Frankenstein

All right all right, I’m alive.

I figured it was time to put some of my own thoughts down, as opposed to the rather generic stuff I’ve borrowed/stolen lately.

***

It’s been snowing here today. I guess I’ve gone on plenty about winter and snow, and I’ve probably whined from about every perspective possible.

Maybe it is my coastal upbringing that makes me completely unable to wrap my mind around snow.

But this afternoon when these big flakes were falling, really floating and swirling as they descended, I must admit that I could briefly see why some folks see something magical in it. It has its moments.

***

If you pick up the April, 2008 issue of Guitar Player magazine, you’ll find a review (“Bench Test”) of the EVH brand “Frankenstein Replica” guitar.

But before I get into this, let’s talk a bit about guitar collecting.

Come on, it’ll be fun!

*

Here’s the deal. We like rock. We do. And country, and jazz, and old blues. All that. In those formative decades we heard a lot of cool, raw sounds on our favorite records.

Guitarists love to replicate those tones as accurately as possible. And I’m not even sure if that’s what’s really behind the guitar collector’s lust for old instruments. I mean, lots of collectible instruments end up behind glass.

I was at a Guitar Center not that long ago, and in a glass display was a ’66 Fender Telecaster. It was a blonde, complete with scratched paint, worn frets, rusty parts, the whole works. Heck, in ’66 the Tele featured a three-piece bridge. What this means is that for a six-stringed instrument, any intonation adjustment you did affected two strings at once. The point is that no matter what, this instrument could probably never be in tune.

The price? $16,000.

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BB’s current therapy: Apple Venus by XTC.

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It gets worse.

See, you could approach, say, the Fender custom shop, and get them to custom-make an instrument that replicates something like a ’59 Stratocaster, complete with rusty parts, wiring that hums, and fretboard gunk, all for thousands of dollars.

***

So yeah, this “Bench Test” features a replica of the famous Eddie Van Halen red/white/black homemade guitar (circa 1979). He coaxed all of those famous tones out of his, recorded some huge songs. I’m not even that big of a Van Halen fan, but there’s no denying his distinctive sound and impact, for better or for worse, on rock guitar.

What do you get with the replica?

Here’s a partial rundown:

• Dinged paint
• Fingerboard gunk
• Eye bolts where the strap buttons should be
• Asymmetrical pickup routing
• A humbucker in the bridge position, screwed directly into the body
• A single coil pickup in the neck position that doesn’t even work (still, it’s consistent with the original)
• A pickup selector jammed into the middle pickup slot
• A volume knob that proudly reads, “Tone.”
• A loose tremolo arm
• A 1971 quarter screwed into the body behind the Floyd Rose tremolo as a blocking device (“If you start messing around with different years of quarters, especially those from the late ‘80s, you’ll totally ruin the tone,” reads the review in facetious moment)
• Crooked tremolo springs in the back
• A cigarette-burned headstock with no name

The cost?

Are you sitting down?

$25,000 retail. It comes with an Anvil brand case, a certificate signed by Van Halen, VH picks, and an 8”x10” also signed by VH).

On the positive side, the reviewer, Matt Blackett, raves about how dead-on the tone is. On the minus side, the test model came with a bad whammy bar and a crackling output jack that had to be repaired before the test. I gather those weren’t idiosyncrasies taken from the original.

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The collectors’ market is mighty doggone strange.

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Funny, with all the parallels between cars and guitars, it’s always sort of amazed me that, say, Ford Motor Co. doesn’t have boutique cars that replicate classics. I’d think that there’d be a real market for perhaps newly-made ’66 Mustangs. Make ‘em to the original specs… someone would pay.

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I came home tonight and was tired. I wanted to lie down for about a half hour. 90 minutes later I woke up, confused, thinking briefly that it was Friday morning.

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They’ve changed my medication. Couple of the side effects of the original meds weren’t so fun.

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Martina McBride is on PBS. I’m waiting for her to do “In My Daughter’s Eyes.”

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MOBB is still struggling with the bug that hit her and Wolfboy Wednesday. He’s fully recovered, lecturing constantly about comics and games and Greek mythology.

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It’s been virtually a Ray Harryhausen film festival in this household lately. We’ve watched Clash of the Titans, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Jason and the Argonauts. They’re all quite entertaining, I must say. We really don’t get tired of watching them. They’re great movies for a seven-year-old, I must say

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I’d better give it up. Ya’ll have a great Friday and a terrific weekend.