Everyone knows that guy. You know, that guy that learns anything pretty much on the fly. Whether it’s playing an instrument, painting a portrait or even riding a unicycle, that guy can do it all. And the killer is the fact that he does it with seemingly little exertion. It can be easy to resent the guy, but that’s not the case if the guy happens to be multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd of the Flaming Lips. Not only does he act, teach and play several instruments in his zany, critically acclaimed band, but he’s also an all-around good guy—which makes it hard to hate him.
Drozd joined the Lips as a drummer, but shortly after he was called upon to record additional guitar tracks on Transmissions from the Satellite Heart and Clouds Taste Metallic in the early ’90s. Once long-time guitarist Ronald Jones left the band in the mid ’90s, Drozd became the guy that helped balance the spinning plates. After nearly 20 years of rocking with the Lips, he’s played live and recorded drums, guitars, keyboards and vocals. He even found time to be the lead character—Major Syrtis—in the Flaming Lips’ 2008 film Christmas on Mars. Most recently, the Lips released their 14th studio album, Embryonic, in late 2009 and are currently on tour with Stardeath and White White Dwarfs and playing Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety. All the while, Drozd and Lips frontman Wayne Coyne have been helping teach courses for music performance and production at the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma.
Premier Guitar caught up with Drozd during some unheard-of downtime and we talked about transitioning from drums to guitar, collecting vintage stompboxes, and trolling eBay for quirky guitars.
What are your first memories when it comes to music?
Since my dad was a musician in both country-western and polka bands, the house always had some type of music being played. It was nice, because my dad gave me the country-western and polka stuff, my older brothers rocked to Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and other stoner rock bands, and my sister was always buying the Top 40 albums. So I had a pretty healthy variety of music in my childhood. My first personal taste of music was probably finding out what the AM radio had to offer, like the song “Jackie Blue” by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils and other ’70s pop/rock hits.
While you’ve been the Lips’ full-time guitarist for nearly 15 years, you joined as a drummer. How did you get introduced to the drums?
When I was a bout 6 years old, my dad bought me this little toy drum kit because I was always watching him practice and play, so I wanted to join in on the fun. That following Christmas, my dad bought me a real bass drum, snare and cymbal and said to me, “Play these things and if you’re still doing this in six months and getting better, I’ll keep buying you pieces as you progress.” With these three pieces I’d just wail away for hours, and within two years I had a full drum kit. It was great, because even at, like, 11 or 12 years old, I had a pretty steady gig rotating around with all the garage bands in the neighborhood [laughs]. I guess it’s true, drummers always have a gig. I even jammed with my dad’s country-western band and learned the basics and 4/4 time. Drums were my first love and, in some basic ways, the easiest for me to sit down and play.
How did you make your way to the guitar?
After playing drums with my dad’s band, I started to hate it when I was about 13 years old because it seemed boring when I was listening to the Police and Rush—I just wanted to rock! We always had this old Gibson SG in the house. Dad didn’t play, it just sat there. And when I was about 16, I finally just picked it up and tried learning some basic chords. Drums were such a physical thing—you could just use and abuse the kit and sticks—but guitar just appealed to me because it seemed like you could really concentrate on things. And it was more of a cool sound thing. He also had an Ibanez AD9 Analog Delay and a Peavey combo lying around, and so it just clicked because I was into those spacey prog sounds. I remember the first solo I learned to play because of that AD9 was U2’s “New Year’s Day.”
What struck me about playing guitar was that you could really make it about the sounds and there were no boundaries. With drums, you have the kit and everything was pretty standard. It just depended on how fast and hard you’d play, whereas with the guitar and effects, you could just finagle with sounds and tones for hours. I just liked that freedom and still do.
You joined the Flaming Lips in 1991 as a drummer, but you transitioned to guitar in the mid ’90s. How did that unfold?
When we were recording both Transmissions from the Satellite Heart and Clouds Taste Metallic, I was drumming but I also laid down as much guitar as Wayne and Ronald. The only thing with those records is you can pretty much name Ronald’s parts because of his out-of-this-world guitar playing and crazy tones. I ended up playing a lot of rhythm stuff, but for the songs I wrote and created with Wayne I’d lay down the track as we came up with it, and then Ronald would come along and sprinkle his magical guitar tones and insanity on it. So by the time he left the band, I was drumming and also recording guitar parts as the band’s unofficial second guitarist. It was more of a question on a performance level. We had to decide if I was going to stay drumming or move over to guitars and keyboards and get a new drummer.
For a couple years, as a conscious decision, we shifted our musical persuasion in a new direction. We started using backing tracks, noise and other stuff we could create in the studio, and synched it up with these movies that Wayne was making for our live shows. During those three years, we weren’t really playing as a rock band so we all evolved with our musical direction. We never really sat down and pondered how we would fill Ronald’s spot on guitar or my seat on drums—we just kept our creative juices flowing and worked with what we had. We got away from our rock mentality and created some totally different stuff. If we tried that now, we might fall flat on our faces, but back then, in the mid to late ’90s, it seemed really exciting and bold, considering the trends of the time. So for us to be up there with no live drummer and playing with backing tracks, orchestral stuff and movies seemed like a crazy thing and it just worked out for us. And since then we’ve slowly come back full circle to being a full-on, intense rock band again.
As a guitarist, what did you take away from collaborating with a guy who was so deep into crazy sounds and effects?
What people don’t know about Ron is that, technically speaking, he could sit down and plug straight into an amp and just blow your mind as a straight-ahead guitarist. It just so happened he was a master of effects as well. People looked down on him for using Eventide Harmonizers, but the fact of the matter is Ronald could simply play. In addition, he built his own effects, constructed his own pedalboard and tweaked the effects he bought.
What I pulled from him mainly boiled down to two areas: focusing on becoming a technically sound guitarist and using and manipulating effects in a manner to create sounds only the Flaming Lips could use [laughs]. Obviously, since I first picked up the guitar, I was really into making sounds, so the latter was something that really struck me. But after playing and being around Ronald all those years, I figured out that to effectively use and complement those tones completely, you still had to be a solid guitarist. Many players tend to use effects to cloak holes in their abilities, whereas Ron used them to take his playing abilities into another universe. The only person I can remember during that time that played like that was Kevin Shields [from My Bloody Valentine and Primal Scream]. But even so, Ronald was using ring modulators in a way that nobody else was coming close to at the time. Besides the actual composition of guitar parts, you always have to focus on the outgoing sound of it. And to this day, I think of Ronald when I’m crafting songs.
Were you also influenced by Ronald’s DIY mentality with effects, or do you just stick to playing them?
I’m definitely just a collector and player. While my touring board is quite pathetic—a Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler, Line 6 FM4 Filter Modeler and a Boss GT-8—I’ve been buying up vintage stompboxes like mad in the last two years. I’ve started to get quite a collection—about 120. As for the coolest or rare stuff, I’ve gotten my hands on some Systech stuff, including the Harmonic Energizer, Overdrive and Phase Shifter. I’d love to get my hands on a Ludwig Phase II Synthesizer or a Binson Echorec—the ones Pink Floyd used in the ’60s and ’70s—but that stuff has just gotten too expensive.
Who are some of the other guitarists that have influenced you?
[Laughs] Oh man, I’m sure you hear it all the time—it’s got to be Jimmy Page. For me it’s different, though, because I’m not really into the hard-rock Page. I’m more into the Houses of the Holy Page stuff, particularly “The Song Remains the Same.” It wasn’t heavy or rocking at all—it’s almost like country or bluegrass, just through an electric guitar. Also, I’m really into his weird tunings and overall guitar sounds on stuff like “The Rain Song.” That kind of stuff has really influenced me in my playing and dabbling in alternative tunings. Another one is Steve Howe, because he was such a technically proficient player, but he’s got tone. It’s just amazing and completely Steve, by way of his big ol’ ES-175. And more recent guys would be Duane Denison of The Jesus Lizard and J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr.
With your ever-growing collection of stompboxes, do you craft songs for specific boxes or do you just get spontaneous ideas while jamming on a random pedal?
On Embryonic, I would just get a signal chain brewed up on a whim or because it would create one hell of a commotion. At the beginning of the album, you hear these squawks from a Roland Funny Cat and then something that sounds like Godzilla. All that noise is my ’66 Fender XII through the Ampeg Scrambler and MuTron digital delay, which gives this crazy feedback-noise effect. We just had stuff out waiting to be toyed with.
Drozd (right) and Coyne put on one of their always animated stage shows. Photo: J. Michelle Martin-Coyne
Did you use that 12-string a lot for Embryonic?
I used it all over the record. I just love its natural tone, but it’s a lot of fun running it with all sorts of effects—killer results. I find the 12-strings can create a lot of crazy and mysterious overtones when overdriven or pushed through a fuzz box. And that goes back to my love for Page. About two years ago I bought the Fender Electric XII, and I recently found out that on all those recordings Page used a Fender XII and not the double-neck Gibson that’s always attached to him during concerts. As soon as I was told that, I plugged that Fender XII in again and I was like “That’s the same sound!”
Did you approach the writing or recording any differently for the new record?
This time—more than ever before—we just jammed as a band. When Ronald was in the band, we didn’t really do much jamming as a unit. We would construct the song from scratch with individual parts. This time, the jamming fostered a fresh breath of creativity and movement to make our minds think differently. Another part was crafting the bass through rhythm instead of basing it on chord progressions. The majority of Embryonic was crafted through full-band jams and fooling around with stompboxes, trying to make crazy noises and tones.
Which amps did you use?
We used an Airline 10″ combo a lot more than I thought we ever would. We actually recorded some of the vocals through that piece of shit Airline. It’s so crappy looking, but it just sounds so cool. We used a Fender Super Twin that Wayne has had since he was probably a teenager. Also, we used a Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus combo.
What were some of the fuzz boxes you used while recording?
I definitely used that Systech Harmonic Energizer just because it has that tone from a lot of Frank Zappa’s trippy, psychedelic solos. It’s basically this overdrive fuzz with a super-duper-filter-tweaker kind of control that gives you all sorts of grit but also a wah-wah tone, too. Also, we used an Ampeg Scrambler and a Roland Funny Cat, which is like taking a compressor, an early fuzz box and an auto wah…well it’s just like its name, Funny Cat. We use it quite a bit on the record. When you think you hear a wah-wah, it’s really just the Funny Cat.
 Drozd does keyboard duty while his '67 Jazzmaster waits in the wings. Photo: J. Michelle Martin-Coyne |
The first time I really got a lot of money from the Lips, in ’93, I decided I needed to go out and buy a real guitar. There’s this place in Oklahoma City called Horn Trader that sold all this vintage gear and the moment I walked in the store that ’67 Jazzmaster just called to me. It’s weird to say, but there are times when you walk into a store and it just hits you—that urge or voice that says, “This is the one.” Just to make sure I wasn’t nuts, I picked it up and played it for a minute and all that did was confirm my subconscious urge. It is just one of those guitars that anyone who picked it up would comment on the neck and just how easy it is to play.
How did you get the idea to put a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails pickup in it?
I was still the drummer when I bought that guitar, so I had left it over at Wayne’s for a few days and he tinkered with it. I think he got the idea he was going to use it for touring so he dropped a Hot Rails in it. I came over later and I was pissed because I had this idea of keeping it original and pristine. But the fact of the matter is that the Hot Rails was a saving grace. The original setup with P-90s would have just howled with all of our fuzz boxes.
What are some other vintage guitars you own?
I have a ’67 Gibson ES-330, which is just like an ES-335 but the neck goes farther into the body. It’s more of a true hollowbody than the ES-335 because of that construction. I bought that ’66 Fender Electric XII from Craigslist and it is one of my favorite guitars of all time. I also recently got a ’75 Telecaster Deluxe from eBay. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever bought a new new guitar.
Can you tell me about your Supro guitar?
I love that beast! As far as plugging a guitar into an amp and just sounding good, that ’60s Supro has something special in the wood. It’s a really thick guitar with a chunky sound. I was just trolling eBay for some weird stuff—actually a Supro amp—and I found the guitar. I just had to do a little setup when I got it and put my usual .012-gauge strings on it. It just growls. It’s a workout playing that thing, but it is way too much fun.
Do you take your vintage stuff on tour or do you rely on newer equipment to get the job done?
For the most part, the stompboxes stay home. I use the Boss GT-8 and the guitar goes into that and then it goes stereo out, with one line going to a Line 6 FM4 Filter Modeler and the other going to a Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler. And then it just goes into two amps—two Roland KC-550 Stereo Mixing Keyboard amps—and then I also have a Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus combo, which isn’t mic’d, for stage sound.
One thing I may bring on tour—because I used it on the record—is this pedal I got last year from SubDecay, the Noise Box. It is this crazy little box that works as a ring modulator, guitar synthesizer and distortion, all in one small box. It’s insane! Also, I have a friend that is going to try and rebuild an updated version of the Mosrite Fuzzrite pedal that I think was used on the Ramones stuff and early Alice Cooper tracks. But really, I think the Line 6 and Roland stuff do what I need for the tours.
What’s in your plans for 2010?
One thing I could see happening this year is rocking out with a larger ensemble. We’re a band that could really take on some extra stage members to create a truly crazy experience of rock. Whether it’s something like Hendrix’s band during Woodstock or just some people up there making cohesive noise and polyrhythms, I think it’d be something we could tackle and successfully.
[This interview was conducted before the Lips tour plans had been announced. Sure enough, they pulled off the ensemble approach—they’re currently sharing the stage with Stardeath and White White Dwarfs and playing Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety. We asked Steven a follow-up question about this tour.]
By taking on the task of reproducing Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon during some upcoming dates, how will you prepare you guitar tones and keyboard parts?
We decided early on in the process that we didn't want to just faithfully redo The Dark Side of the Moon ... and in most ways we probably couldn't it anyway! A few songs were completely reinvented—“Breathe” and “Money”—and was a relief not having to completely mimic Gilmour's guitar sounds. I think we just sort of did what we always do—use whatever is lying around like a Roland Funny Cat, Systech Harmonic Energizer, a plug-in Ring Modulator and a bunch of other random stuff. For keyboards we used a lot of plug-in soft synths and Reason keyboards. When we play this live I'll just be using my trusty set up of a Boss GT-8, Line 6 FM4 Filter Modeler and Line 6 DL4 Delay.
STEVEN DROZD'S GEARBOX
Guitars
1967 Fender Jazzmaster (with Seymour Duncan Hot Rails bridge pickup)
1966 Fender XII
1960s Supro
1967 Gibson ES-330
1975 Telecaster Deluxe
Amps
Roland KC-550 Stereo Mixing Keyboard Amplifier (two run in stereo)
Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus
Effects
Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler
Line 6 FM4 Filter Modeler
Boss GT-8 Guitar Effects Processor
SubDecay Noise Box
My name is Bob, and I’m addicted to cheap, funky electric guitars. Oh sure, I love my Les Pauls and the rest of my high-quality guitars, but lately the allure of a good Supro, a cheesy Japanese Teisco, or one of those tacky, plastic-covered Italian EKO guitars has been calling me. Even the “mother-of-toilet-seat” ones are starting to look good. Why is this happening? Maybe it’s because many of these cheaply made, once-maligned pawnshop rejects from the ‘50s and ‘60s are easily obtainable, generally priced right, and after a proper setup and often-needed repairs, play pretty darn well, and with a sound, look and vibe unlike most any high-end guitar. And who wants to look and sound just like everyone else?
Decades ago, this writer got into the vintage guitar game with the purchase of a couple dozen big-name electrics. All are regrettably gone, and today—as the father of two kids with a mortgage, car payments, and the usual dayto- day expenses we all share—high-dollar vintage guitars are way beyond my grasp. I made some serious money on the guitars I sold, and eventually disavowed vintage guitars, but have regained a strong desire to re-enter the arena. The solution was to buy “sleeper” guitars: the cheap, easily affordable stuff. Of course, if I find a ’59 Sunburst Les Paul under a farmer’s bed out in the boonies, I’m not going to turn it down.
So, I started in the usual places: eBay, Craigslist, Vintage Guitar magazine, guitar dealers, various websites that cater to weird guitars, and to collectors like Mike Robinson, owner of Eastwood Guitars, a company that specializes in reproductions of bizarre guitars. I found out quickly there were plenty of choices out there, but as is the case with well-known vintage guitars, the rarer, odd stuff is more costly than commonly found models. Here’s an overview for those of you interested in collecting weird vintage guitars from the ‘50s and ‘60s.
Livin’ In The USA
Harmony Guitars of Chicago was by far the largest maker of budget-priced guitars in the US for 83 years. In 1965, Harmony shipped a whopping 350,000 guitars, and sold 10 million guitars between 1945 and 1978, astounding numbers, to say the least. The instruments were sold primarily at Sears and JC Penney, and later by music distributors. Hollowbody electrics like the Rocket are now collectible and favored by blues players, and can normally be had for a fairly reasonable price, unlike their Gibson counterparts from the late ‘50s and ‘60s. Harmony’s earliest solidbody, the Stratotone, a rudimentary instrument also a favorite among blues players, commands big bucks on the collectible market. One mint example recently fetched $1500 on eBay. Harmony, like other American manufacturers of low-end guitars, fell victim to the influx of cheaply made Asian guitars that began to flood the US market in the mid-‘60s. Today, a company in Elk Grove, IL owns the name Harmony, and has begun reissuing some of the company’s better-known electric models.
 ‘60s Smith (Mosrite) “Mel-O-Bar” with zebra-padded, explorer- shaped body; ‘60s Silvertone Jupiter with black sparkle finish and De Armond pickups. |
In 1949, Nat started building amplifiers for Sears and Epiphone, but in 1954 he went into business making guitars under the Danelectro name, while he continued to sell to Sears and later Montgomery Ward under the names Silvertone and Airline. Nat was an expert at producing highly playable guitars for very little money. By the time he sold out to MCA (Music Corporation of America) in 1966, Nat had produced some of the most playable, interesting, and innovative low-budget electric guitars ever made. Hundreds of thousands of kids started with a Danelectro-built guitar, and today, literally every vintage “Dano” is collectible. More common models like the Convertible and the Short Horn are available in their various incarnations, but are becoming harder to find as collectors seemingly hoard old Danos. Rarer models, like the U series guitars in custom colors, the black Short Horn “Jimmy Page” model, the Guitarlin, and Long Horn basses, will set you back serious coin, but you can pick up a vintage Danelectro Convertible or U-1 for under $500, and they make a very good utility guitar.
The National/Valco Company had a long and checkered history that started with the Czechoslovakian Dopyera brothers, who founded the company and invented the Dobro as well as steel-bodied acoustics favored by bluesmen. In the 1950s, Valco produced some of the coolest low-end guitars imaginable. Their USA map-shaped Res-O-Glas guitars have a cult following, and fetch high prices on the vintage market—a fact that frankly baffles this writer, because the guitars were not well constructed, often play poorly, and sound nearly as bad. Fiberglass isn’t exactly conducive to great tone. Valco, however, hit a home run with their wooden-body Supro guitars, originally intended as the company’s budget line. Models such as the Les Paul Junior-like Belmont, its twin-pickup sibling the Dual-Tone, and the early and very basic single-pickup Ozark, have endeared themselves to guitarists worldwide, including Link Wray, Joe Perry, Rory Gallagher, David Bowie and many others. Supros make excellent slide guitars. Valco pickups look like humbuckers, but are actually large single-coil units with a raunchy, distinct tone all their own. Yours truly just recently won a nifty white ’58 Dual-Tone on eBay for $660.
Valco also made Supro-style solidbodies that carried the names Tosca, Bronson, and Dwight, specifically for musical instrument retailers or distributors. These show up on eBay with some regularity, and are quite rare yet surprisingly affordable. And finally, there are the Valco-made Airline guitars, most notably the angular, bright red Res-O-Glas “Jetsons” model made famous by White Stripes’ guitarist Jack White. Originals now sell for high dollars, but you can grab a faithful repro by Eastwood for much less. Also in the USA corner, Kay guitars have attained cult collectability status. Like Harmony, Kay guitars were specifically aimed at the beginner and intermediate market. When Kay attempted to manufacture a high-end instrument for jazz guitarist and endorser Barney Kessel in the 1950s, they were not taken seriously. Today, those Barney Kessel models and their offshoots, with Art Deco “Kelvinator” headstocks and “Kleenex Box” pickups, go for big bucks on the collectible market due to their rarity, but more common models, like the solidbody Vanguard and almost all Kay archtops, are plentiful and inexpensive. In serious financial trouble, Kay was acquired by Valco in 1967, and both companies tanked as a result the influx of Japanese imports in 1969.
Magnatone was a small American company based in Texas. Today, they are more famous for their amplifiers (Stevie Ray Vaughan favored them) than their guitars, which are less well known and never caught on. Paul Bigsby had a hand in designing some of the Magnatone models, which bore names like Typhoon, Starstream, Hurricane and Zephyr. One Magnatone had a distinct Rickenbacker vibe, very similar to the John Lennon 325 Rickenbacker model. A guitar teacher I knew years ago used a guitar like this for years, and all his students wanted to buy it. According to Magnatone collectors, the guitars are well made and highly playable. Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top is a notable Magnatone collector.
Hailing from San Antonio, TX were Alamo guitars, which are even more obscure than Magnatones. They are very rare and can be compared favorably to certain Danelectro models. Even Gibson got into the low-end act in the ‘60s with their Kalamazoo guitars, whose bodies were manufactured out of mediumdensity pressed fiberboard. The most common Kalamazoo model was styled along the lines of the SG Melody Maker, and used the same pickups. Another resembled the Fender Mustang. Gibson kept the line going into the early 1970s, but it suffered at the hands of cheaper Japanese imports, and Gibson finally tossed in the towel on budget instruments.
The Japanese Connection
Now, let’s look at those infamous, cheesy Japanese guitars from the ‘60s, bearing names like Teisco, Teisco Del-Ray, Jedson, Tulio, Kingston, Lyle, Duke, Heit, Kimberly, Zim-Gar, Apollo, Kent, Norma, and several others, including Silvertone. These “prizes” were manufactured from 1948 until 1969 in the Kawai factory for various music distributors, and are now known as “stencil brands.” The distributor specified the name to be printed on the headstock. Often, there were subtle design variations on guitars, depending upon the distributor’s specifications.
 1965 Harmony H 15 Silhouette (later renamed H 15 Bob Kat) with De Armond “Golden Tone” pickups; late-‘60s Vox Folk Twelve Electro; ‘60s Valco/Airline Res-O-Glas model. |
During the mid-‘60s, there was a tremendous demand for guitars in the wake of the British Invasion and The Beatles’ success. Some American manufacturers had difficulty producing a truly low-end, inexpensive electric guitar for beginners, so the Japanese filled that niche quite nicely. Many youthful guitarists started on Japanese electrics. Regardless of what it was, if it was made in Japan, it was regarded as cheap junk back then. During the mid-‘70s, the Japanese finally began producing quality guitars, but up until then, the instruments were decidedly inferior in most ways to their American or European counterparts. Of the vintage Japanese names out there, certainly the most well known is Teisco, but as mentioned, you will find many names on these guitars. In addition to the models commonly available in the USA, there were Japanese guitars that rarely made it to this country. Some of them are weird beyond belief.
Teisco/Kawai guitars were generally based loosely on Fender designs, complete with as many as four single-coil Strat-like pickups that were sometimes microphonic, six-on-a-side headstocks, offset-waist body designs and more switches than your mom’s Waring blender. Playability was questionable at best, and the necks varied in thickness from guitar to guitar. This author bought his first electric in 1966, a Teisco of the lowest quality, for a mere $15. Among the most distinctive Teisco models were the May Queen, with its artist’s palette-shaped body, and the Spectrum 5, which has become expensive and desirable, primarily as a result of its use by Eddie Van Halen in one of his group’s MTV videos. More common varieties of Teisco guitars can still be purchased for very little, particularly on eBay, often for under $200. Rarer models usually go for a little more. Blues, punk, and surf guitarists like Teiscos for their raunch appeal and trebly twang. My white Teisco-made Kingston single-pickup axe is a nasty slide guitar. Think Hound Dog Taylor. And the whammy bar is still on there.
Euro Bizarros
 1965 ’66 Vox Guitar-organ with power supply; ’66 Goya electric (made in Sweden by Hagstrom) in gold sparkle with Electric and Acoustic buttons, s/n 477/520; Goya “Boombox” Bass Boost pedal and “Attache” briefcase amp (about the size of a backgammon board with brown vinyl covering, 12 watts). |
In the ‘60s, the worldwide demand for guitars resulted in instruments produced in all parts of the globe. We can offer only a brief overview of that scene. A detailed listing of electric guitars made around the world could be a book unto itself.
Italy was one of the most prolific producers of weird electrics. Brand names like EKO, Crucianelli, Goya, Meazzi, Galanti, Welson, Bartolini, Davoli, Gemelli, the original Vox guitars, and the wacky but wonderful Wandre guitars, are all collectible today. Of these brands, EKO instruments, distributed in the USA by the LoDuca Brothers of Milwaukee, are the most readily available, and the most common models can be purchased for under well $1000. Many Italian guitar builders also made accordions, so you’ll see heavy use of plastic covering on the guitars, the same type also used on drums. It’s not uncommon to see sparkle tops and various shades of marine pearl on Italian guitars, something that gives them a unique look, not to mention their own tonal characteristics. EKO guitars often came festooned with lots of switches, as many as four pickups, and other examples of strangeness. With some work, EKOs can usually be made to play relatively well, but caveat emptor: EKO quality is decidedly hit and miss, as is the case with most low-budget guitars of the ‘60s. Interestingly, Hanson Guitars of Chicago builds a very convincing replica of the EKO 500 3V-but with a Teisco-style headstock! I’d like to try one out.
The German industrial machine, crippled after World War II, recovered in the ‘50s and produced several brands of guitars that were popular in Europe but largely ignored in the USA, until a certain Paul McCartney popularized the Hofner violin bass. Vintage Hofner six-strings are well made instruments, but they are rare. Hofner guitars are being produced again and have garnered new fans as well as nostalgia nuts. Other German brands were Framus, Hopf, Hoyer, and Dynacord. Bill Wyman played a Framus bass. American guitars were very hard to come by in postwar England due to restrictive import laws, so English guitarists had to make do with inexpensive Euro and Asian imports, as well as their own guitars, with names like Burns, Watkins, Wilson, Fenton-Weill and Hayman. Vox guitars, originally made in Italy and later in Britain, were widely used in the ‘60s—the most famous example being the white Teardrop model played by Brian Jones. All Vox guitars are collectible, but still a bargain compared to American vintage pieces. New Vox guitar models are available today. Burns guitars were also popular in England, and were endorsed by luminaries like The Shadows, the Searchers, and many others. After being out of production for years, Burns Bison guitars were revitalized a few years ago.
Sweden is most famous for their Hagstrom guitars, often Fender-like and moderately priced, but nonetheless high-quality instruments that were somehow relegated to the world of the pawnshop. They were readily available in the USA in the ‘60s, and are being manufactured in Korea today. Bizarre electrics from Western and Eastern Europe, former Iron Curtain countries (check out the hideous Russian-made Tonika guitar) and other countries, are hard to find and far too numerous to list here, but they are generally some of the crudest, most off-the-wall guitars ever made.
Is It Nostalgia?
Flash-forward forty years, and guys like me are buying these once-derided losers for their coolness factor. Why? Nostalgia? That’s certainly part of the equation. In all likelihood, the rush to collect off-brand electrics stems partially from the aforementioned desire for individuality. Let’s face it, high-end instruments are everywhere these days. They’re ubiquitous. No offense to anyone, but some of us want something different that sets us apart from the crowd. Stratocasters and Les Pauls are great, but how many can you handle?
The Experts Check In
Ron Rothman, proprietor of Rothman’s Department Store of Southold, NY, is generally regarded as the world’s leading authority on Harmony guitars. “My experience with these guitars goes back to the early ‘60s,” he reported. “My first guitar was a Harmony acoustic. I would spend hours looking through catalogs from music distributors like Targ & Dinner, Buegeleisen and Jacobson, and C. Bruno that had pages of assorted Harmonys to look at.”
When questioned about why there is so much interest in old Harmony guitars, Ron replied, “They are one of the last affordable vintage USA-made guitars. They are retro, they look cool, and they offer unique-sounding pickups. The H-22 bass is one of the best sounding basses out there. The Richie Valens Stratotone, metal- bound Espanada, and the 3-pickup guitars with all the knobs and switches are desirable. The DeArmond pickups they used give them a unique tone that differentiates them from other major manufacturers. Rockabilly jazz boxes (by Harmony) are popular and sought after.”
Doug Tulloch, perhaps the world’s foremost authority on Danelectros, had this to say: “I bought my first Danelectro, a 1958 model #3011, from a barbershop for $80. This was the late ‘70s. That’s when I fell in love with the brand. The fact that they’re very playable, light, sound great, and built in the USA, was instrumental in my developing an interest in the company and the guitars. Also, back in the day they were cheap! Danos are more desirable and in demand than ever. I recently had the honor of procuring a ’67 Danelectro for Pete Townshend.”
Ben Taylor, co-owner of Southside Guitars of Brooklyn, NY, is a vociferous fan of funky electric guitars. “I became a fan of these guitars when I was living in Portland, Oregon in the 1990s and playing in bands,” he told me. “Oddball guitars were cheap, and they often had cool and unique tone possibilities. I had no interest in playing a Strat or Les Paul, or interest in emulating the sound of guitar gods like Hendrix and Page. Plus, the oddball guitars were super-cool looking.” When asked about the reason for his attraction to weird electrics, he had this to say: “I got into learning about them. So many foreign companies were building guitars in the 1960s. I have enjoyed learning about the different brands, and then trying to find and play them. Many are pretty trashy, but some, like Vox, Hagstrom and Wandre, are very high quality. A relatively large portion of my business comes from the sale of oddball guitars. I really search for them and try to have a large selection at all times. Musicians who want them are trying to find a voice of their own, perhaps something to use on a record that will sound different.”
 A recent Burns of London Bison Bass based on the mid-‘60s models; mid-‘60s Klira Twen Star model 162 violin bass; ‘60s Danelectro-made Silvertone electric bass. |
Not all guitar dealers think low-end electrics are worth owning. Phil Keller, manager of the guitar department at Alto Music in Middletown, NY commented, “We’re going right down the food chain with these weird guitars from the ‘60s. We used to throw guitars like this in the garbage. You found them hanging in pawnshops all the time and nobody wanted them back then. People are collecting Teiscos because they can’t afford high-dollar electrics.”
And Finally
Should you decide to explore the possibility of acquiring an oddball electric guitar or two (or more), check out a very informative article titled “Guitar Collecting on a Budget” (by Steven Brown of vintaxe.com) on the website: ToyNfo.com, the Vintage Toy Encyclopedia. It’s an informative starting point for anyone interested in bizarre guitars. A few dealers specializing in weird electrics are: Diamond Strings of Rochester, NY; Southside Guitars of Brooklyn, NY; and Mike Robinson of Eastwood Guitars, who sells selected pieces from his vast collection. Other dealers can be located online. There is a good deal of information about unusual electric guitars available on the internet, including these websites: voxshowroom. com; fetishguitars.com; cheesyguitars.com; myrareguitars.com; burnsguitarmuseum.com, lordbizarre.com; sovietguitars.com, and vintaxe.com. There are many others as well.
The author wishes to thanks Doug Tulloch, Ron Rothman, Mike Robinson, Ben Taylor, and Phil Keller for their participation. Belated thanks to the late Nat Daniel, a man I wish I’d had the pleasure of knowing.
The photographer wishes to thank Russell Pompeo of Moonlight Music, 467 S. Coast Hwy 101, Encinitas, CA, for carte blanche permission to shoot photos in his store. All photographs for this article, except the pawnshop façade, were taken at Moonlight Music.