossed his workbench for the rest of his life. He also commissioned creations. One of the more famous is a drum machine with a Fender Stratocaster built into it. The guitar is now M.I.A., but you can find a photo here.
Photos by Jonathan Roncolato/Carter Vintage Guitars
After his clave-based Bo Diddley beat became a staple of rock guitar via a series of hits starting with 1955's "Bo Diddley" and '56's "Who Do You Love?," Bo convinced Gretsch to expand his love of cigar box guitars into a full-sized, rectangular signature model: the famed firebird red G5810. Altogether, there have been seven differently numbered box-like Gretsch Bo Diddley models over the years. The original is featured prominently on the cover of his 1960 LP, Have Guitar Will Travel.
Photos by Jonathan Roncolato/Carter Vintage Guitars
In '59, Diddley induced Gretsch to also make the G6199 Jupiter Thunderbird model—another oddity with a scooped tail and lower end that Diddley requested because he felt the wider body of his Gretsch 3161 got in his way. Its latest iteration is Gretsch's Billy-Bo, based on an example Diddley gifted to Billy Gibbons.
Photos by Jonathan Roncolato/Carter Vintage Guitars
The evidence of Diddley's passion for building and commissioning oddball 6-strings is in photos all over the internet. And it's also now on the wall at Nashville's Carter Vintage Guitars, where the 2001-built amoeba guitar hangs with a $30,000 price tag.
Photos by Jonathan Roncolato/Carter Vintage Guitars
Its lines are less-than-elegantly carved, and the body is plywood with a plywood top that's mounted in place by wood screws. The weight? Well, it seems heavier in my hands than my '68 Les Paul, which comes in at 12 pounds.
Photos by Jonathan Roncolato/Carter Vintage Guitars
Besides the CD player—which works—the other sound sources are a pair of humbuckers and a Roland GK-2A synth pickup. The Lotus neck is key to the guitar's playability, and its tuners hold their ground, making this green alien more functional than might be anticipated.
BO DIDDLEY 1965
Here's Bo Diddley rocking like a damn freight train on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1965, with one of his specially sculpted Gretsch Jupiter Thunderbirds.
Lewis Waters' Harmonic Hot Rods
Harmonic Isolator
Blend a guitar with a celestial choir, a Theremin, chimes and bells, and a synthesizer and you'd be merely approximating the near-mystical tones created by the instruments Lewis Waters builds in Perth, Australia, under the New Complexity name. For nearly a decade, Waters sought to expand the sonic palette of his conventional 6-strings with pedals and amps and extended technique, both solo and in bands. But, as he explains, the sounds he was hearing in his head were calling for something more organic—a fresh take on the instrument itself.
Inspired primarily by the improvising guitarists and instrument creators Hans Reichel and Yuri Landman, Waters was determined to build the guitars he imagined. (Check out Landman's step-by-step instructions for recreating the drone guitar he built for Thurston Moore, in our May 2016 issue.) First, Waters enrolled in a two-year course in woodworking, while continuing his research into pickups, sustainers, tuners, bridges, and other elements essential to his vision. Then, seven years ago, he began simultaneously building two of the guitars he imagined: the Harmonic Master and the Harmonic Isolator. The sounds both make are otherworldly and solidly of the guitar at the same time.
New Complexity - Harmonic Isolator Demo
Harmonic Master
The Harmonic Master has an extended bridge that adds an independently tuned harmonic overlay to the notes played on the instrument's neck. And thanks to a behind-the-bridge pickup, the resonating notes in that independent section can be separately amplified. With two string fields, there's a lot going on, but Waters covers all of it with volume controls for each side of the bridge, a 3-way switch for the standard neck and bridge pickups, three output jacks (for guitar only, harmonic tones only, and a mix of both), and pickups by Lace Sensor. The body and neck woods available for all his guitars are Queensland maple, Tasmanian blackwood, and alder. Plus, the Harmonic Master can be ordered with a tremolo arm.
The Harmonic Isolator is a sonic step up from the Master, thanks to the inclusion of a Sustainiac electronic string sustainer and frets calibrated specifically to encourage harmonic resonance, inspired by the designs of the late and wildly inventive Hans Reichel. Those atypically spaced frets correspond to the notes in the harmonic series.
New Complexity - Harmonic Master Guitar Demo
This guitar has the same three-output-jack array as the Harmonic Master with volume controls for each side of the bridge. There's also an on/off toggle for the Sustainiac and a push/pull control for the device's four modes. In addition to the Sustainiac pickup in the neck slot, there are two Lace Sensor pickups between the guitar's two bridges.
This Reso Harp Special increases the harp portion's string array from the Reso Harp's 10 to a dozen.
Waters' third creation is the Reso Harp, which has an onboard fully tunable string reverb for creating yet another variety of intoxicating soundscapes. Essentially, the string reverb is a mini-harp-like configuration of strings adjacent to the six strings aboard the guitar's neck. Thanks to a Sustainiac, the harp strings can either resonate with the string vibrations generated by playing the instrument conventionally or they can be plucked as their own sound source. Again, there are two volume controls for each side of the central bridge, a 3-way toggle for the standard neck and bridge pickups, the sustainer on/off switch, and the push-pull for its four modes. There are four Lace pickups in all, to cover the guitar and harp portions of the instrument. Also, the Reso Harp has the same three output jacks as its cousins. And it's worth mentioning that Waters makes a hybrid version, blending elements from all three guitars and including a pickup just over the nut, à la Fred Frith.
Demonstration | Harmonic Master Reso Harp Hybrid by New Complexity
Capable of putting out four signals at once, the Harmonic Master Reso Harp has the greatest sonic potential of New Complexity's current offerings.
Reso Verb Prototype
Whether your musical tastes run toward an early gospel-blues blind cave fish like Washington Phillips or an avant modernist like Henry Kaiser, it's obvious a resonating harp offers a lot of potentially interesting textures, tones, and pads onstage and in the studio. So the ceaselessly exploring Waters is about to unveil a standalone version of the string reverb section of the Reso Harp, called the Reso Verb.
It's a box with 10 strings and two pickups—one sustaining—and volume controls for the input and reverb levels. There are input and output jacks, and dials marked treble, bass, and phase. It also has an insertable bridge, so players can create their own harmonic ratios. Heck, you don't even need a guitar to make cool sounds with this box. Any instrument with an output could be plugged into the Reso Verb.
Not surprisingly, New Complexity guitars are labor intensive. It takes Waters 200 to 300 hours to make each one, although he's contemplating ways to create his own version from stock parts in the future. For the average guitarist, getting a handle on playing one of his creations might also require many hours of study and practice. In addition to mastering the two-sided bridge concept and the harp-like approaches required to bring the most from these guitars, tuning is subjective. What's most important, says Waters, is that the harmonic ratios for creating overtones are locked in.
Vaughn Skow's 5-Pickup Frankenstrat
We've all seen Frankenstrats before, but the wall-to-wall pickup configuration on this beast looks like something hatched in one of Kenneth Strickfaden's mad-scientist-movie laboratories. In fact, it was brought to life in Nashville by pickup maker and amp builder Vaughn Skow, who's also got a long resume of sessions, TV work, and production.
"I was worried at one point that a wall of pickups would seriously dampened sustain." —Vaughn Skow
Skow purchased this Japan-made '62 reissue Strat about 15 years ago and started tinkering immediately, although he wasn't its first modder. The guitar came with a roller nut and Sperzel tuners, and, more important, a Seymour Duncan mini-humbucker in the neck slot and a Duncan Hot Rails in the bridge, plus the usual Fender single-coil in the middle. "I started messing with the pickups as soon as I got home, because that's kind of what I do," Skow says. "I like buying guitars that are good, but are already a little messed up so you don't have to worry about doing anything you want to them.
"I liked those pickup flavors, though I missed the honest-to-goodness single-coil sounds of a Strat. But I liked the sound of the Hot Rails, too, because they're a really mid-forward pickup, in the 200 Hz to 400 Hz range. So I decided to put one of my single-coils in next to the Hot Rails. "The body already had an ashtray routing done, so I started thinking about adding a single-coil to the bridge as well," he continues. "The idea became to get as much tonal versatility as possible from a single guitar. I was worried at one point that a wall of pickups would seriously dampen sustain, but then I figured that 3-pickup Les Pauls have a solid wall of pickups from the bridge to the neck, so why not?"
Once all five pickups were in place, Skow swapped the tone control closest to the bridge pickups for a toggle switch. Now, when the guitar's 5-position switch is in the bridge or neck spots, that toggle can activate or deactivate the single-coils. The finishing touch was replacing the Fender bridge with a Wilkinson VS100, and the guitar has been Skow's No. 1 ever since.
Of course, the inveterate experimenter has gone on to many other mods. Recently, he's been in demand among Kay archtop collectors for the minimally invasive pickup install he's developed, and for installing T-style pickups on banjos.
Vaughn Skow 1959 Historic Stratocaster Pickup Set - Jazz
Here's a demo of Vaughn Skow's vintage single-coil Strat-style pickups, which he added to his '62 reissue's three existing pickups.
John Cipollina's Horned Stack and Batwing SG
Photo courtesy of johncipollina.com
The lead guitarist and cofounder of Quicksilver Messenger Service may be the granddaddy of electric-guitar-era mods. By 1965, when the band was emerging as a leading proponent of San Francisco's psychedelic sound—alongside Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the Grateful Dead—John Cipollina was already using a ferocious assembly of combos, heads, and horns to amplify his guitars. And his famed batwing SG—named for its custom pickguard—was wired to send separate signals to bass and guitar amps, so he could cover the sonic waterfront.
His amp setup and the batwing SG were, until recently, on view at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for many years. And they were designed to be inseparable. The stack—a blend of tube and solid-state power—consists of two Standel bass amps, a Fender Twin Reverb, and a Dual Showman head that drove six Wurlitzer horns. Cipollina used a footswitching system for reverb, tremolo, an Astro Echoplex (to the right of the Twin, in the photo), a Standel Modulux vibrato, and the horns. Truck running lights indicated which elements were in use.
"I like the rapid punch of solid-state for the bottom and the rodent-gnawing distortion of the tubes on top." —John Cipollina
Not only the batwing SG, but all of Cipollina's guitars had the split bass/guitar wiring setup. I'm not clear exactly how the wiring worked. Was it bass and guitar pickups in the different slots? Did he simply have specific routing for each pickup? The details at johncipollina.com aren't illuminating and efforts to contact a spokesperson for the late guitarist's legacy were fruitless. Nonetheless, what is clear is that one pickup's signal hit the two Standel bass amps supporting the stack. The other went to the Twin and the Dual Showman, and one of the pickups was reversed.
Cipollina's oft-quoted summation of his setup's strategy is simple: "I like the rapid punch of solid-state for the bottom and the rodent-gnawing distortion of the tubes on top."
Who Do You Love? (1973 B&W) - Quicksilver Messenger Service
With his batwing SG, John Cipollina and Quicksilver Messenger Service go full-tilt psychedelic in this live 1973 performance of Bo Diddley's classic "Who Do You Love?" at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom.
Debashish Bhattacharya's 22-String Slider
At first listen, the Chaturangui sounds like a cross between a slide guitar and a sitar, but its inventor, Debashish Bhattacharya, explains that it is, indeed, a guitar. It certainly looks and plays like one, with a tone bar—albeit a guitar that's grown a multiplicity of strings and some of the sweetest decorative work ever set to an instrument. And the Chaturangui has become a cornerstone in Bhattacharya's pioneering development of the genre of Hindustani slide guitar. It is indisputably a thing of great beauty, sonically and visually.
This 22-string instrument's invention, Bhattacharya says, began gestating when he was 3, after his mother gave him a solid-neck Hawaiian-style lap-slide guitar. "Since then, the lap guitar and me have been inseparable," he says. But the Hawaiian guitar didn't allow the long sustain, swelling overtones, percussive attack, and wide variety of sounds he was hearing from the long-established instruments in the South Asian musical tradition, like the sitar, sarod, violin, and veena. In search of those sounds, he began drawing out plans for the Chaturangui and built his first model at age 15, in 1978. This was not an easy task. "I had to get information on building this instrument in a world where Wikipedia and Google did not exist," he relates.
"The Chaturangui allows me to do at least a dozen things that can't be dreamt of with a 6-string Hawaiian guitar." —Debashish Bhattacharya
Initially, he was rebuked for his invention by both the Indian guitar establishment and the raga community. But as his career progressed, Bhattacharya won an international following for his wildly inventive playing, with John McLaughlin and Jerry Douglas among his fans and collaborators.
The hollowbody Chaturangui has a solid Poma toon neck. The sides and backs are made of mahogany and Poma toon, and the top is Canadian spruce. It sports brass frets and a resonating bridge made of deer horn. The carving on the neck and fretboard are done in yellowwood. Eight strings extend to the headstock. Six are melody strings played with a tone bar and the two on the bottom are used for low, percussive tones.
Two additional strings on the top—set apart from the neck—are plucked for high percussive tones. These are called chikari strings. A dozen sympathetic strings are set apart from the neck on the opposite side from the chikari. These can simply resonate with the melody or be raked. And the neck is scalloped, which allows the microtonal inflections and bends that give the Chaturangui its sitar- and sarod-like qualities.
"The Chaturangui allows me to do at least a dozen things I do, including tone modulation fingerpicking and resonating sounds that can't be dreamt of with a 6-string Hawaiian guitar," says Bhattacharya.
He's remained ceaselessly inventive as both a player and a builder. Nine years after making his first Chaturangui, Bhattacharya modified a Hofner guitar that was a gift from his guru, Ajoy Chakrabarty, into a Chaturangui-like instrument he simply calls a Hindustani slide guitar. And he's planning to debut a new instrument design at the 2019 Calcutta International Classical Guitar Festival on November 30.
Indian Slide Guitar | Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya | Raag Shuddh Sarang | Music of India
Debashish Bhattacharya takes on a traditional Indian raga with his Chaturangui at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall with Yogesh Samsi on tabla and Unnati Dasgupta on tanpura.
Elliott Sharp's Two-Headed Transplants
Elliott Sharp, who was profiled in the April 2019 issue of Premier Guitar, has been a leader in the international cutting-edge music scene for 40 years. The New York City-based virtuoso has also been an inventor of unconventional instruments, largely motivated by necessity, since 1969. He refers to his creations, like the 3-string violinoid and the triple-course bass pantar, as "proof-of-concept prototypes."
"The metal body is the top from a 50-gallon sweeping compound can that I had found while walking through Chinatown." —Elliott Sharp
Two of the most practical and intriguing instruments I've seen Sharp play over the decades are his bass/guitar doublenecks. Sharp explains: "Doubleneck 1 was built to my specs in 1984 by Ken Heer [ of now-gone St. Mark's Music Exchange]. I had been using both bass and guitar in my band I/S/M from 1981 to '83, and then with Carbon from 1983 on, and wanted to combine them."
Sharp determined the hybrid would be compact and headless, with a Schecter Strat neck and a medium-scale Fender Coronado bass neck—both with the headstocks removed. The pickups: a Fender Tele bridge and Strat neck, and a DiMarzio P Bass and J Bass set. There are no volume or tone controls—only 3-way switching for each of the necks with the outputs routed to effects through individual volume pedals. There is also an IVL hexaphonic pickup on the guitar that fed an IVL Pitchrider 7000 guitar-to-MIDI converter through a 13-pin cable, to trigger samples or interface with the interactive composition software, M. The body is laminated rosewood, maple, and mahogany. In 1992, it was painted black by New York City-based producer and guitarist Doug Henderson, who also added the aluminum pickguard and roll bar.
Sharp's Doubleneck 2 was built in 1992 by Henderson. "While I very much liked the bass on Doubleneck 1, the guitar was less centered in its tone, which would be remedied with Doubleneck 2," says Sharp. "The body is African limba with a bird's-eye maple top. Again, a Schecter Strat neck was used, but a Fender Musicmaster bass neck went on the low-end side. Pickups were DiMarzio all around—three Strats plus P and J bass units—and the bass bridge is a massive Wilkinson. The guitar bridge is of unknown origin, but made of brass and very solid. Doug used deck plate for the pickguard. Again, there were no onboard controls except for switching: 5-way on the guitar and 3-way on the bass. The necks were each routed to effects through individual volume pedals. There was no MIDI pickup."
But wait! There's more. Versatile and powerful as they are, these doublenecks are not light. Just look at their slab bodies. "By 1996, the doublenecks—not to mention their associated effects racks—were taking their toll on my back, so I decided to create a compact 8-string extended range instrument," Sharp recounts. That's the Henderson-Greco guitarbass, built to E#'s specs by Henderson and luthier Carlo Greco, who had once been Guild's chief designer. This guitar covers the waterfront with much less real estate. Greco carved a chunky maple neck with an ebony fretboard. Henderson ascribed to Sharp's request for a streamlined V-shaped body made of limba and a bird's-eye maple top. The three pickups are all Bartolini J Bass, for a sound Sharp describes as "very hi-fi." There's a 5-way switch and a volume control, but no tone controls, since Sharp usually does that with his fingers or pedals. The brass bridge was hand-machined by Henderson and stainless-steel Strat saddles were added.
"Although the scale length is 25.5", the bass strings put out some massive low end and the guitar strings have a sweet snap," says Sharp. "For the first few years of its use, I had a trackpad Velcro'd to the body to interface with a computer for triggering samples in the STEIM software LiSa and later for MAX/MSP use."
Among the other unusual instruments in Sharp's arsenal is his doubleneck Arches H-Line, which, like New Complexity's instruments, opens up the harmonic possibilities of guitar and was inspired by the work of Hans Reichel. But perhaps the most novel is the triple-course bass pantar, which Sharp built in 1990 with the help of woodworker Andrew Zev Weinstein.
Once again, Sharp explains: "The metal body is the top from a 50-gallon sweeping compound can that I found while walking through Chinatown. It was fitted to a wooden structure that would also serve as the base for the three fingerboards, salvaged from musical roadkill. All 12 strings were bass strings and they could be tuned to various open scales or chords. The rim of the metal top served as a natural bridge. I had planned to mount magnetic pickups under the strings, but opted instead for a piezo. It may be played standing with a strap or horizontally using mallets to create a wide range of sounds reminiscent of steel drums, marimba, gamelan instruments, and string bass."
Night Music #203 Elliott Sharp
Elliott Sharp plays his Doubleneck 1—also using it to trigger samples—during an appearance on the television series Night Music, hosted by David Sanborn. Check out Sharp's insane tapping, and the wild sounds it creates, at the 2:00 mark.
Super Chikan's 6-String Tone Fryers
Fans of hard-core modern Mississippi blues know Clarksdale's James "Super Chikan" Johnson for his ferocious tone and entertaining, full-throttle live performances. But over the past decade, he's also earned a reputation among collectors and players for the funky guitars he builds. They're essentially playable folk-art, and what's truly strange is that no matter their origins and mismatched parts, they all bark like junkyard dogs when they're plugged in.
Johnson has made 1-string diddley bows and guitars from gas cans, cigar boxes, and even an old shotgun, but my favorite is the 6-string in the photo here. The body is a bedazzled motor housing from an antique ceiling fan. Johnson calls it his Chikantar, and it has a tone that is rude, loud, quick to break up, and—when he gets past the 12th fret—head-slicing, but without losing its corpulent tonality. Maybe that's because, as Johnson once confided, it weighs in at about 20 pounds. It also takes to fuzz pedals like a bird on a caterpillar.
Photo by Bill Steber
Typically Johnson's instruments, including the gas cans he fashions into guitars that are sometimes painted and decorated to look like chickens—a breed of fowl he claims to talk to and control—are much lighter. And in recent years he's also begun to build or reclaim and redecorate solidbody guitars.
A look at the mismatched pickups on the solidbody above reveals his parts-sourcing strategy: anything goes. Johnson scours pawnshops and junk stores and trash heaps for everything from pickups to, well, ceiling fan motor shells, and whatever is available in his workshop when he's building a guitar goes right into the pot, like a fat hen.
Super Chikan | Mississippi Roads | MPB
Super Chikan and his instruments, including the ceiling-fan-motor-bodied Chikantar, are profiled in this segment of Mississippi Public Television's Mississippi Roads series.
[Updated 9/14/21]
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Sterling by Music Man introduces the Joe Dart Artist Series Collection, featuring the Dart I, II, and III basses.
The original Dart I features the Sterling-shaped body with a single humbucker and volume knob. The Dart II, featuring the beloved Ernie Ball Music Man Caprice body, swaps the humbucker fortwo single-coil pickups, each with its own volume knob for precise, hum-free control. Completing the trilogy, the Dart III is a short-scale StingRay bass with a split single-coil pickup and single volume knob.
A blank canvas, the bass collection embodies the no-frills philosophy of the original Ernie BallMusic Man design—everything you need and nothing you don’t. All three basses are equipped with passive electronics, Ernie Ball flatwound strings, and are available in Natural or Black finishes. No tone knobs here.
“Jack Stratton and I are thrilled to team up once again with Sterling by Music Man to build affordable versions of the three best basses I've ever held in my hands. The JoeDart I, II, and III represent three different sounds and feels, three different eras of bass,and three different shades of my own work as a bassist,” said Dart. “The feel of these instruments is incredible, and the quality would be remarkable at any price point.”
This is a special “Timed Edition” release, only available for pre-order on the Sterling by MusicMan website for two months. Each bass is made to order, with the window closing on May 31st and shipping starting in September. The back of the headstock will be marked with a “2025Crop” stamp to commemorate the harvest year for this special, one-of-a-kind release. A gig bag will be included with each purchase.
All basses are priced at $499.00
For more information, please visit sterlingbymusicman.com.
Elliott Sharp is a dapper dude. Not a dandy, mind you, but an elegant gentleman.
The outside-the-box 6-string swami pays homage to the even-further-outside-the-box musician who’s played a formative role in the downtown Manhattan scene and continues to quietly—and almost compulsively—shape the worlds of experimental and roots music.
Often the most potent and iconoclastic artists generate extraordinary work for decades, yet seem to be relegated to the shadows, to a kind of perma-underground status. Certainly an artist like my friend Elliott Sharp fits this category. Yes, his work can be resolutely avant-garde. But perhaps the most challenging thing about trying to track this man is the utterly remarkable breadth of his work.
I am writing this piece for a guitar magazine, so, necessarily, I must serve up info that is guitar-centric. And I can do that, at least a little bit. But Elliott is also a noted composer, runs his own little record label, plays woodwinds proficiently, is a guitar builder/tinkerer, author, gracious supporter of other musicians’ efforts, family man, and killer blues player—a blues scholar, in fact. So where do we, the public, conditioned to needing categories, pigeonholes, and easy assessment signals, put Elliott Sharp—an artist with a powerful work ethic and a long, illustrious career of making mind-bending sounds and conceptual works? How about putting him in the pantheon of the maverick and the multifaceted? Surely this pantheon exists somewhere! In mind, in heart. To those for whom such things resonate and inspire, I bring you Elliott Sharp.
One can obviously go to the information superhighway to find info on Elliott, and to hear his music, so I won’t go into too many details about where he was born (Cleveland) and when (March 1, 1951; as of this writing, Elliott is 74), or what he is best known for (being a crucial figure in the downtown New York City scene from 1979 to the present). He is Berlin Prize winner and a Guggenheim Fellow (among other honors). And I have never asked him what strings and picks he uses, so maybe I have already blown it here. But I realize now, having taken on this assignment, that inherent in writing about and trying to explain Elliott Sharp is an implicit TMI factor. There is so much going on here, so much diverse information that could be imparted, that I would not be the least bit surprised if some readers eventually glaze over a bit and start thinking of their own life’s efforts and goals as rather paltry. I get that! Although you shouldn’t.
E# @NaturalHabitat
Here, now, is my portrait of Elliott, accompanied by what I imagine is a day in the life of Elliott when he’s at home in New York City.
Elliott Sharp is a dapper dude. Not a dandy, mind you, but an elegant gentleman. He, like so many in New York and in the world of music/art/guitar, favors dark-hued clothing (yeah, a preponderance of black) and is most often seen wearing a classic slouch hat of obvious quality. He relocated from Buffalo via Western Massachusetts to lower Manhattan in 1979 to a zone that was, back then, quite treacherously decrepit, in an apartment that offered only an hour or so of heat in the winter, etc., etc. It was cheap, and things were always happening, and, in fact, it was the 1950s domicile of William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac.The area became the nexus of an ever-expanding circle of iconoclastic, experimental artists of many stripes.
Sharp plays what passes for a fairly staid instrument in his collection: a bass and guitar doubleneck, in 1992.
Elliott is still in that building in the East Village, though it is now only his workplace and not his living space. I am trying to remember exactly when I met Elliott, but it was probably about 25 years ago, and he still had only the one small, original apartment and a shared music space in the Garment District. I, like countless others before and after me, stayed in that East Village apartment whenever I needed a place to crash and Elliott was elsewhere, and eventually he was able to secure the next door apartment and expand his space. This is where Elliott Sharp works every day that he is not touring, pretty much 9 to 6. The place is a bit funky and dusty, and it is filled with instruments, amps (some classics, like a mid-’60s Princeton Reverb and a tweed Champ), and other tools accumulated over many decades—in spite of the many times that certain ones had to be sold to keep bread on the table.
When he’s not composing, scoring films, recording other artists, or gigging with the bands he has been in or led for the last several decades (Mofungo, Carbon/Orchestra Carbon, SysOrk, Terraplane, The Bootstrappers, Aggragat), Elliott tinkers with guitars, pedals, mandolins. Elliott is, to me, the king of guitar transformation, and his tinkering is stunningly Frankensteinian as he guts, rebuilds, and alters all kinds of stringed instruments, both electric and acoustic. He recently told me that in the ’60s he built fuzz boxes out of tobacco tins to make money. How cool would it be to have one of those now?? If one does a search on Elliott Sharp, many photos will reveal what I'm talking about: the handcrafted doubleneck he was most often seen playing in the ’80s (there was maybe more than one), 8-string guitars, modified Strat-type guitars with completely different pickups.. He also has a fancy guitar or two, such as his Koll fanned-fret 8-string, upon which he has played many a solo recital. During Covid time,, things were a little slow in the cash-flow department and, as a family man with twins, a little extra income was needed. So Elliott started building really cool-looking guitars out of cheap
ones and parts from wherever and refinishing them in hip and attractive ways and called them Mutantu. He sold them to friends and friends of friends. Yours truly basically only changes strings on his guitars, appealing helplessly to experts to do any kind of work on his guitars and amps, afraid of costly errors. The maverick and multifaceted among us, like Elliott, possess no such fear.
Even a leader in experimental 6-string gets a little guitar face now and then—especially when he’s playing blues.
Photo by Scott Friedlander
So, back to that promised day in the life of Elliott Sharp (as imagined, with some degree of knowledge, by me): It’s early morning, and there is family to contend with. No bohemian lollygagging! So it’s feed the kids breakfast, do what parents must do. Then it’s off to the office (his studio), so Elliott dons a fine gray shirt (is that silk?), dark trousers, coat, and hat, and walks north from the family apartment on nearly the lowest point of eastern Manhattan to the East Village. The traffic and endless refurbishing of the Williamsburg Bridge roars familiarly overhead, the East River flows, and eventually a river of another kind, Houston Street, is crossed. Up the stairs to the fifth floor and the studio door is unlocked. Espresso is made. (There will be more of this.) The computer is turned on. And then ... who knows? Anything could be on the docket, but some sort of work will ensue for a good eight hours. Maybe a new graphic score for a German symphony is in the works (some of these have become visual artworks, too), or maybe it's time to try another mix of that Terraplane track, the one with Elliott’s friend, hero, and inspiration Hubert Sumlin—the one Elliott recorded not long before the famed Howlin’ Wolf guitarist joined his ancestors in the Great Beyond. Or maybe he’s recording a variation on his trio ERR Guitar (where he was originally joined by Marc Ribot and Mary Halvorson), called ERE Guitar Today, with Sally Gates and Tashi Dorji. Could happen—and it did. You can see Elliott’s studio in the ERE Guitar CD booklet.
Or maybe it’s guitar tinkering/building time. Where’s that delightfully chunky neck from China that would be awesome on that fake Tele body that was just refitted with no-name humbuckers (“sounded good once I removed the pickup covers,” Elliott observes) and a resophonic guitar tailpiece? By 5 or 6 it’s time to go home, maybe cook dinner tonight. And then ... my little imagined epic ends with a tasteful cinematic cliché: the dissolve.
The E# Way
Elliott Sharp has techniques that, in some cases, are all his own. No stranger to open tunings, prepared guitar, and other extended techniques, he often utilizes rhythmic, two-hand tapping to create spiraling, hypnotic patterns. His composing over these many years has employed and embraced genetics, Fibonacci numbers, algorithms, and fractal geometry. Though a mathematics and physics know-nothing myself, I see and hear a relationship between these elements as he has applied them to his uncompromisingly avant-garde compositions and these tapping patterns often heard in his solo work. Once he kicks in signal processing, stand back! What one hears sounds like four people (or other species and life forms), and the sensation is exhilarating. Sure, there could also be evidence of (here it comes) skronk (I can't believe I used that word), but Elliott certainly does not reside permanently in that world. Enjoying all kinds of sounds, from the lonesome moan of a resonator guitar to the aleatoric sputterings and squeals of a tormented electric guitar, is something he and I share, after all. Take, for example, two of his latest recordings on his zOaR imprint, Mandorleand Mandocello, which document his solo work on the two instruments, respectively. Both recordings investigate the instruments’ acoustic characteristics before, about half-way through, switching suddenly to electric, ultra-processed sounds. It’s a bracing experience that explains a few things about this man and the breadth of his aesthetic sweep. The sounds bring up images of recombinant DNA (information on which he has also imbued into his work), roiling lava, and the ever-expanding universe. Recommended!
Sharp applies his wicked two-handed-tapping technique to his 8-string, fanned-fret guitar built by Saul Koll.
Photo by Scott Friedlander
So, this might fit into the aforementioned TMI category, but Elliott Sharp puts out a staggering amount of recordings. Every time I see him (which is not often enough), he has a little pile of compact discs for me, often on zOaR. I saw somewhere recently that he has released 165 recordings, but I think there are probably more than that. It’s hard for even the data lords to keep up! But it’s not always Elliott Sharp pieces or improvisation/collaborations on these albums. Other artists whom Elliott knows and respects can be represented, such as Spanish electric guitarist/conceptualizer A. L. Guillén, late bassist/producer Peter Freeman, Italian voice and guitar duo XIPE, or Hardenger fiddle player Agnese Amico—all articulate and singular musicians whom Elliott assists by releasing their music. I am grateful for this. It’s obviously more “work” for Elliott, and he accomplishes it, along with everything else he takes on or imagines doing, with elegant aplomb. Though obviously a nose-to-the-grindstone worker, Elliott is generally low-key and relaxed, even after those espressos.
The last thing I want to write about is Elliott's interpretations of the music of Thelonious Monk. Are you surprised, even after everything else you have just read, that something like that exists? In 2003, Elliott released a solo acoustic guitar recording called Sharp? Monk? Sharp! Monk!, and stunned the world (well, those few who pay attention to such things). However, my first exposure to Elliott's Monk interpretations was the more recent Monkulations, expertly recorded live in Vienna in 2007. (You can hear it on Bandcamp). These recordings are, justifiably I suppose, controversial in certain corners, because they do not adhere to Monk's exact written particulars note-for-note. Yet the mood, gestures, rhythmic wonders, and even the harmonic depth of Thelonious Monk often emerges, and frequently in astonishing ways. I understand why some would take issue with this approach because it departs significantly from the jazz tradition, but I find it remarkably fresh, bold, and so delightfully E#. They reveal an aspect of Elliott’s thinking and playing that is surprising in some ways, but also so him. It is clear to me that Elliott has seriously examined and internalized Monk’s repertoire.
Spring(s) in the garden: Sharp can use just about any tool in his improvisations.
Photo by Norman Westberg
Elliott is an artist who plays more than one instrument, plays them all in unique, startling, and often innovative ways, composes rigorous conceptual works from chamber music to operas, makes electronic music with no guitar, plays mean blues guitar like a swamp rat, authors books (I highly recommend his mostly memoir IrRational Music, and a second book is emerging this fall), builds and modifies guitars and other devices, is stunningly prolific, and is an elegant gentleman. The planet is a better place with him and his work in it. The maverick and multifaceted often have a rough road to tread, as we all know. So check out Elliott Sharp's vast world if any of this seems interesting to you. Thanks, Elliott!
YouTube
Watch Elliott Sharp and Marc Ribot deliver a masterclass in free improvisation at Manhattan’s Cornelia Street Café in 2010—Sharp’s two-handed tapping and slide playing included.
Elliott Sharp’s Favorite Gear
This doubleneck guitar accompanied Sharp on many of his ’80s performances and is one of his earlier experimental instruments, as is this 8-string.
Road
Guitars
• Strandberg 8-string Boden
• 1996 Henderson-Greco 8-string
Amp
• Fender Deluxe Reverb or black-panel Twin Reverb (depending on size of venue)
• Trace-Elliot bass amp w 4x10 cabinet
(live rig uses both amps, run in stereo)
Effects
• Eventide H90 w/ Sonicake expression pedal
• Sonicake Fuzz
• Hotone Komp
• Hotone Blues
• TC Electronic Flashback 2
• VSN Twin Looper
Accessories
• Slides, EBows, springs, metal rods and strips, small wooden and ceramic square plates
Home
Guitars
• 1946 Martin OO-18 acoustic guitar
• 2006 Squier 51 (Sharp explains: “On New Year's Day 2007, I took the twins down to the East River in their stroller. They were 15 months old and knew a few words. As we rolled along, they started shouting “guitar, guitar,” and, sure enough, sticking out of a garbage can was a black Squier 51 that someone had attempted to ritually sacrifice. Brought it home and cleaned it, and it’s become a favorite couch guitar.”)
Obviously, any sound that emerges from the Triple-Course Bass Pantar is likelly to be interesting.
Studio
Guitars and stringed instruments
• Fender 1994 ’50s Telecaster built from a Fender-offered kit
• Mutantum lime green metalflake Strat w/Seymour Duncan Little ’59 pickups
• Mutantum solidbody “manouche” Strat w/classical neck
• Saul Koll custom 8-string
• Rick Turner Renaissance Baritone
• 1966 Epiphone Howard Roberts
• 1965 Harmony Bobkat
• 1984/’96 Heer-Henderson Doubleneck
• 1956 Gibson CF-100 acoustic guitar
• 1968 Hagstrom H8 8-string bass
• Mutantum Norma fretless electric
• Godin Multiac Steel Duet
• 2001 Dell’Arte Grande Bouche
• 1958 Fender Stringmaster 8-string console steel guitar
• 1936 Rickenbacker B6 lap steel
• 1950s Framus Nevada Mandolinetto
• Mutantum Electric Mandocello
• Arches H-Line
• Triple-Course Bass Pantar
Amps
• 1966 Fender black-panel Princeton Reverb
• 1980 Fender 75 (Per Sharp: “Cut down to a head and modded by Matt Wells into a Dumble-ish monster! For recording, it plugs into a 1x10 cab with a Jensen speaker or a Hartke Transporter 2x10 cab
• 1970 Fender Bronco
• 1960 Fender tweed Champ modded by Matt Wells
Effects and Electronics
• Vintage EHX 16-Second Delay w/foot controller
• Eventide H3000
• Eventide PitchFactor
• Lexicon PCM42
• ZVEX Fuzz Factory
• Summit DCL-200 Compressor Limiter
• SSL SiX desktop
• Prescription Electronics Experience
• Zoom Ultra Fuzz
• Korg MS-20 analog synthesizer
• Korg Volca Modular synthesizer
• Make Noise 0-Coast synthesizer
• Moog Moogerfooger Ring Modulator
• Moog Moogerfooger Low-Pass Filter
• Softscience Optical Compressor (for DI recording, custom made by Kevin Hilbiber)
Strings
• Ernie Ball Regular Slinky (.010–.046) or Power Slinky (.011–.048), for conventional guitar.
Growing up in Australia, guitarist Jedd Hughes tells us he dreamed of playing in Vince Gill’s band as far back as elementary school. Now, he lives in Nashville and stands next to the man himself on stage night after night. We’ve invited Jedd to join us on this episode of 100 Guitarists to talk about just what makes Vince’s playing so special.
Jedd tells us how his dream came true and how he first started playing with Vince. We dig deep into how everybody’s favorite country guitarist raises the bar every time he picks up the guitar, how he gets his amazing clean tone, and we take time to appreciate all aspects of his solos—including how he builds them and how he plays such clean bends. As for why his concerts are so long? “He loves to play.”
In our current listening segment, we’re covering the Black Crowes and Jimmy Page’s Live at the Greek box set and a live recording from Burlington, Vermont’s Breathwork.
This episode is sponsored by EMG Pickups.
Martin Guitar is celebrating 30 years of collaboration with Eric Clapton with the release of two special anniversary guitars—the 000-42EC 30th Anniversary and the 000-EC 30th Anniversary.
Eric’s legendary 1992 MTV Unplugged performance sparked a resurgence in acoustic music and inspired the creation of Martin’s first Eric Clapton signature model, the 000-42EC, in 1995. Over the past three decades, his partnership with Martin has produced some of the most sought-after signature guitars in the company’s history.
000-42EC 30th Anniversary
Inspired by the 1939 000-42 he played during Unplugged, the 000-42EC 30th Anniversary is limited to just 300 instruments. It features a solid Adirondack spruce top with antique toner and solid Guatemalan rosewood back and sides for rich, vintage-inspired tone. Golden Era-inspired Adirondack spruce X-bracing enhances resonance and projection, while the Authentic 1939 neck shape with a 1 11/16" nut width provides a comfortable, pre-war feel.
Details like Golden Era 42-style snowflake inlays, Waverly open-gear tuners, and a vintage gloss finish complete the look. Each guitar includes a paper label hand-signed by Eric, a printed certificate of authenticity, and a premium embroidered Harptone case with a matching shroud exclusive to this model.
Price: $10,999.
000-EC 30th Anniversary
For players seeking a more understated nod to Eric’s sound, the 000-EC 30th Anniversary is available only through March 2026. It features a solid spruce top and solid East Indian rosewood back and sides for a balanced, resonant tone. The same Authentic 1939 neck shape and 1 11/16" nut width provide a comfortable feel, while the herringbone-trimmed top, antique white binding, and Golden Era 42-style snowflake inlays deliver a refined look.
Each 000-EC 30th Anniversary guitar includes a paper label with Eric’s pre-printed signature and a certificate of authenticity. It also comes in a premium embroidered case.
Price: $3,999.
Eric’s relationship with Martin began in 1995 with the introduction of the original 000-42EC, which sold out almost immediately. The 000-28EC, introduced in 1996, remains one of Martin’s best-selling models. Over the years, he and Martin have collaborated on a range of limited editions, most recently a trio of Dreadnoughts released in 2023 to benefit the Crossroads Centre, the addiction recovery center he founded in 1998.
In addition to his signature guitars, Eric also personally endorses Clapton’s Choice Signature Strings—his go-to acoustic strings for both stage and studio. Designed to resist corrosion and deliver the legendary sound he demands, they’re available in light and medium gauges.
“If I could choose what to come back as, it would be a Martin OM-45,” Eric has said, underscoring his deep connection to Martin guitars and their enduring sound.
Learn more about these guitars and other new Martin guitars, strings, accessories, lifestyle products, and parts at martinguitar.com.