The plastic bridge on this Kent Copa is a limitation, but when it is properly set up this guitar can sing thanks to three Guyatone pickups and a vibrato unit that feels great to play.
The Velvet Underground was a bit before my time, but I discovered them at a great period in my life—when I had simple needs, a miniscule budget, and a rabid need to make noise with a guitar. To the uninitiated, try to search out songs like “I’m Waiting For the Man,” “I Heard Her Call My Name,” and my personal VU favorite, “Sister Ray.”
I’ve always been fascinated with real characters—people who are just weirdly interesting. Usually I don’t find them; they find me. And man, the Velvets had some characters. Check out the movie if you can. It is well worth your time to see how all these interesting artistic movements coalesced with a music scene in New York. But I have to say, one thing I kept digging was the interesting gear the band was using in the early days: most notably fuzz boxes, Sears amps, and a wonderful little Japanese guitar called the Kent Copa.
The Kent brand was manufactured in Japan by Guyatone.
I guess you’ve heard this from me many times, but around 1963, electric guitar popularity began to explode and the world was flooded with Japanese imports. The Kent brand name was used by the Buegeleisen & Jacobson Trading Company (B&G for short), based in New York City—just one of the many importers dealing with Japanese guitar builders at the time. From 1964 to 1966, almost all the Kent electric guitars were produced by the Tokyo Sound Company (more commonly known as Guyatone), which had an extensive catalog of guitars, amps, pickups, effects, and microphones—everything a budding musician would need.
And so it went that a humble Guyatone-built Kent guitar made it into the hands of Sterling Morrison and Lou Reed. If you check out the documentary or search out photos, it’s easy to see Sterling and Lou take turns tearing it up with a Kent Copa. (Of course, the guys played other guitars, too, and Lou is more associated with his black Gretsch 6112, especially in the early period. The VU was also endorsed by Vox and I seem to hear all sorts of early Vox effects in the songs.)
Here's a close-up look at those gnarly sounding pickups, tone and volume controls, rotary pickup selector. cheap-o plastic bridge, and surprisingly good vibrato.
As for the Kent Copa, it made its first appearance in the 1963 Kent catalog as a mid-level electric with a list price of $149. This model had a mahogany body and maple neck (supplied by the Japanese Mahura factory) paired with three Guyatone-made pickups, three volume controls, one tone control, and a rotary selector switch. The model came in red or sunburst, but I rarely see the red color. As the years passed, the Copa evolved a bit to feature better sounding pickups and a cheaper price. By mid-1966, the Copa only cost $112 and had two more finish options (honey blonde and cocoa tan), but the axe remained basically unchanged in its short three-year run.
The Kent Copa that Sterling and Lou were playing was from the 1964–’66 range, since theirs had the more angular, rectangle-shaped pickups. These were low-output pickups with a strong DC resistance rating, but they were rather gnarly with a hint of overdrive, even at calm control settings. The real magic happens when the Copa is paired with a raunchy amp (à la the Danelectro-made Silvertone 1484) and a primitive fuzz like the early Vox Tone Bender.
Two other quirks to note: The bridge was a non-adjustable plastic job that did not help with intonation. So, if your guitar was off from day one, it would be off forever. Second, the tremolo on the Kent Copa is actually very good! The spring is recessed into the body and the darn unit just works amazingly and has a great feel. There was a story that the founder of Guyatone, Mitsuo Matsuki, visited the Harmony Guitar factory here in the U.S. He observed all sorts of building techniques and tried his hand at making his own tremolo. Not really knowing anything about a guitar’s playability, he made an early tremolo that only moved one way and increased the pitch. Sort of weird, but by the time the Copa came out, Mitsuo had it all figured out. See—we all can learn and evolve! So, excuse me for now. I have to get upstairs to see the 76ers game!
Frank Meyers' Recco, pictured, is essentially the same model as Robert Smith's beloved Top Twenty, but with three single-coil pickups versus two.
Our house had this album playing nonstop for about three days, and I was continually struck by Robert Smith's tones. He had a rather large palette that ranged from raw and grinding to a bit thin and echo-like. The latter I kept pondering, because it sounded like a vintage Japanese guitar, with that thin, trebly quality combined with a soft attack. So off I went to search out Smith's guitars and—lo and behold—I found that he then favored playing a vintage Japanese guitar! I was shocked, because for some reason I always associated his playing with a Fender Jazzmaster. But then, as I studied further, I discovered that he actually put a small single-coil pickup in the middle position of his Jazzmaster. And the pickup came from his old Japanese guitar. He even stated in interviews that he favored the pickup and used it all the time while the band recorded that first album.
I was never a big Cure fan, and only knew a few songs, but the first LP was really something.
The guitar he played in the early days was a very common model sold both in the States and in England. Across the pond, the most frequent brand name affixed to this model was "Top Twenty," but over here it came with a few different brand names. Robert's model was basically identical to the one I have, pictured here, except his had two pickups. Mine carries a "Recco" logo.
The maker of these guitars was almost forgotten to time but for the memory of one man: Eddie Wakayama, who I met in Japan. I discovered Eddie through interviews with Ron Sackheim, whose father owned Strum & Drum, which imported guitars to the U.S. with the Norma brand name. Eddie acted as the buyer for Strum & Drum, and almost always partnered with a small woodworking factory named Sakai Mokko, located outside of Nagoya, Japan. Eddie has many old memories of the factory, which was primarily operating in the late '60s and early '70s. Basically, Sakai Mokko produced the wooden parts. Not coincidentally, Eddie also had a small electronics company named Mitsuya that supplied electronics for guitars. The Norma brand's version of the same guitar had the model name EG 413-2T, and I suspect my Recco was made around 1968. It has a simple control set: an on-off button for each of three pickups, and tone and volume dials. There's also an adjustable bridge.
Smith so loved those pickups that he put one between the P-90s of his well-known white Fender Jazzmaster.
My Recco here is rather unremarkable, and I had several during my early days of collecting. The bodies are plywood, and many of the necks don't have adjustable truss rods. The tone is thin and really epitomizes the sound that I usually attribute to average made-in-Japan electric guitars from that era. I found it very surprising that Robert bonded that much with his Top Twenty—to the point of using its old pickup rather than the revered Jazzmaster pickups when he made the switch to Fender.
There is a real lesson here for all of us: Great music can be made with any guitar, and I think it's important to think of instruments as colors in your palette. Plus, when you bond with a guitar or a sound, the bond is usually lifelong. I gained a new level of respect for Mr. Smith. And hey, if any of you know him, please have him reach out so we can talk old guitars! I wonder if he still has that Top Twenty?Late 60s Recco Japanese Guitar Demo
Mike Dugan puts our columnist's Recco guitar through its paces, revealing a wealth of clean and dirty tones. Hang in for the feedback finale.