______Old Style

Corpse of Discovery, Saturday, July 10th, 7:00 PM at Old Style

2010-07-07T16:41:00.000-07:00

Corpse of Discovery with Bryan Zimmerman will perform this Saturday, July 10th at Old Style. 7:00 PM. Not to be missed. This, the third in an ongoing series of free events at Old Style, celebrates the release of Mr. Zimmerman's new disc. (Extremely) limited to 300 copies on vinyl, this record will soon be more valuable than your first pressing of Oar. A lavish production, the record jackets were silkscreened (marble-ink monoprints), letterpressed, and "oil-foil" stamped on uncoated chipboard. Bryan will also be handing out used phone cards found on NYC streets with a code for a free download of the record. A very rare West coast appearance.

Also performing alongside Zimmerman this Saturday will be Laura Ortman (who also performs with Bryan as The Dust Dive), Patrick McCarthy, and Travis Millard.

Corpse of Discovery was recorded and co-produced by Jason Loewenstein who is best known as a member of Sebadoh as well as Fiery Furnaces.

More info about C.o.D. HERE on the Free 103.9 website.

Points North with Richard Reed Parry

2010-07-03T14:18:00.000-07:00

Helsinki Cathedral, Senate Square

This, to my knowledge, is the furthest point North one of my guitars has ventured. Senate Square in Helsinki, Finland. About 60 degrees North latitude. Almost as far North as Wasilla, Alaska. Fiddlesticks! To put things in perspective, New York City is at approximately the same latitude as Madrid or Rome.

Another handsome one-piece outfit on Mr. Parry and I love how much Win Butler's vocals sound like Neil Young. -Prob has something to to with the mic on the videographer's phone. I dunno.

Old Style Reviewed !!

2010-07-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

Not to be confused with silverdaddies.com (field tested and approved by a couple sexy seniors I know), urbandaddy.com has just posted a review of Old Style. Check it out!

Bete l'orange a Place Longueuil

2010-06-12T14:21:00.000-07:00

Richard Reed Parry rocks it Old Style in a smart white jumpsuit and curly guitar cord!! This was my first guitar with black sharpie sides as a stock option! Arcade Fire's new LP (out early August) is entitled The Suburbs and I'll presume this free show in a shopping mall parking lot is in reference to the album's title.

No results when I entered "Longueuil" into a French-English online dictionary so I'll guess that it is a surname. Place Longueuil, a much more elegant name for a mall than most American shopping centers. I have a theory that housing developments and shopping malls are usually named for the former landscape features that were 'tamed' to make way for a Hot Topic, an Ann Taylor Loft, or clusters of duplexes on cul de sacs. Some American faves: Millcreek Mall, Sawgrass Mall, Woodfield Mall, Green Acres Mall, Oak Park Mall, Oakbrook Shopping Center, and Jordan Creek Town Center.

Looking forward to the new disc! It's gonna be Mall of America big!

The National Live! at Old Style

2010-06-03T07:56:00.000-07:00

from farmer9999's flickr photostream

Sandwiched between two sold-out shows at The Wiltern, The National gave a special in-store performance at Old Style on Saturday, May 22 at noon. Some video here. A YouTube vid from Coreypet's iPhone here. More to follow. The performance took place in the alley next to Old Style which has a loading dock at the far end and made for a perfect approximation of a venue. The performance was announced several times on KCRW by Jason Bentley and Anne Litt and I went to bed the night before with thoughts of fatalities and lawsuits running through my mind. I think most either took it for a hoax or the Old Style blip has yet to appear on the municipal radar. Perhaps the latter. In the end, my wishes were granted and my ideal sized audience of about 40-50 National friends and fans showed up.

Matt, Bryce, Aaron, and Scott (Scott invoked his brother with the occasional tambourine or maracas accent) played a set of about six or seven songs to a slackjawed audience that couldn't believe they were seeing The National in such an intimate setting. -Just moments after releasing a top 5 record no less. The only thing missing was your surly uncle grilling burgers and putting out a grease fire with a spatula while he smokes a Pall Mall. Like an early Slint show, and as time passes, many will claim to have been there that actually weren't. It was a magical experience.

Forget the Beaujolais Nouveau..

2010-05-06T13:39:00.000-07:00

...handmade guitar cables from Divine Noise est arrivee! (Well, don't forget the Beaujolais entirely. It was Duke Ellington's favorite wine, you know. ) Divine Noise cables are made one at a time, by hand, by Gil Divine in Portland, Oregon. Learn more about Gil in a post from March 8th. See and hear one in action here.

Old Style is the only retail outpost in the known world for Divine Noise cables and we're stocking them in 10, 15, and 20 foot lengths. Patch cables are also available. Mr. Divine builds his cables with silver solder and lots of love. They sound great and will last forever. Folks like Lucinda Willaims, Spoon, Yo La Tengo, Eric Bachmann, Jack White, and others use Divine Noise cables and now you can, too.

The echt kuhl Divine Noise logo was designed by amazing Scott Devendorf of The National. The band's brilliant new record, High Violet, hits stores on Tues, 11 May on 4AD.

Endless Boogie's Focus Level -The Last Three Copies On Vinyl

2010-05-05T12:36:00.000-07:00

...can be found in Old Style's vinyl section. Second floor, next to the rakes and bow saws. They are sandwiched between a first pressing of "Songs of Leonard Cohen'" (Columbia stereo two-eye. $25.00) and Antonio Carlos Jobim "The Composer of Desafinado, Plays." On Verve, $10.00. -Received these this week from Endless Boogie's bass player, Mark Ohe who tells me a second CD edition is being pressed but this is it for the gatefold double-vinyl. Get those hot-stampers while they're hot!

Harmony Conversion

2010-04-27T14:17:00.001-07:00

A just-finished project for Joel Shearer. A 50s or 60s (let's just call it old) Harmony arch top acoustic 'lectrified with a pair of 1962 (!!) P-90 pickups. Neck reset, new tuners, Gibson-style tailpiece, single volume control and three-way toggle.

These Harmony guitars are of special interest to me as it was really the first, or first kind of, guitar I ever wanted. One of my high school teachers, let's protect her identity and call her Twinkle Quesenbury, had practically an identical instrument. Thousands and thousands were manufactured so not too difficult to imagine. I coveted Ms. Quesenbury's Harmony guitar.

Twinkle was my first "cool" teacher. (The crown for greatest "cool" teacher of my youth belongs to Michael Matros, English teacher at the North Carolina School for Science and Mathematics. Matros once told me that the unrequited guitar of his youth was a Gretsch Country Gentleman so I'm sure Matros will be worked in to a future post.) After delivering a lesson, Twinkle would talk about music and art, literature and cinema. This interval between the end of the lesson and the bell was called Twinkle Time. Actually, it was called something else that would alliterate with 'time' but we're protecting her identity here. And before you get too worked up into a lather, there was no hanky panky. Just some booze adventures and Twinkle might currently be teaching second grade somewhere. Who knows.

Anyway, this is rural Western North Carolina. It's the 80s and it's wintertime. Not much is happening. Twinkle would often have students over to her house to hang out and play music. This was about the same time I got my first guitar, a Washburn acoustic. Now that I think about it, Twinkle was a little stingy with her booze and never offered me any of that jug Gallo. The gatherings were great fun and I was learning my first chords and, more importantly, learning why folks get together to play music. I have a vivid memory of being taught the chords for "Stray Cat Strut." Good times.

Twinkle weighed about 95 pounds and it didn't take much of that Gallo, discreetly sipped from a Solo cup, to get her tipsy. After one shambolic evening of chord progressions with some friends, including fellow photographer Kai McBride, Twinkle decided she would save my parents a trip and insisted upon driving me home. -Pretty sure it was a 1981 Toyota Celica but not certain. Maybe not that exact model or year but the same area code. Her next car, a clearer memory, was a red Ford Festiva which she said, "looked like a Converse high-top."

One the ride home I was scared shitless as Twinkle was using the yellow line only as a vague reference point. We were in the North Carolina mountains 4100 feet in elevation where the roads are very curvy. Lots of sharp drop-offs with no guard rails. With audible exhale we reached my parents' driveway but I wasn't out of the woods yet. Ms. Quesenbury decided that it was imperative that she come in to say hello to my mother and father. Twinkle plopped sideways down in a cozy chair in the living room, legs over one armrest, back against the other. The only reasonable thing for me to do now was run and I made a B-line for my room. Much time passed. Twinkle eventually headed home (safely) and I was spared any parental wrath.

I'm told Ms. Queasenbury was more or less run off by the school for being "too radical for the academy" or for perhaps being gay or for simply not just grinding through the lesson plan. These were the Jesse Helms 80s. Luckily, I had the pleasure of being her student before the Macon Co. school system moved her along and have Twinkle to thank for being an early guide on a path in life that I very much relish. The following year, I scored an archtop guitar from the same secondhand music shop where the coveted Harmony was purchased - a 1968 Lake Placid blue Fender Coronado for $225 which I still own. Twinkle....if you're out there....

OS interview with Gil Divine

2010-03-08T07:30:00.000-08:00

photo from photophonic's flickr page

Hi Gil. In addition to being the first Old Style interviewee, I'd like to invite you to be on the Old Style Advisory Board. There is no pay, only glory. Board members do get a holiday gift, though. Not sure what kind of name Divine is but Gentiles get a Black Forest ham from Schreiner's Deli in Glendale for Christmas and Jews get a gift certificate at Nate 'n Al Delicatessen in Beverly Hills for Hanukkah. Larry King has a breakfast/coffee klatsch there every morning. Do you accept?

Of course I accept! The glory will totally be enough! I suppose that I am closer to a Jew than a Gentile since I don’t really dig pork. I have Hebrew tattooed on my arms and I participate in Hanukkah with Yo La Tengo. But I am Jewish on my fathers side, so I am not really Jewish.

Tell me a bit about yourself. My wife Miwa, has worked with Yo La Tengo for years, and I've seen you many times lording over the band's great collection of guitars at their shows. What other artists have you worked with? You're not a very Google-able guy. Things like "Gilberto Gil-Divine and Marvelous" and "so is Gil divine or what?" turn up when I search your name. You've mentioned working with Lucinda Williams so I'm sure you have had some really interesting clients.

Well, I am 35 years old and I live with my wife Nicole in Portland OR. I am a high school drop out. I have never had the desire to obtain a GED or any kind of formal education. I am more of a figure-it-out kind of guy. I was a horrible student and I hated going to school!

I have kind of tried to keep my internet presence low - no Facebook or MySpace stuff for me. I always have people offering to make a website for my shop, but I don’t really have any interest in it. I kind of like the whole word-of-mouth thing. Plus my life isn’t really that interesting!

I have been with YLT for the last 6 and a half years. As far as clients that I have had, I have toured with a bunch of bands, such as Yo La Tengo, Lucinda Williams, The White Stripes, Cat Power, Super Furry Animals, ...and you will know us by the trail of dead. There are a ton that I am forgetting about....maybe intentionally...
When I am not on tour, I do guitar and amp repair in my shop that is in the back part of my house. Those clients include: Britt Daniels, The Decembrists, Adam Selzer (M.Ward and Norfolk and Western), Laura Veirs, and my favorite....Eric Bachmann!

What was your point of entry into the music business? Front door? Back door? I have a dim memory of you telling me that you went to guitar school?

I think that I entered through a wrong door looking for the bathroom and found it! I had no intention of being a guitar tech. I served as an apprentice to become a luthier with my friend Lloyd Tripp because I was always broke and couldn’t afford to pay anyone to work on my guitars. I made friends with Lloyd when he worked at the guitar shop in Oakland, CA (where I lived at the time) where I used to go. -So I would do repairs on my own guitars as well as friends guitars. And when I was touring with my own bands, I would set-up other bands guitars to get some extra cash. It was nothing that I considered doing for a living but was just something that I did when I needed cash or was bored.

You've worked on one of my guitars. -One I built for Eric Bachmann, then of Archers of Loaf, that I consider my first 'good' guitar and the guitar that I like to think sired Emo. At that point I really knew nothing about wiring a guitar so I'm a bit embarrassed that you've gotten into that rat's nest. When I was building the guitar I sent the DeArmond pickups to Lindy Fralin in Virginia because I thought they needed rewinding. He called me up and said, "Uh, run a ground wire to the bridge." I was pretty clueless. I haven't seen that guitar closer than 20 feet in years. Looks like tune-o-matic bridge replaced the original Jazzmaster-style bridge which seems like a better choice. Did you do that? What else did you do? Caustic sweat drips from Eric's hands - it must have been like putting a boat in dry dock.

That thing was a rusted wreck when I got it! He had been traveling / touring with it in a gig bag for all of those years. There was a three inch hole in the bottom by the jack that I repaired. Restoring that guitar was a labor of love for me since it helped make some of my favorite records. I thought that you did a hell of a job building it. I remember that one of the volume pots were so rusted, you couldn’t even turn it! I also remember taking off the wood back-plate to access the electronics and there was a grocery list written on the back of the plate in pencil. I thought that was cool and a sign of a one of a kind guitar. The grocery list should still be in there, underneath the shielding that I put in. I did so much work to it over the course of I think like 6 months - whenever I had a spare moment. It needed a ton of love from all of the years of constant use. I know that I did a mill and crown on the frets, rewired the electronics - keeping the old DeArmonds of course. Shielded the pick up and electronic cavities and fixed the hole in the bottom. There was just a ton of things. Oh ya, I put a set of strap locks and took off the layers of duct tape. The coolest thing that I did was having a case made for it since finding one was impossible since the body is so different. When Eric came to pick it up I made him promise to take good care of it. I even gave him guitar cloth to wipe it down after playing it. It has been a few years ago and is probably back to being rusty mess !!

It is amazing the things you learn while you learn a trade. I can think back to so many things and think “What was I thinking ?!” It’s all a learning process. No one comes out of the womb knowing everything. If you knew everything, what fun would life be? When I first started to solder, I had no idea why it was so hard for me. I couldn’t do it! Well, as it turned out, I was using a cheap Radio Shack soldering iron. Once I got my first Weller, I learned that having nice tools makes a difference in the quality of work and makes you able to do it with much more efficiency.

I'll be opening up a guitar shop this month and have slowly been building guitars to create an inventory for when the Old Style guitar shop materializes. Describe a guitar and I'll build it. It'll be the Gil Divine Pro Model. -Or we could call it "Gil's Divine Creation" or "Divine Intervention." Something like that. Components can be new or vintage. And I've recently found a pretty good lumberyard in Pasadena so tell me what kind of wood you would like me to use.

I love those old Kustom K200 guitars. I used to play in a band with a guy that had one. They have the DeArmond Rowe’s in them. Since this is probably the only time in my life that someone wants to make me a custom guitar, lets do this shit up! First off, let’s find some kind of rare tree that lives in the Amazon rain forest. Cut that shit down and boom, there's the body! For the neck, let’s make the fret board from ebony with block inlays made from the ivory of a Black Rhinoceros. (we will call it the ebony and ivory model!) I am sick of using cow bone for nut material like a chump. let’s get some bone from the cutest baby seal ever! This is turning into some kind of bullshit Ted Nuggent model of guitar. -Scratch that. let’s just do a K200 homage. That would totally be cool !

You are on the road for a good portion of the year. What survival skills have you developed to keep the read weariness at bay? How's your road diet? The artist and sculpture prof. Niki Logis once said that American supermarkets should only have three aisles - sugar, salt, and fat. What aisles do you find yourself spending the most time in when you are on the road or do you go out of your way to find fruit and cruciform vegetables? Is there reading material in tow? iPod road tunes?

I sleep as much as I can! Naps are great. Anyone who has ever toured with me knows that I love me some naps!

I try and have time to be by myself. When you're constantly around people, no matter how much you love and respect them, there are times where you want to choke the shit out of them. I don’t care who you are, when you live with and are constantly around the same group of people for weeks on end, you get to a point where you think to yourself, “Why the fuck wont this person just shut the fuck up?!” or “Why is this person telling me the same exact fucking story every goddamn day and why can't he remember already telling me?!” You keep those sort of thoughts to yourself, and they only happen once and a great while, but I'll bet you anything that even nuns ride each others nerves once-in-a-while! I am sure people have had those thoughts of me. It’s just human nature.

The most important survival skill that I have is my ability to laugh at myself and not take myself too seriously. I always try to find the humor in things . Having humility is also important. I try very hard to keep myself humble. -Like I said...I try, but I am not always successful at it.

My diet on tour is absolute shite! I sometimes eat once a day, and that meal may consist of a burger and fries from McDonalds. Pizza is a staple and those stupid energy drinks are like a monkey on my back! Cookies are a great source of something or other...right ?

I listen to my iPod pretty much only on flights and tend to go for more mellow stuff. I usually put on Lambchop’s OH (Ohio) record or YLT’s Summer Sun. (..And no, I'm not getting paid to say that.) Since I hear live music 5 days a week, silence can be golden!

You can usually find a book with amp schematics in my bag. That’s about it as far as books go.

OK. I've got to ask at least one boring, tech-y question. What kind of tool-kit do you travel with? Is it a small tool-box or one of those huge road cases on wheels with your name stenciled on the side? Any tools you travel with that get you hassled by airport security?

It all depends on the situation and the band. I have 3 different cases. James Mcnew has named them the following:

Lil’ Gil- a large briefcase-sized tool case for short tours or one off’s. It’s about 50lbs.
Gil The Case- it is a bit bigger than a guitar flight case. I use it for tours over two weeks or longer. It is about 100lbs.
Big Gil- A HUGE workbox -about 500 lbs. It is basically a guitar and amp repair shop on wheels.

I usually get harassed by TSA for adhesives and 3-volt lithium batteries. The TSA seems to think that the 3-volts can arc and set the plane on fire. I highly disagree. One time I got to the first show of a tour, only to find that the TSA had confiscated all of my adhesives. I was pissed! Since then, I have covered all of the bottles in black gaffe tape. They have left me alone once I started doing that.

Speaking of tools. I have a couple, like my (non-dial) Vernier calipers and 19th century awl, that were my grandfather's. If I were to lose them, I would survive, but it would be a dark day. Any tools of your own that you are particularly attached to? Tell the truth - and please don't say Dremel.

I do own a Dremel, but I hardly ever use it (honestly!). I would have to say that I get attached to these small pliers that I have picked up over the years. A couple of years ago I picked up this small electric screwdriver that I love. I probably use that everyday! -But nothing as cool as a 19th century awl! I just love tools. I have found the coolest tools in bargain bins at electronic stores .

Finally, I'm really keen on pickups. New, vintage, expensive, cheap. Whatever. Pickups are like viticulture. -Something so basic but with endless variety. Squeeze a grape, let it rot a bit, and you've got wine. Pickups are just wire wrapped around a magnet. Guitar pickups haven't mystified mankind as long as wine grapes (here I'm assuming that all the world is captivated by guitar electronics) have but both have a simplicity that yields to a complexity. What are a few of your favorite types of pickups? Have you ever made your own?

Like you, I do love them DeArmonds! I have always been a fan of old Gibson PAF humbuckers. I do like the Seymour Duncan Antiquity pickups or the Seth Lover model that they made a while ago. I was never too big of a fan of strat single coils until I started to work with Ira Kaplan and his main Strat - that thing sounds amazing! I am really not much of a gearhead when it comes to stuff made in the last 30 years. I have never made my own pickups. I have thought about it, just like I have thought about becoming a cop or a dentist.

Brett Brubaker, Pickup MD

2010-01-31T06:58:00.001-08:00

Like an elderly relative on life support that you just can't pull the plug on, Old Style has a propensity for extending guitar components well beyond their expected life spans. And why not, the stuff sounds so good when it's up and running and the sails are in trim. What follows is a couple touching stories of close calls with the Grim Reaper.

The pickups below were actually declared legally dead for a period of five minutes after a horrible car accident. A Ms. Emma Goo from Northern Los Angeles was adjusting her GPS and lost sight of the yellow line. The aircraft engineer and pickup expert, Brett Brubaker (foggymtn2002@yahoo.com) was called in to spare them from the cold, cold ground. Under his care, both have made a full recovery.

The first pickup is a 1953 DeArmond 'guitar mike' that had no reading on the multimeter and apparently wasn't moth-proofed. Looks like two magnets and a spacer to soften the B-string. Or...three magnets. Will have to ask the doc. Have never met Brett, we just have an email relationship (he hails from Indianola, Iowa), but looking at this work I can tell he's not a heavy coffee drinker.

The second repair was on one of my all-time favorite pickups (after the DeArmond Stratotone 'Hershey Bar' and Jason Lollar's Chicago Steel), the DeArmond Dynasonic. I'll guess a vintage of mid-60s by the shape of the bezel. -Kind of like the bezel on the Dynasonics manufactured for Martin electrics and electric acoustics. The pickup is so heavily worn it looks fake-old, like those guitars people attack with battering-rams and claw-hammers to make them look old. Brett fabricated replacement bits for the cracked off sides and solvent-soldered them on and rewound. Note the subtle invocation of the new Vampire Weekend record by the graph-paper background.

Old Style Oddity

2009-12-11T10:42:00.000-08:00

Short-scale homemade octave guitar in stunning Makita blue. From the Mark Ramos-Nishita collection. A gift from (and presumably made by) a fan which was presented to Mark after a show. This guitar makes me chuckle. PRS-esque headstock, DiMarzio (da-mazzio if you're from Queens) humbucker, and string-through hardtail Strat bridge. Three-piece maple neck-through construction. The pickup was rattling around freely in its cavity and that was addressed. I should probably replace the pickup mounting ring but was moved to keep it as original as possible. Any major alterations might be regrettable, like when I cut the legs off that Chippendale highboy to fit it in the bedroom. I thought Leslie Keno was going to beat me with a broom handle for that one.

With the pickup back where it belonged, I gave the guitar a new set of strings and the intonation got a nudge. Plugged it in and it sounded pretty damn good! I would recommend this one for the shorter guitarist as it will make you appear considerably bigger on stage. Coupled with a pair of Prince's stiletto heels, all eyes will now be on you!

El Gato Negro

2009-12-08T09:55:00.000-08:00

A genius idea shared with me (and invented by) by the peerless Mark Ramos-Nishita (AKA Money Mark). On the left is his 60s Teisco which he converted to an electric version of a Tres Cubano. Wouldn't have been the same if he'd chosen a Swedish Hagstrom guitar to Latinize. A Japanese manufactured Teisco seems to make more sense for this particular mash-up. Mark, I believe, first recorded with the Guittres on his record, Push the Button. Traditional tuning is G, C, E, but Mark likes his G, B, E.

My version began by placing Mark's guittres on a piece of kraft paper and tracing the body. No laser-holographic imaging of any kind was employed for this first, crucial step. I have been living in Los Angeles for four months now and am beginning to acclimate to my architectural surroundings so rift-sawn oak was chosen for a Craftsman-style Gustav Stickley vibe. The wood was dyed black with Sumi ink for a touch of the mystic east. The pickup is a Bill Lawrence 560 mini-humbucker from the 1970s.

$Mark is often referred to as the "fourth Pep Boy" and is currently dazzling audiences on tour with Harper Simon.

(G)old Style

2009-11-18T09:18:00.000-08:00

There's Max Hyder's gilder's tip which was given to me by the sculptor, Richard Knox. Max taught me the intracacies of gilding at The Cooper Union in the early 90s. Mr. Hyder is also a dead-ringer for late Walt Whitman and legendary raconteur who also helmed the Cooper Union sculpture shop. Imagine being a pea-green art school freshman beavering away at a band saw and Walt Whitman in overalls appears out of your blind spot, exclaiming, "I want to lick your balls!" Lewd but not lecherous, maybe it was the delivery, and "too much for Chinese television" as my pal Jonathan liked to say. The CU sculpture shop was legendary for its holiday and end of year parties. Mr. Hyder lured many an art-school boy into the privacy (not that privacy was all that crucial) of a welding booth. Another sculptor (and CU faculty), Ersy Schwartz, annexed the wax room to build a kitchen complete with a Chambers stove. This ensured the parties were well catered. Anyhoo, one new and one revised guitar that were gilt. The short scale guitar is a refin and appears in a previous post. The f-holes (easy Max) can be better seen now and the gold looks good paired with the lap-steel pickup. The other, standard scale, guitar is equipped with a 70s, dec0-style, Stratocaster neck and a pair of Jason Lollar Imperial Humbuckers. Chopped Tele bridge and hollow, cherrywood body. -So the guitar is a mash-up of a Stratocaster, Telecaster, Gibson 335, and a Les Paul. Blissfully light! All the praise for Lollar pickups is true by my experience!

The humbucker guitar is currently on loan with Paul Banks' alter ego, Julian Plenti, who has been giving it a test drive. The other gold guitar is down in the basement, playing video games, being a general layabout, wastrel, and profligate.

Above the Paving Stones - the Beach! Pia Dehne, Gentle Situationist

2009-11-03T11:46:00.000-08:00

...from the archives:

On October 13, 1978, rock behemoth Queen released the double A-side: “Bicycle Race” b/w “Fat Bottomed Girls” from their new LP, Jazz, which would appear in record stores the following month. As a publicity stunt, and in the spirit of the band’s propensity for all things decadent, a nude bicycle race was orchestrated. Sixty-five women rode sporty white touring bikes rented from the British cycle shop, Halfords. In addition to these shiny new ten-speeds, each rider was provided with a pair of black leather shoes and white ankle socks. Approximately half wore white cotton cycling hats and three women wore red hats. (The riders look suspiciously tanned for English women.) Examining the (in)famous photograph from the race, it doesn’t appear to be a rock’n’roll party atmosphere at all; the racers have their game-face on and are poised to compete. The photograph documents the beginning of the race, presumably the moment before the starting pistol was fired. All of the women sit astride their bicycles in the ready position with two exceptions: one woman takes a sip from a water bottle while another stands with her back to the camera to reveal, yup, a fat bottom. The rentals department at Halfords was so shocked by the use of their bicycles they insisted Queen purchase all sixty-five seats! Where are those seats today? I imagine an unlucky EMI intern spent a couple hours with a crescent wrench replacing the sullied seats, pining the likelihood of ever meeting the band members.

The queens of Queen are a bit puzzling. On the one hand you have the lyric, “Fat bottomed girls, they’ll be riding today” –from “Bicycle Race”- and the fist-pumping stadium songs “We Will Rock You” and “We are the Champions.” On the other hand, you have those harlequin tights and the Excalibur-sword half mic-stand. Thus, when Freddie’s mind-bending operatic tenor belts out “Bicycle! Bicycle!” it is easy enough to mentally replace it with “bisexual.” Yet, how many mid-western high school basketball teams in the 70’s and 80’s exploded onto the court for warm-ups to the tune of “We Will Rock You”? Hundreds. And how many of them knew that Freddie was, like, gay? Not many. So…OK…jock straps…locker rooms…it’s beginning to make a little sense. The male fantasy of sixty-five girls in a bike race filmed in a lo-fi Leni Reifenstahl style. Check it out on You Tube, folks. Perhaps I’m thinking too much which is decidedly un-rock and a flotilla of naked women (or men) is a perfectly pleasant idea – gay or straight. Which brings me to the matter at hand.

Pia Dehne has staged a tableau vivant of the Queen bicycle race as a neo-happening and inspiration for a series of paintings and drawings. This isn’t the first time she has staged such a scene. For her previous Deitch Projects show in the spring of 2004, Dehne recreated the original UK cover for Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland, using a collection of New York artists and musicians as models. An eighteen-foot painting on black velvet was made from the photographed event. (To my knowledge, Dehne is neither a pot-smoker nor does she own a blacklight.) This “monumental velvet” sat as the centerpiece of the show and was flanked by sketches, small paintings, and other source materials as tributaries leading up to the large painting. For the new work she has inverted the process by using her carefully staged and photographed re-creation of the bicycle race as her port of disembarkation. I find this new work to be a vast improvement upon her previous solo show at Deitch. Dehne views her tableau through her own secret prism, abstracting and molding her source material.

For the re-creation of the bicycle race, Dehne’s riders were not naked. A “nude-suit” (a Queen-sized oxymoron) was pieced together with two pairs of sheer stockings; the first pair was worn normally with a flesh-toned g-string underneath and the second pair’s legs were made into sleeves with the feet of the stockings cut off to free the hands and the crotch was cut out for the cyclist’s head. Other accessories, as described above, such as hats and shoes, were faithfully reproduced. Prosthetic breasts functioned as oversized pasties and were held in place by the upper pair of stockings.

Pia Dehne is a social dynamo. She can be seen at almost as many New York City art events as that older gentleman with the gray mustache and crazy Monchichi hair. (Don’t pretend you don’t know whom I’m talking about.) She has no trouble assembling a group such as this, as all of the participants are personal friends of hers.

The event took place September 9th, 2006 as a part of Jeffrey Deitch’s 2nd annual art parade. Each participant was assigned a number corresponding to a cyclist from the original photograph in order to more closely replicate the prototype. The women (see if you can spot the one in drag) met before the parade at Sara Delano Roosevelt Park near Stanton and Chrystie Streets for the photo session. A crowd of gawkers quickly assembled and got in touch with their inner hard hat. A group of men playing soccer on the adjacent field showed more hustle than usual. One of the footballers paused to view the spectacle through a chain link fence. After the session the cyclists relocated to West Broadway and Houston streets to lead off the art parade. The short parade route covered only a few blocks to the Deitch space on Wooster Street and, apparently this brief ride wasn’t enough for the emboldened cyclists. Feeling a strong sense of unity and empowerment, Dehne’s cyclists continued en masse on a random route through SoHo for another thirty minutes, turning heads and stopping traffic. Cabbies forgot about their lower back pain for a moment. Shoe shoppers at Camper noticed nothing. The rented bicycles were returned without incident, seats and all.

Simplicity and purity are difficult to achieve in any medium, especially with the subject matter Dehne has chosen. Work such as this is often accompanied with a didactic whomp on the head. I’ve emerged with no unusual aches or pains and feel pleasantly enlightened. Perhaps the most poetic aspect of this work is what Dehne did not do – at least actively. Her cyclists were not instructed to deviate from the defined route, slow pace, and art savvy audience along the parade route and break away to redefine the parade on their own terms. A corny metaphor, sure, but illustrative of the humanistic and utopian aspirations of the work - sentiments that seem to limp along in obscurity in contemporary art practice. As Diana Vreeland once said, “The only thing worse than bad taste is no taste.” Play this record backwards and you will hear Pia Dehne summoning you to, “Form some opinions, your happiness depends upon it!”

But sometimes a naked bike ride is just a naked bike ride. As a closing thought, here’s Duchamp talking about his first and most famous readymade from 1913:

“The Bicycle Wheel is my first readymade, so much so that at first it wasn’t even called a readymade. It still had little to do with the idea of the readymade. Rather it had more to do with the idea of chance. In a way, it was simply letting things go by themselves and having a sort of created atmosphere in a studio, an apartment where you live. Probably, to help your ideas come out of your head. To set the wheel turning was very soothing, very comforting, a sort of opening of avenues on other things than material life of every day. I liked the idea of having a bicycle wheel in my studio. I enjoyed looking at it, just as I enjoyed looking at the flames dancing in a fireplace. It was like having a fireplace in my studio, the movement of the wheel reminded me of the movement of flames.”

Novelty

2009-10-30T12:12:00.000-07:00

Eventually every double-neck Steinberger finds a loving home and this viola-shaped guitar will certainly find a good parent in due time. Built on spec last month from my last bit of mahogany from Rosenzweig Lumber (est. 1910) in the South Bronx. My all-time favorite lumberyard and located just four miles south-east of 1520 Sedgewick Avenue. (...and six and a half miles from the intersection of Ohm and Ampere Avenues!) Guitar has a hollow body with no f-holes and black lacquer under clear-coat on back and sides. Great-sounding 60s Teisco pickups which took much fussing with shims to get the output balanced between neck and bridge. Old, 1930s (??) tailpiece and Tune-O-Matic bridge. Mahogany and rosewood neck with the undeniably great Tonepros vintage repro tuners. Very lightweight.

Most, or all, violin-shaped guitars and basses are somewhat stylized in their design but the body shape here is taken directly from a Google images search for 'Viola' and scaled on a Xerox machine at Kinkos. I'll do a dual dedication to LA's Paisley Underground and my pal Dan, America's biggest Beatles fanatic!

Happy Halloween from Harry Partch

2009-10-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

-portrait by Jonathan Williams
Two recent, similar, guitars. The top one was built for Sufjan Stevens and the bottom one, shown leaning against the amp, (and came first) made for Bryce Dessner of The National. The old-growth Western NC cherry wood was once a kitchen shelf in a cottage at Skywinding Farm in Scaly Mountain, North Carolina. Remarkable wood. Super dark and dense wood. Tap it and it sounds like porcelain.

Before the orange paint was unleashed (looks like a coat of puce Sherwin Williams under there too) in the 60s or 70s, this cottage (for a summer in the 1950s) once housed the great, avant garde composer, Harry Partch. Partch was the guest of poet Jonathan Williams though I wonder how much composition could have been accomplished as Partch built a large fieldstone terrace above the main house which could have taken all or most of the summer. Whether the terrace was a thank you for room and board or he was hired by Williams' parents is unknown. One summer Williams, Thomas Meyer, and myself would often dine on the 'Partch terrace' and on occasion bring out a portable record player to listen to the original vinyl issues of his compositions while we dined! Harry Partch is the inventor/builder of many instruments including the Whang-Gun, the Quadrangularis Rerversum, Cloud Chamber Bowls, the Zymo-Xyl, and the Kitharas.

Whether or not Partch composed during his Scaly Mountain visit there was inspiration for a future composition. One Saturday evening that summer, Jonathan Williams brought Partch to the (Macon) county seat of Franklin to show him mountain clog dancing at the Courthouse square. As a result, Partch was inspired to compose Revelation in the Courthouse Park.

Anyway, I like to think that the cherry lumber (recycled from recent renovations to the cottage) soaked up lots of Harry Partch ju-ju. -Or he at least set a can of baked beans or tomato soup on the shelf.

Both guitars are fitted with a single, Jason Lollar Chicago Steel pickup which is based on Oahu lap steel pickups from the 40s. It's built like an iceberg! Huge magnets lurk underneath. No other pickup sounds like it. I believe Lollar intends the pickup to be used in the bridge position but it sounds damn good in the middle position. Sharpie marker was used to color the sides of both and Sufjan's version is slightly smaller than Bryce's.

Bryce and his brother Aaron have been a tremendous help in the Old Style R&D department this year. More on the Dessners in a future post. Stay tuned.

Old Style Inspiration Part 2

2009-10-21T10:12:00.001-07:00

J.J. Cale's heavily customized Harmony flat top. Some amazing footage of the guitar can be seen in this youtube clip. Cale once remarked that tooling on guitars was his "golf" and this one seems to represent all 18 holes, well played, complete with water hazards, sand traps, and a flask of Cutty Sark. Certainly one of the funkiest guitars on the planet. A whole lot going on. In the video clip, Cale flips over the backless guitar and you can see the turnbuckles that hold it all together!

Cale on his Harmony, from the Gibson website:

It's pretty much inoperable now. The airlines messed it up pretty badly. That was one of the reasons I kept modifying it, or trying to fix it. In those days I didn't know as much about modifying guitars. I took the back off it, because an airline had crushed it. Also, it was an acoustic guitar, and we were starting to play bigger gigs, and I needed to play louder. This was before piezo pickups. When I put a magnetic pickup on it, I would get up to a certain volume level, and then it would feedback. In those days there wasn't a good way to prevent that. One reason I took the back off the guitar, and put a rod through it, was so it wouldn't generate feedback any more. (Full interview here)

Other implied guitars: any number of Eddie Van Halen's home made guitars , The Les Paul 'Log', and Brian May's 'Red Special' or 'Fireplace.'

Chestnut guitar for Chan Marshall

2009-10-20T14:59:00.000-07:00

A favorite guitar from a couple years ago built for Chan Marshall who records as Cat Power. A youtube vid of the guitar in action here. On tour for "The Greatest" her famous black Danelectro was accidentally knocked over by a live sound engineer and the headstock cracked. A few months (weeks?? I dunno) before the Danelectro was busted, I dropped in at the Mercer Hotel in New York where Chan was dazzling the press corps. I brought along a guitar for her consideration but she wasn't too keen on its old Mustang neck and said she would much prefer a Silvertone neck. She had her Danelectro with her which I had the great pleasure of strumming a few chords on. Die Zauberflote! I thought, as it was Dreadnought-loud played unplugged! Very pleased to have one of my guitars in the mix but have fingers crossed for a rebirth of Chan's Danelectro.

The follow-up guitar, as it were, arrived a month or two later after I was able to hunt down a Silvertone neck which I'll guess to be a '59 or '60. As with Fender necks, Chan has an allergy for switches on guitars. So the two, early 60s, neck and middle position, lipstick tube pickups are wired with just a volume knob and no three way toggle. The original 250K potentiometer was later replaced with a 100K volume knob to remove some of the twang that you'll hear in the youtube video.

The body is made of wormy Chestnut and is light as a feather. Guitar has the feel of playing a cloud. The lumber had a former life as a bookshelf in the home of poets Jonathan Williams and Thomas Meyer in Scaly Mountain, North Carolina. The shelf was removed many years ago to reclaim some wall space for Williams' collection of modernist photography and am trying to remember what books were once shelved there. I have a dim memory of R.H. Blyth's four-part Haiku series, Aperture's Masters of Photography Series, Stephen King and Peter Straub first editions, others.

Finished guitar was delivered in a brown shopping bag from APC following the inspiration of seeing a photograph of The Ramones with Joey Ramone's Mosrite in a shopping bag in lieu of a case. Band looking sharp on the G train probably headed into the city for a gig at CBGB's. Transfer at Queens Plaza for the R train into Manhattan??

First Bass

2009-10-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

First bass built in the standard Old Style style. Fender bird's eye maple neck, P-bass pickup by Lindy Fralin and my stock of cherry wood never seems to dry up so book matched cherry top and back. Light and resonant. No bass amp in the Old Style test kitchen, just my old Fender Princeton, so I will have to hunt one down for R&D. Mark Ohe, famous art director/graphic designer and bassist for Endless Boogie was over a couple days ago and suggested the action be lowered a bit so I lowered it.

Endless Boogie played last night at Avalon in the shadow of the Capitol Records HQ on Hollywood and Vine. Jesper Eklow, EB guitarist, took this guitar out for an airing. The guitar came together earlier this year at my gallerist's eastern Pennsylvania home. I set up a plywood and saw horse table in front of her 18th century barn over Memorial Day weekend. Note the guitar's combined POW/MIA and PA Dutch vibe. Late 60s Danelectro/Coral neck, 19th century mahogany body, Lollar P-90. Sumi ink and wax finish.

Collin Wilcox Paxton 4 February 1935 - 13 October 2009

2009-10-16T09:10:00.000-07:00

Collin Wilcox Paxton, stage, film, and television actress died on October 13 at her home in Highlands, North Carolina. She was 74.

Best remembered for her role in the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird as Mayella Violet Ewell, she also had a long and successful Broadway career. (Her IMDB page here) I know her as the founder of a number of non-profit arts organizations such as The Studio for the Arts and The Highlands Cashiers Players in Highlands, NC. The Studio for the Arts occupied a former forest service garage downtown and students from Highlands School would be bussed to 'The Studio' for classes in visual arts, acting, and dance.

My earliest recollection of a class at The Studio would have to be about second or third grade, when I was guided through the drafting of a black and white bunny in pastel. The instructor was Elsa Sibley, a tall and wiry artist and horse enthusiast (and dead ringer for Patti Smith) and I remember very clearly Sibley introducing the class to the work of Toulouse-Lautrec.

I last saw Collin in June when she hosted a cocktail party following the launch of my log cabin book. She gave me a copy of, "Boyhood Photos of J.-H. Lartigue" (Ami Guichard, Pub., 1966) that had been given to her by Tony Walton, Tony award winning scene designer and former spouse to Julie Andrews. As a remembrance, I will look forward to passing the book along to someone interesting in 2045! Of the kindest, most generous, and interesting folks I have ever known. She will be sorely missed.

Mystery Steel

2009-09-29T20:10:00.000-07:00

Pickup found recently on.......perhaps you've heard of it.......eBay. I'll take a stab and say early or mid 1950s. Vacuum molded lucite cover backpainted gold. Surprised there is not a tone knob on the bass side which seems a bit odd. Seven digit potentiometer code wasn't recognized by the Guitar Dater Project, odd as well. Let me know if this pickup looks familiar to you. The coil is P-90-esque in its construction and sounds, er, golden. The neck is from a 1962 Fender Duo Sonic with original Klusons. Chopped Telecaster string-thru bridge which, for a couple months last winter, I thought was an invention of my own. -But nothing new under the sun as the saying goes. Tra la. Double-cutaway cherry wood (poplar sides) body is hollow with Dobro-homage mini F-holes. Strung with .13 gauge roundwounds for extra whomp. Action is set up to follow the contour of the neck radius but the bridge could be adjusted to a flatter radius for a slide player.

This 3/4 scale guitar reminds me of John Lennon's 1958 Rickenbacker 325 during the period that it was painted black. That guitar has an even shorter scale, 20.7". Nearly five inches shorter than a Telecaster!

'53 Premier Pickups

2009-09-24T16:17:00.000-07:00

Finished guitar with the 1953 Premier pickups mentioned in a previous posting. 70s (poss. earlier) Bigsby B-5, Tune-O-Matic bridge, Warmoth maple/rosewood neck, original (and rare) white Daka-Ware pointer knob, Klusons. Like all the other guitars from the past several months the control plate is 40s Melamine recycled from dark-slides from cut film holders for large-format view cameras. You might remember Melamine as the material that bowling alley ashtrays are made of. Nasty stuff. The body is book-matched cherrywood with poplar neck and bridge blocks. Sumi ink finish with a thin lacquer clear-coat.

Pickups were pretty fussy to mount as the plastic covers have shifted a bit over the decades. Pickups were originally for a guitar with a much more acute neck angle than this which made a 1/8" poplar shim under the neck pickup (like on the bridge pickup of Scotty Moore's ES 295) necessary.

Expectations are best kept low with wild card pickups like these but they sound pretty fantastic. Low output by today's standards but with such a great warm and open tone. Pickups are fairly microphonic but no biggie. The temptation was there for wax potting but thought it might be like throwing water on the wicked witch of the West with a cloud of magenta smoke the only thing to remember them by.

Old Style Inspiration

2009-09-24T08:21:00.000-07:00

The Originator, Bo Diddley profiling with futuristic, tail-fin/jet-age guitar sometime in the 50s. Supro neck with Gumby headstock and white button Klusons, two DeArmond Stratotone single-coils in the neck and middle positions, rosewood bridge and a very old tailpiece probably from an ancient mail order flat-top acoustic. I'm barely making out tone and volume knobs on the upper horn and a pickup switch could be lurking in there somewhere. I dunno? Jet silhouette painted below pickups and are those sequins up top?!! Not sure if any color photographs exist of this guitar but I'm going to guess white with red airplane, etc. And check out that 8x10 cabinet in the background! -Wonder what he had powering that beast? Rock N Roll take on the Heisman Trophy pose, new suit, stylish V-neck sweater, and great hair. The whole package.

One of my all time favorites after the primordial electric solidbody built by Paul Bigsby in 1947 for Merle Travis. Not quite sure where this modified Stratocaster (http://members.tripod.com/~Originator_2/images2/guitar3.jpg) with built-in drum machine fits into the mix but it's clear to me that it never traveled as carry-on baggage. Viva Bo. 30 December 1928 - 2 June 2008

Oldies but Groovies

2009-09-20T16:53:00.000-07:00

Multivox Premier (???) single coils from the 33 week (mid-August) of 1953 according to the 6 digit code on the Clarostat volume and tone pots. Same summer that Elvis went to Memphis Recording Service to record "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin." "Rocket 88" was two years old when these came into being and in two years Little Richard would begin recording his great records for Specialty. The Les Paul guitar was one year old.

Similar to the leaky vital organs of my old Ford pick-up truck, these pickups seem to be holding together by sheer will but function fine. A guitar is in the works for these so I am hoping they will hold together a short while longer. Took them apart a bit, but not too much, as I fear they're going to turn to dust like the frescoes in Fellini's "Roma" found via the subway tunnel construction which vanish when exposed to the outside air.

Each pickup has two magnets. The first has a coil wrapped around it and is covered in the type of Johnson and Johnson tape that you would wrap a sprained ankle with. This magnet is not attached (by tape or mechanically) to the coil. The second magnet (like the first, it is just sandwiched in there) has height adjustable screws built in and forms a sort of "T" shape with the other magnet. The whole works sits in a galvanized steel "cup" that was formed out of sheet-stock. Fairly crude so am wondering if it is original or not. Both pickups weigh in just under 6K ohms. If they can handle a bit more jostling I will be very excited to hear how they sound.

Guitar pickups are of the most simple, mysterious, and interesting devices that I know of. Perhaps coming in a close second after a radio receiving a broadcast or electricity passing through wires powering my Cuisinart. Copper wire is wrapped around a magnet and is placed in close proximity to a vibrating string at tension. Literally millions of electric guitar sounds/tones exist and are all delivered by variations of this simple device. Oramus!

Eric Bachmann

2009-09-17T10:42:00.000-07:00

Guitar built for amazing Eric Bachmann in, me thinks, 1997. In the background that's Miranda Brown, another golden throat. Photo is from a 2009 tour and here's a vintage video (VHS??) from olden tymes of the guitar in action in the mid-west: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cyciy9UV0g&feature=PlayList&p=C93B556C1533F10F&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=25

Guitar is made of cherrywood which was given to me by Leon "Deadeye" Potts of Highlands, NC and was harvested near Bryson City, NC. When I was running the wood through the planer I found several specs of lead buckshot; presumably where some hunter was shootin' at some food. The neck is a CBS-style Stratocaster built in Canada by Brian Monte (Monty?) bought at Mojo Guitars on St. Mark's way back when. Brian, if you're out there, give me a call. Bigsby came from Matt Umanav Guitars and the pickups came from a couple blocks away from the compelling and creepy Music Inn. They're 50s or 60s DeArmond Dynasonics that they found after fumbling around the shop. I asked if they had any interesting pickups for sale and a drawer was pulled out, several fistfulls of plastic bags were cast aside, a medium-sized piece of Ivory ("You didn't see that") was found, and then the ratty DeArmond box was produced. $95 with wiring harness!

One of the owners of Music Inn was the go to guy in the 60s if you wanted to learn enough sitar to get your Norwegian Wood on. My brother took some lessons from him when he was doing his residency at Bellevue. I would often see him waiting for the bus at 9th st and Second Ave and I used to see his partner at the Chelsea flea market buying a beat up French horn or some bizarre oceanic instrument.

Eric's guitar has aged amazingly well considering the caustic sweat that drips from his body. -Was rewired and restored by Gil Divine a couple years ago (he said he found a grocery list written in pencil inside the control panel, hmm) and sounds better than ever. Perhaps this is the guitar that sired Emo. Quien sabe?? Eric is currently in Taiwan teaching English and recording new songs. We're all waiting for an Archers reunion but "Your Control" off his most recent record boggles the mind. One of America's great greats. Don't be a fizz, buy the records.

2009-09-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

Pine plank found on either E. 10th or St. Mark's earlier this summer. Can't remember but I do remember the traffic flow being east. Final few days in NYC before following the golden rays of the setting sun west to LA. Almost passed this board up but the white Cadillac across the street and the weathered white board, etc, etc. Smelled great when I split it on the table saw for book-matching so it's certainly very old pine.

The back is recycled maple from a a 60s piece of Salvation Army furniture and the sides, neck, and bridge block are poplar. Sharpie finish on the back and sides! '83 Bullet neck in honor of Junior Brown and a Lindy Fralin Telecaster pickup. No tone or volume controls.