Waiting for the house lights
to go down, I noticed
that the neck humbucker on
my guitar had dropped into the
body. Vibration had loosened
the adjustment screw on one
side, and when the pickup’s
mounting leg had reached the
bottom, the pickup just fell in.
Panic stricken, I fumbled with
the screw only to realize the
internal tension spring wouldn’t
allow me to re-thread the adjuster.
With only seconds before
show time, I did the only thing
I could think of. Tearing the
cover off a pack of cardboard
matches, I fashioned a folded
wedge and stuffed it between
the pickup cover and the surrounding
bezel—jamming my
pickup into a stationary position.
Luckily, it held for the set.
I’ve had a few such episodes
during my tenure as both a
guitarist and guitar maker, and
I’m not alone. Almost every
musician or tech I meet has
stories about improvised fixes.
Sometimes a simple solution
can be the source of a feature
adapted by a guitar builder—or
an entire company. I call them
MacGyver moments and here
are a few of my favorites.
Alan Rogan, guitar tech to
some of the most iconic players
in history, such as Neil Young,
Keith Richards, and Peter
Townshend (the undisputed
king of catastrophic gear failure),
tells a tale similar to mine.
Townshend has a well-known
habit of using his guitar as a
percussion instrument—banging
on the face of the guitar
with the heel of his hand, boot,
or whatever suits his fancy.
More than a few times, he’s
driven a pickup straight down
into the guitar as a result. And
if it’s a pickguard-mounted
unit, the screw usually takes a
large portion of the guard with
it. Alan’s remedy is cutting a
plastic 9V battery cap in half,
spearing it with the screw, and
re-threading it into the pickup.
Rogan says a guitar pick is
another option, if you don’t
have a battery cap handy.
Less specialized—but one of
the most obvious and ubiquitous
fixes—is the practice of looping
your cable through the strap.
Just surf chronologically through
live videos on YouTube, and
I’m certain you’ll find the exact
moment guitarists got tired of
getting shut down by stepping
on their cords and invented this
fix. The “curly” cord may be an
intermediate step, but if you’re
still going unplugged by accident,
take note.
Sean Beresford cites temperature
as an often-overlooked
gremlin. Both a tech and a
studio engineer, Beresford has
had long stints with Living
Colour, Lou Reed, Third Eye
Blind, and a host of others. He
has quite a story about Lou
Reed storming offstage in a
fury when a rackmount guitar
synthesizer decided to bust out
solo. “About halfway through
the song,” Beresford winces, “the
synth started playing these wild
and random arpeggios all by
itself—and not remotely in the
same key as the music. I don’t
really remember how we made
it through the remainder of the
show—I’d rather forget it.” A
frantic rewiring of the entire
rack during the show failed to
bust the ghost in the machine,
so Beresford contacted the manufacturer
the next day and was
told the main microprocessor
was particularly sensitive to heat.
The short-term fix? The synth
spent the rest of the tour sitting
on top of the rack with a small
fan blowing into it. The lesson
and tip is to pay attention to the
temperatures in your equipment
cabinets—rackmounted or not.
If it’s hot in the venue, get a fan
to blow on your gear.
Sometimes a small thing
can be a big solution. Gavin
Menzies, currently Joe
Bonamassa’s tech, shares this
great tidbit. If a screw hole gets
stripped and needs a quick fix,
inserting part of a wound guitar
string into the hole and replacing
the screw is a much more
permanent solution than glue
and toothpicks. With that said,
Bonamassa recently added a
vintage 1959 sunburst Les Paul
to his live show stable—Gavin
knows better than to fix this
guitar with halfway measures!
Although not really a fix,
covered pickups deserve an
honorable mention. There
was a time when every pickup
had a cover, but some hotshot
(probably Jeff Beck) decided
to remove the metal lid from
his guitar’s humbucker. The
reasoning for the popularity
of removal isn’t exactly clear,
though it was probably like taking
the hood off a 1932 Ford
hot rod. Almost overnight, covered
pickups became as uncool
as saddle shoes and golf shirts.
I imagine the extra groove factor
was viewed as an upgrade,
though some players claimed to
be able to hear the difference.
Manufacturers of aftermarket
pickups were certainly happy
and willing to skip the expense
of making the metal parts,
but like the fashion industry,
something cyclical happened.
As dead-stock vintage guitars
became desirable and their
prices soared, covers became
cool again.
If you’re a touring player on
a budget, these simple remedies
can be inexpensive lifesavers.
But if you are a big-time stadium
draw, your fixes may end
up being more elaborate. One
fail-safe apparatus is having a
seasoned, pro guitar tech that is
also a musician. Jim Survis has
been employed by Kiss, Jimmy
Page, Aerosmith, and is currently
with Slash. He recalled
a time when Joe Perry ran out
on Aerosmith’s stage extensions
at the end of their encore
song, “Draw the Line.” Perry
threw down his Lucite Dan
Armstrong guitar (in open A
tuning), removed his shirt, and
began whipping the strings with
it. Unfortunately, the fall to the
stage had shattered the plug
on the wireless and the guitar
was dead. Thinking quickly,
Survis switched on Perry’s spare
guitar. “I watched him closely
and timed it perfectly,” Survis
recalls. “I strummed in time to
his windmills.” As Perry lifted
the guitar and ended the song
using his bottleneck, Survis
mimicked his every move. Later,
when Survis told Perry what
happened, he was shocked.
Perry hadn’t even realized anything
was wrong. Sometimes
it’s good to have a MacGyver
who can play on your payroll,
but for the rest of us, a sense of
humor will have to do.
Jol Dantzig is a
noted designer, builder,
and player who co-founded
Hamer Guitars,
one of the first boutique
guitar brands, in 1973.
Today, as the director of
Dantzig Guitar Design, he continues to
help define the art of custom guitar. To
learn more, visit guitardesigner.com.