Premier Guitar features affiliate links to help support our content. We may earn a commission on any affiliated purchases.

Reader Guitar of the Month: Olde Skully

Reader Guitar of the Month: Olde Skully

Name: Cary Cummings

Location: Seattle, Washington
Guitar: Olde Skully

As we approach Halloween, the power of the skull only increases! A Seattle guitarist makes a guitar for his everyday macabre needs.

“It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles

Greetings to all my fellow guitar brethren! My name is Cary and I’m a guitar addict. I was bitten and smitten with the “guitar bug” as a kid, and the fascination has remained constant, even getting stronger over time.


Like many, I found I couldn’t stop tinkering about with gear and guitars, trying to personalize and tweak them to my satisfaction. So, in dreaming up my next project (my wife would say scheming up), I thought about various finishes and patterns that might be fun. What could be more iconic and rock ’n’ roll than the ubiquitous image of the skull? I thought of the classic hot rod and motorcycle painting technique of using lace as a template. Why not try it on a guitar body? If only there was a lace material with skulls as the main theme. Luckily, it turns out there is! I set out to give it a go.

“If only there was a lace material with skulls as the main theme. Luckily, it turns out there is! I set out to give it a go.”

An old basswood 2003 Squire ’51 body was my victim. I drilled it to make it string-through, stripped the original finish and rattle-canned on a good coat of primer, and finished in white. Doing first the front (no guts, no glory), then the back, I sprayed black through the lace to create a glorious pattern of skulls. I sealed the pattern in with 20-plus coats of wipe-on poly.

I added a custom Warmoth Tele neck with rosewood fretboard, boatneck carve, 6100 nickel frets, and finished it with wipe-on poly. Doug Shepherd, at Doug’s Custom Neck Plates out of Texas, designed a skull neck plate for me. While waiting for various parts to arrive, I decided the skulls would look sinister if they had eyeballs. I inlaid yellow 3 mm crystal rhinestones into each socket so the guitar could stare down its audience. I selected a skull-approved DiMarzio Super Distortion for the bridge and a Duncan Hot Stack for the neck and kept it simple with a 3-way switch and volume. It sounds downright “skullduggerous” played through a TC Electronic Fangs into a cranked Quilter Aviator Mach 3. My neighbors seem to love it!

While this could be viewed as a Halloween guitar, I think of it more as a skull guitar for your everyday skull guitar needs. As we approach October, the power of the skull only increases!

Rock on all! I will keep an eye out for you. In guitars we trust.

Send your guitar story to submissions@premierguitar.com.

See and hear Taylor’s Legacy Collection guitars played by his successor, Andy Powers.

Read MoreShow less

A rig meant to inspire! That’s Jerry Garcia with his Doug Irwin-built Tiger guitar, in front of his Twin Reverb + McIntosh + JBL amp rig.

Photo by Frank White

Three decades after the final Grateful Dead performance, Jerry Garcia’s sound continues to cast a long shadow. Guitarists Jeff Mattson of Dark Star Orchestra, Tom Hamilton of JRAD, and Bella Rayne explain how they interpret Garcia’s legacy musically and with their gear.

“I met Jerry Garcia once, in 1992, at the bar at the Ritz Carlton in New York,” Dark Star Orchestra guitarist Jeff Mattson tells me over the phone. Nearly sixty-seven years old, Mattson is one of the longest-running members of the Grateful Dead tribute band scene, which encompasses hundreds of groups worldwide. The guitarist is old enough to have lived through most of the arc ofthe actual Grateful Dead’s career. As a young teen, he first absorbed their music by borrowing their seminal records, American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead, brand new then, from his local library to spin on his turntable. Around that same moment, he started studying jazz guitar. Between 1973 and 1995, Mattson saw the Dead play live hundreds of times, formed the landmark jam bandZen Tricksters, and later stepped into theJerry Garcia lead guitarist role with the Dark Star Orchestra (DSO), one of the leading Dead tribute acts.

Read MoreShow less

PRS Guitars today launched five new three-pickup, 22-fret models across the S2 and SE series. The S2 Series release includes the S2 Special Semi-Hollow and S2 Studio, while the SE Series welcomes the SE Special Semi-Hollow, SE Studio, and SE Studio Standard.

Read MoreShow less

For the first time ever, two guitar greats, John 5 and Richie Kotzen will be heading out on the road this year. The tour will launch October 16 and run through November, hitting markets across the U.S.

Read MoreShow less