Performance Guitar has served rockers since the sixties, from Frank Zappa to Warren DeMartini
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I eventually figured out that Performance Guitar was the place where some of my favorite guitarists got their gear modifications and custom guitars made. I remember reading interviews with artists like Frank Zappa, Warren DeMartini and Steve Vai, who dropped the name of guitar builder Kuni Sugai in reference to their custom guitars. When I later moved to Los Angeles, I made it a point to go on a mission to investigate this place for myself.
The first time I visited the Performance shop was back in the early nineties. At the time, they were located in the upper section of Hollywood right near the corner of Yucca and Vine. You could see the Capital Records building right across the street and infamous B movie film director Ed Wood used to rent an apartment just down the street. It was a small shop with lots of activity and the smell of fresh cut wood. The walls were adorned with custom guitar prototypes that looked like the kind of stuff Steve Vai was using with Frank Zappa and David Lee Roth.
Unpainted traditional Strat and Tele bodies hung from the ceiling and the front counter was stocked full of every kind of guitar pickup imaginable. Photographs were posted everywhere with unknown players and celebrities alike grinning and holding custom guitars built by Performance. Seeing rock stars wearing street clothes and having amateur photos taken of them holding their new custom instrument, gave the shop an unpretentious appeal. You could say I was pretty much in guitar heaven. It got even better when on subsequent visits Iād walk in and hang out to wait my turn behind guys like Paul Gilbert and Michael Schenker. Performance Guitar was and is the place to be.
Tokyo-born Kuni Sugai has been making hand-built custom guitars and basses since the early 1960s. He started Performance Guitar out of his garage and later built a company with a roster of clients that includes some of the biggest names in the music industry.
Sugai worked very closely with Frank Zappa for fifteen years right up until the artist's death in 1993. During his illness Zappa confided in him. āI am very sick and I need three kinds of doctors; one for my health, the second for my recording studio and third is you as my guitar doctor.ā Sugai and Zappa were friends and business associates who learned much from each other. It was from this relationship that Sugaiās reputation as a great custom guitar builder was spread by word of mouth.Ā He became very popular among artists such as Warren Cuccurullo, Steve Vai, Warren DeMartini and Joe Walsh.
Sugaiās products and workmanship is grounded in the exemplary Japanese traditions of a strong work ethic, quality and consistency. Heās a humble, quiet gentleman with a thick Japanese accent and a no nonsense temperament. Sugai doesnāt take shit from anybody and is known for getting things done. His guitars and basses provide a seamless conduit between the musician and the creation of great music. Many of the hardest-to-please professional musicians have given Performance Guitar the "thumbs up." On stages the world over, their custom guitars and basses play with the perfection that Performance Guitar is known for.
Hit page 2 for our interview with Sugai.
How did this all begin?
I started making guitars when I was fifteen years old. At that time I couldnāt buy a guitar. A friend of mine had a Japanese Guyatone or a Teisco. At that time Japanese guitars were of poor quality. A professional player couldnāt use them. A beginner or an intermediate player could use them. I wanted to learn to play, but I couldnāt buy one, so I made a guitar myself [Laughs].
What kind of music did you play?
I wanted to play The Shadows and Cliff Richard.
What was your first good guitar?
The second or third guitar I made was a high quality guitar. Japanese professional players couldnāt buy Fender or Gibson. The price was really high and not many music stores carried Fender or Gibson. In the early sixties there were maybe only one or two stores in Tokyo that carried those. Lots of American artists would come to Japan to perform and later sell their American guitars in music stores or pawnshops.
What was your first American guitar?
When I was seventeen I bought a Fender Jazzmaster. Back then a Jazzmaster cost the same as a Yamaha upright piano [laughs]. I joined a country western band, like Buck Owens & His Buckaroos. Thatās how I met Randy Meisner. He was the first bass player for The Eagles and used to play with Buck Owens and Ricky Nelson. He came to Tokyo with Buck Owens; at the time the security in Tokyo wasnāt so tight and through some connections I got backstage. The Buckaroos were a great band.
How did you become a guitar builder?
A friend of mine had a Fender and I took a look at it. I figured I could make something close. My father had a lot of tools and machine tools. He also had paint, so I figured I could make one at home. I made a violin when I was nineteen. I still have it.
The first guitar I made was a copy of a Jazzmaster, and it sounded very good. I had other friends who were professional players. When they saw the Jazzmaster I made, they asked me to make guitars for them. Soon other bands heard about me through word of mouth and I started making guitars for them. I also built amplifiers. You couldnāt get Marshall or Fender amps in Tokyo back then so I built amps in that style. I also built high-wattage amps. I built forty-eight amps for local bands.
Yamaha later hired you. What did you do for them?
I was a technician for Yamaha because I was one of the few people who could work on both guitars and amps. Also, the guitar factory was far away from Tokyo and I lived in Tokyo. I was the liaison between the factory and Tokyo. I did repairs and modifications for guitars, amps and keyboards. This was from 1968 to the early seventies. I left Yamaha to come to America to become a student at pilot school, then I got my pilotās license. By the time I came to America I had a background in guitar and amp building as well as car and aircraft mechanics.
You later got hired by Fender, how did that come about?
In 1971 I tried to get a job at Fender but they wouldnāt hire me because they didnāt know who I was [laughing]. There were a lot of people waiting in line to get hired at Fender. My resume wasnāt good enough, so I got a job at Van Nuys airport as an aircraft mechanic. In 1975 I met a guy who was a foreman for the Fender service center. Between him and a contact that I knew in Japan, I was eventually hired by Fender. I was an advisor who was the liaison between Fender Japan and Fender America. Fender imported guitars and parts and I knew the Japanese market well. I did market research for new models, supervised construction and worked on the Fender āFā-Series acoustic guitars. I was at Fender for eight years.
When did you start Performance Guitar?
I started Performance Guitar part time while I was still working at Fender. That was for four years. I started out working from my garage. It wasnāt everyday. I had to eventually quit Fender to build the company.
Who were your early clients?
One of my first clients was Andrew Gold. He was a big songwriter and played with Linda Ronstadt. He wanted a custom guitar that looked like a Rickenbacker but sounded like a Stratocaster.
How did you do that?
We made the neck so that it was Fender scale and made the inside of the pickups like Stratocaster-style single coils. The body looked exactly like a Rickenbacker guitar.
How did you build your client base?
At that time we were located near the corner of Yucca and Vine in Hollywood.
I guess it didnāt hurt that you had a big sign that said āPerformance Guitarā [laughing].
[Laughing] Right. At that time there were many discos and lots of live music in Hollywood. Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights were very busy. Musicians would drop by because they always needed repairs. Johnny Graham and Al McKay of Earth Wind & Fire were clients. I made a custom Stratocaster for Johnny Graham and I made lots of modifications and repairs for them. Jazz guitar player Gabor Szabo came in to have repairs done as well. He was a great player. I loved his style.
What makes Performance Guitar different from other custom builders?
The basic design of Gibson and Fender were good, but there were small things that werenāt so good. We use heavy-duty truss rods and our necks have a flat radius. We also select the best wood thatās completely dry and aged with good grain. Leo Fender was a machinist. He didnāt play guitar but he had great ideas. When we assemble a guitar, every detail is very important. The bridge location, alignment and the angle of the nut is very important. Other than that I have secrets that I cannot tell you.
Secrets?
Yes. Secret and confidential [Laughing]. We also make our own pickups and special shielding and noise protection. We have a lot of experience geared for professional players. We give them exactly what they want.
Frank Zappa was a great musician. I learned a lot from his ideas. I first spoke to him when he called me and said he was going to be touring and recording. I was very busy but he told me to come to his studio to get some of his guitars. I thought he wanted me to repair one or two guitars. I picked up twelve or thirteen guitars! This was in 1981 or 1982. He wanted them back right away because he was recording and was going on tour. We took care of his guitars right up until he passed away in 1993. He recommended me to his musicians and we became even busier.
Is that how you met Steve Vai?
Yes. Steve Vai was in Frank Zappaās band. Warren DeMartini visited Frank Zappaās studio, saw my guitars and the next day he came here and wanted us to make him a guitar. Warren Cuccurullo became a client as well.
Frank Zappa had a lot of musicians coming in and out of his band. That must have been great for business.
Yes. His sons Ahmet and Dweezil would come here too. Also Billy Sheehan. Heās a bass player, but he really plays guitar. He use to have a lot of damage to his basses on tour and we would fix them. I also built Tom Morelloās [Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, The Nightwatchman] guitar with the special toggle switch on the lower horn. I built it with a Stratocaster body and a Performance Corsair neck. I built my first guitar with a toggle switch like that on a Stratocaster in 1966.
Did Frank Zappa have any specific requirements for his guitars?
He said he didnāt want all his guitars to do the same things. He needed each guitar to have a different character. We made a special effect in one of his guitars. It was a Stratocaster-style guitar with a built-in flanger. He always wanted creative sounds. He hired a music tech, but the tech couldnāt do it. When we made it he was very satisfied. We also built a preamp boost into some of his guitars.
The first guitar I built for Warren DeMartini was in 1984. It was the black Corsair. In 1985 I made the snakeskin guitar that Warren plays. Country players used to have something similar with leather. Warren didnāt want the first version because it was only covered with snakeskin on the top. I took one day to think about it and figured out a way to cover the entire body with snakeskin without the seams. Heās been playing this guitar for more than twenty years now.
Joe Walsh still comes in to get work done on his guitars too. He gets all his guitars free from companies like Gibson and Fender but he doesnāt use them right away. He brings them here and we make modifications. He likes big frets so we make all his modifications.
I came in your store once and saw Michael Schenkerās flying V. What did he have done?
We made a custom guitar for him. The Gibson necks are weak and he needed a strong neck. He asked us to make a heavy duty flying V for him and he was very happy.
It sounds like you fix all the mistakes that the big guitar companies make. What are some of the strange requests youāve had for building a custom guitar?
A client wanted a guitar in the shape of an axe. Another client wanted a guitar that looked like a keyboard. These were local players.
I like that your customers feel like theyāre part of the building process.
We have a big difference in the way we make guitars than other companies. We take the order in the front of our office and can start building it in back. Many custom shops donāt do that. After they take the order they have to order the parts. Then they have to send it somewhere else to have it assembled. They send it somewhere else again to do the paint. We can do everything right in the back.
It depends on the model, but if itās an easy job we can have it done in a couple of months. The more complicated jobs take longer. Our customers are very happy. We also make our own pickups and our own parts. Our most popular model is called the PG-10, which is a custom single coil old-fashioned type pickup. We also have a humbucking pickup called the PG-50. Itās like a PAF with more bite. Many studio musicians are very satisfied. Theyāre traditional sounding pickups with new technology. Traditional pickups donāt have enough bite and are noisy. My pickups have noise protection, more output and a bigger bite. Warren DeMartini uses the PG-10 in the neck position of his guitars.
I also add metal sustain blocks to Floyd Rose guitars to increase sustain and warmth. About fifteen years ago Warren DeMartini wanted to know why the Floyd Rose guitars lose high end and sustain. I cut out a thick block for him made from a church bell and attached it to back of his Floyd Rose. He was very surprised. The increased mass from the metal increased the sustain in his guitar.
Tell me about your flagship guitar.
Itās the Performance Corsair. Itās a little bit more pointy and 15 percent smaller than a standard Stratocaster. The deeper cutaway on the lower horn also allows for better access to the higher frets. Warren DeMartini plays that model. The pickup configuration and type of wood is up to the customer but the body shape is the same. The standard version comes in alder but Warren has models made from koa and mahogany.
You named your flagship model guitar after your favorite fighter plane āThe Corsair,ā whatās your other favorite fighter plane from World War II?
My favorite is the P-51 and the Corsair.
For more information:
Performance Guitar
Framus Hootenanny Re-Issue Guitars: John Lennonās Favorite Reimagined | PG Plays
Join PG contributor Tom Butwin as he explores all-new versions of the Framus Hootenanny 12-string and 6-string acousticsāmade famous by John Lennon and now available with modern upgrades. From vintage-inspired tone to unique features, these guitars are built to spark creativity.
Neil Youngās ā70s hits are some of the most recognizable radio rock jams of all time. But Neilās guitar playing continued to grow over the ensuing decades, as he traversed styles from blues to country to electronic to rockabilly and beyond, eventually developing one of the most tonally decadent, fully formed improvisational voices in the entire guitar universe.
Neil Youngās ā70s hits are some of the most recognizable radio rock jams of all time. But Neilās guitar playing continued to grow over the ensuing decades, as he traversed styles from blues to country to electronic to rockabilly and beyond, eventually developing one of the most tonally decadent, fully formed improvisational voices in the entire guitar universe.
Like any discography thatās been growing over the course of more than half a century, it can be hard to decode Youngās work. And with such an adventurous spirit, it could be easy to make some missteps and miss out on his best guitar works. In this episode, Nick guides Jason through some of his heroās finest moments.
More news from Neil always seems to be on the horizon, so hereās your chance to catch up.
This episode is sponsored by Gibson.
This Japan-made Guyatone brings back memories of hitchinā rides around the U.S.
This oddball vintage Guyatone has a streak of Jack Kerouacās adventurous, thumbing spirit.
The other day, I saw something I hadnāt noticed in quite some time. Driving home from work, I saw an interesting-looking fellow hitchhiking. When I was a kid, āhitchersā seemed much more common, but, then again, the world didnāt seem as dangerous as today. Heck, I can remember hitching to my uncleās cabin in Bradford, Pennsylvaniaāhome of Zippo lightersāand riding almost 200 miles while I sat in a spare tire in the open bed of a pickup truck! Yes, safety wasnāt a big concern for kids back in the day.
So, as Iām prone to do, I started digging around hitchhiking culture and stories. Surprisingly, there are organized groups that embrace the hitching life, but the practice remains on the fringe in the U.S. Back in the 1950s, writer Jack Kerouac wrote the novel On the Road, which celebrated hitchhiking and exposed readers to the thrill of maverick travel. Heck, even Mike Dugan (the guitarist in all my videos) hitched his way to California in the 1960s. But seeing that fellow on the side of the road also sparked another image in my brain: Yep, it always comes back to guitars.
Let me present to you a guitar thatās ready to go hitching: the Guyatone LG-180T, hailing from 1966. The āthumbs-upā headstock and the big āthumbā on the upper bout always made me think of thumbing a ride, and I bought and sold this guitar so long ago that I had forgotten about it, until I saw that hitchhiking dude. Guyatone was an interesting Japanese company because they were primarily an electronics company, and most of their guitars had their wooden parts produced by other factories. In the case of the LG-180T, the bodies were made by Yamaha in Hamamatsu, Japan. At that time, Yamaha was arguably making the finest Japanese guitars, and the wood on this Guyatone model is outstanding. We donāt often see Guyatone-branded guitars here in the U.S., but a lot of players recognize the early ā60s label Kentāa brand name used by an American importer for Guyatone guitars.
With a bit of imagination, the LG-180Tās āthumbs upā headstock seems to be looking for a roadside ride.
Kent guitars were extremely popular from the early ā60s until around 1966. The U.S. importer B&J fed the American need for electric guitars with several nice Kent models, but when the Guyatone contract ended, so did most of the Kent guitars. After that, Guyatone primarily sold guitars in Japan, so this example is a rare model in the U.S.
āUnless you are a master at guitar setups, this would be a difficult player.ā
This headstock is either the ugliest or the coolest of the Guyatone designs. I canāt decide which. I will say, no other Japanese guitar company ever put out anything like this. You have to give the Guyatone designers a thumbs up for trying to stand out in the crowd! Guyatone decided to forgo an adjustable truss rod in this model, opting instead for a light alloy non-adjustable core to reinforce the neck. Speaking of the neck, this instrument features the most odd-feeling neck. Itās very thin but has a deep shoulder (if that makes any sense). Totally strange!
Another strange feature is the bridge, which offers very little adjustment because of the three large saddles, which sort of rock back and forth with the tremolo. Itās a shame because these pickups sound great! Theyāre very crisp and have plenty of zing, but unless you are a master at guitar set-ups, this would be a difficult player.
This could be why the LG-180T only appeared in the 1966 and 1967 catalogs. After that, it disappeared along with all the other Yamaha-made Guyatone electrics. By 1969, Guyatone had gone bankrupt for the first time, and thus ended guitar production for a few decades. At least we were blessed with some wacky guitar designs we can marvel at while remembering the days when you could play in the back end of an explosive 1973 AMC Gremlin while your mom raced around town. Two thumbs up for surviving our childhoods! PG
There's a lot of musical gold inside the scales.
Intermediate
Intermediate
ā¢ Develop a deeper improvisational vocabulary.
ā¢ Combine pentatonic scales to create new colors.
ā¢ Understand the beauty of diatonic harmony.Improvising over one chord for long stretches of time can be a musician's best friend or worst nightmare. With no harmonic variation, we are left to generate interest through our lines, phrasing, and creativity. When I started learning to improvise, a minor 7 chord and a Dorian mode were the only sounds that I wanted to hear at the time. I found it tremendously helpful to have the harmony stay in one spot while I mined for new ideas to play. Playing over a static chord was crucial in developing my sense of time and phrasing.
The following is the first improvisational device I ever came across. I want to say I got it from a Frank Gambale book. The idea is that there are three minor pentatonic scales "hiding" in any given major scale. If we're in the key of C (CāDāEāFāGāAāB) we can pluck out the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. If we frame them over a Dm7 chord, they give us different five-note combinations of the D Dorian mode. In short, we are building minor pentatonic scales off the 2, 3, and 6 of the C major scale.
Viewing this through the lens of D minor (a sibling of C major and the tonal center for this lesson), D minor pentatonic gives us the 1āb3ā4ā5āb7, E minor pentatonic gives us 2ā4ā5ā6ā1, and A minor pentatonic gives us 5āb7ā1ā2ā4. This means you can use your favorite pentatonic licks in three different locations and there are three different sounds we can tap into from the same structure.
If you smashed all of them together, you would get the D Dorian scale (DāEĀĀāFāGāAāBāC) with notes in common between the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. Ex. 1 uses all three scales, so you can hear the different colors each one creates over the chord.
Ex. 1
Ex. 2 is how I improvise with them, usually weaving in and out using different positional shapes.
Ex. 2
The next idea is one I stole from a guitarist who often came into a music store I worked at. On the surface, it's very easy: Just take two triads (in our example it will be Dm and C) and ping-pong between them. The D minor triad (DāFāA) gives us 1āb3ā5, which is very much rooted in the chord, and the C major triad (CāEāG) gives us the b7ā9ā4, which is much floatier. Also, if you smash these two triads together, you get 1ā2āb3ā4ā5āb7, which is a minor pentatonic scale with an added 2 (or 9). Eric Johnson uses this sound all the time. Ex. 3 is the lick I stole years ago.
Ex. 3
Ex. 4 is how I would improvise with this concept. Many different fingerings work with these, so experiment until you find a layout that's comfortable for your own playing.
Ex. 4
If two triads work, why not seven? This next approach will take all the triads in the key of C (CāDmāEmāFāGāAmāBdim) and use them over a Dm7 chord (Ex. 5). Each triad highlights different three-note combinations from the Dorian scale, and all of them sound different. Triads are clear structures that sound strong to our ears, and they can generate nice linear interest when played over one chord. Once again, all of this is 100% inside the scale. Ex. 5 is how each triad sounds over the track, and Ex. 6 is my attempt to improvise with them.
Ex. 5
Ex. 6
If we could find all these possibilities with triads, it's logical to make the structure a little bigger and take a similar approach with 7 chords, or in this case, arpeggios. Naturally, all the diatonic chords will work, but I'll limit this next idea to just Dm7, Fmaj7, Am7, and Cmaj7. I love this approach because as you move further away from the Dm7 shape, each new structure takes out a chord tone and replaces it with an extension. I notice that I usually come up with different lines when I'm thinking about different chord shapes, and this approach is a decent way to facilitate that. Ex. 7 is a good way to get these under your fingers. Just ascend one shape, shift into the next shape on the highest string, then descend and shift to the next on the lowest string.
Ex. 7
Ex. 8 is my improvisation using all four shapes and sounds, but I lean pretty heavily on the Am7.
Ex. 8
This last concept has kept me busy on the fretboard for the last five years or so. Check it out: You can take any idea that works over Dm7 and move the other diatonic chords. The result is six variations of your original lick. In Ex. 9 I play a line that is 4ā1āb3Āā5 over Dm7 and then walk it through the other chords in the key. These notes are still in the key of C, but it sounds drastically different from playing a scale.
Ex. 9
In Ex. 10, I try to think about the shapes from the previous example, but I break up the note order in a random but fun way. The ending line is random but felt good, so I left it in.
Ex. 10
While all these concepts have been presented over a minor chord, you can just as easily apply them to any chord quality, and they work just as well in harmonic or melodic minor. Rewarding sounds are available right inside the harmony, and I am still discovering new ideas through these concepts after many years.
Though the above ideas won't necessarily be appropriate for every style or situation, they will work in quite a few. Developing any approach to the point that it becomes a natural extension of your playing takes considerable work and patience, so just enjoy the process, experiment, and let your ear guide you to the sounds you like. Even over just one chord, there is always something new to find.