Alright so when I was around 13 I started to get into rock music. Mostly heavy metal. But lots of other kinds of somewhat odd or unusual stuff would happily find it's way into my rotation. I guess new wave music would be the best title for much of what I really liked. Stuff like Adam Ant, Lene Lovich, Gary Numan and the biggest one of these types of bands would be Devo.
Back then MTV was pretty great and played all kinds of music videos and there were shows like Night Flight where you could see even weirder stuff if you were paying attention. My brother and I definitely were. I don't remember when I first saw the Devo video for their cover of the Rolling Stones song Satisfaction but I do remember loving it and being transfixed by the guitar Bob 1 was playing. I had never seen anything like it. I wanted it immediately even though I didn't play guitar.
Now there was another band I loved, Missing Persons, that sparked my interest in this kind of instrument. The video for the song Mental Hopscotch showed the guitarist Warren Cuccurullo playing a similar guitar. You'd think these things were everywhere but they weren't. From what I've read there were only 24 of the original 2 by 4 guitars produced. I went so far as to email Devo a few years ago asking if they still had that guitar and if I could have it. Who knows, they seem eccentric and I thought they just might send it to me.
So not long ago I saw a Facebook post featuring a Kickstarter campaign that was raising money to reproduce these guitars. I freaked out and clicked away to see what kind of money it would take to maybe finally get one of these truly unique guitars. I was totally crestfallen when I saw that the deadline had passed and they were no longer taking preorders or contributions. I wrote the company for more info and heard nothing. So for the last bunch of months I've been looking online to see if they would ever be sold commercially and a few weeks ago I was overjoyed to find out that they were. Click Here to see or buy one.
I freaked out not only because they were for sale but because they weren't outrageously expensive and because of how they were made. The guitars to me look amazing. They are the anti guitar in a way while still possessing all they aspects of a traditional electric guitar that I like. They have a Bigsby tremelo which I do not have on any of my electric guitars and most importantly they have two P90 pickups which are my favorite. I'm not a guitar afficianado but in my experience the P90 has a warmth as well as a clarity that seems perfect. At first when I looked at the pictures of the guitar I thought they were humbuckers because they were chrome plated but was delighted when they turned out to be soap bar pickups. It's actually what convinced me to buy one. How could I not.
I'm hoping to do some shows with my previous band Lank Fame sometime soon and can't imagine that I wont use this guitar if we do. It's been so long since I've played electrically or in a 21+ environment so maybe this becoming available is a sign that it's time. It's definitely a dream come true for me to own one of these guitars. My old Carvin head is being repaired as I write this (just got a call today) at the wonderful Avenue N Guitars so as soon as I get it back I'll be able to properly try this guitar out. I'll keep you posted.