Telecasters and offsets dominate Division of Laura Lee’s guitar landscape, with an early-2000s Fender Tele Custom (middle, with Black Flag sticker) being Stålberg’s main guitar (he uses its Rio Grande bridge pickup exclusively). His other current go-to is a stock Squier J Mascis Jazzmaster, while the 1978 Greco Les Paul Standard copy (behind the Tele) was a staple of early DOLL tunes. Stålberg’s main amp is a Fender Super-Sonic head. Meanwhile, Victor Lager’s main guitars are a couple of Fender Jazzmasters (right), and his favorite amp is a ’90s Fender Tone Master head.
As a studio owner, Stålberg has all sorts of gear on hand for recording, but for DOLL he relies on a handful of time-proven pedals: a TC Electronic PolyTune, a Fulltone OCD, a Way Huge Swollen Pickle fuzz, a Boss RE-20 Space Echo, an ’80s Ibanez DL10 Delay, an MXR Micro Amp, and a Gollmer ’60s Trem from Sweden.
Lager’s main axe for the last two decades has been a black early-2000s Fender Jazzmaster with Seymour Duncan Antiquity II pickups and a Staytrem bridge (left). To avoid accidental switching, he has deactivated both the upper-bout rhythm circuit and the main circuit’s tone control. His most recent acquisition is a blue Fender American Original ’60s Jazzmaster (right) that he upgraded with a Mastery bridge.
Functioning more as the band’s soundscapist, Lager has more stomps than Stålberg—and more adventuresome ones, too. He tunes with a D’Addario Chromatic Pedal Tuner, then runs into a Jim Dunlop Cry Baby wah, an MXR Booster Mini (out of sight behind the wah), a Hamstead Soundworks Odyssey, an MXR Phase 95, an Electro-Harmonix POG, an MXR Carbon Copy Deluxe, a Red Panda Particle, a Tru-Fi Colordriver, an Electro-Harmonix Oceans 11 Reverb, a modified ’90s Pro Co RAT, and a Walrus Audio Monument.
Lager’s main guitar for his previous band, this 1973 Fender Tele Custom, is unusual in that it features a rosewood (rather than maple) fretboard.
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D'Addario XT Strings:https://www.daddario.com/XTRR
The body shape of this 6-string seems surprisingly ergonomic, but that perception changes when you hold its neck!
And so it goes that I pondered this proliferation of Virgos and Libras, and my hypothesis came into focus. Were we all the result of our parents’ Christmas and New Year’s celebrations?! I have to say, there was a camaraderie discovered among my fellow party babies when I presented my findings to them. Now, being born in the early ’70s also had me thinking of the culture of the times. Hippie life was fading as young people started to realize they had to get a job, and alas, long hair and beards were being replaced by staid 9-to-5 gigs that could slowly suck the life out of you. So, given the cultural mores of that era, I thought that this month I should write about the Sorrento Swinger.
“Hippie life was fading as young people started to realize they had to get a job.”
Born around 1967—maybe in September—these Swingers hailed from the “crazy” design period of the Kawai Co. Kawai produced some of the coolest guitar designs from 1967 to ’69, and there were some very creative guitar designers there on the job. Kawai had poached some of the finest employees from the wreckage of the Shinko Gakki factory (Pleasant, Intermark, etc.) and through the purchase of the Teisco brand. In this era, Kawai usually used three different standard pickups and they all sound great, plus the units are always wired in series, which is just awesome.
For a 25-buck, Japan-made guitar from the ’70s, the Swinger has an elite-looking headstock—and, on this example, most of its tuners.
Now, the Swinger (and similar Kawai-made guitars) came from an era where U.S. importers would order small batches of instruments that were often unique and extremely gonzo. The guitars might have been destined for medium-sized music stores or direct-order catalogs, but whatever the case, the importer usually gave the guitars names. In this instance, it was Jack Westheimer who featured this model as an “exclusive” design. In Westheimer Corporation catalogs from the time, the Swinger carried the A-2T model name (there was another one-pickup model called the A-1) and sold wholesale for $25 in 1967! As the catalog mentioned, these were “priced for the teenaged trade.” This particular guitar featured the Sorrento badge, and was sold through some sort of music store that’s probably long out of business, but all the Swingers were the same.
The Swinger’s large mahogany neck (sans truss rod) is robust and beefy in all the nicest ways. Like, when I was a kid, I was considered a “husky” fit. That’s this neck: husky! The striped pickguard is a Teisco holdover and the controls are as simple as it gets. Two knobs (volume, tone) and two pickup selectors is all there is, but the beauty is in the body. That lower bout is shaped like some sort of 1969 lounge chair. The strap pin is totally in the wrong place, but the big bottom swoop is worth it. Yep, the Swinger was ready to bring in the dawn of the 1970s, but alas, the guitar came and went in a blink.