Rich Inner Lives

Come to think of it, all of us here at ThermionicEmissions, including Penny the Wonder Barker, have rich inner lives.

Mrs. lefty has multiple personalities, so it's never quiet upstairs. It's described as a playground where everybody's playing Whisper Down the Lane at once.
Penny jumps around and barks in her sleep, so that must be interesting too.
From descriptions, I have the best and most animated inner life.

There was the time Marshall came into bed, walked around on my chest til he found a comfortable spot, then went to sleep on my chest. I have absolutely no knowledge of this. It makes me wonder what other kinds of things happen in my sleep that I don't know about. It might also explain the pains that I get in my.. never mind.

Not comfortable with being a part-time dog bed, I apparently provide no end of audio entertainment. I laugh, cry, fight, and sing in my sleep. This is somewhat confusing, as I can't sing in real life. Can you imagine having to tell the club owner that we have to postpone the show - til I'm asleep?

I'm further informed that one does not want to be in the bed with me.
Actually, this is not news - I've been told for years that women don't want to be in bed with me. The specific here is that I reach out, grab, and occasionally punch the air. Mrs lefty tries not to be the air that gets punched. It may also explain the brick wall down the middle of the bed, and the bloodstains on my knuckles.

This is fairly fascinating to the wife, who monitors me closely while I sleep, perhaps waiting anxiously for my last breath. I thought it was funny at first, but it continues and gets worse: the exorcist was not worth what he was paid.

So that's my exciting inner life.
It's a shame that my real life is nowhere near as exciting. I was thinking of switching places, but considering some of the dreams I've had, I'll keep things as they are for now. No one wants to go Up There and see what's going on.

• Fender sent an email about a Telecaster promotion. Noting the link, I went to check it out. Fender has 36 righty Teles and 3 lefty Teles.  yawn.

Dear lefty:

• Did you know Border Collies are among the smartest dogs?
• Did you know that if you have sex with someone who has a cold and get the cold, it's considered a sexually transmitted disease?

I had to quit therapy - if I got my issues fixed, I wouldn't be funny anymore.

Some would argue that train left the station a long time ago.

• The other day, one of my work systems identified a connection to Microsoft as malware. The computers are finally starting to agree with me!

Jack and Jill went up the hill.

Hills are a tool of white privilege.

• We're going to look back on this period and laugh. 
• But not in a good way.

It's been a long time since I recommended any music.

Let's keep it that way.

Speaking of which, ZZ Top is touring again/still. Talk about some hard workin' men. You should see them - always entertaining. Wave to us - I'll be the one with the hat. Also pick up Billy Gibbons' solo albums.

Seriously, folks, get out there and support your favorite acts. They're getting up there and you never know what will happen. My heroes are all in their 70s. I see them every chance I can, whenever I can get someone to help steer the rocket-propelled Chevrolet.

2018 Fall Philly Guitar Show

As decreed by our forefathers: Page, Hendrix, Beck, and Zappa, we must find any excuse to attend any event of any type, featuring guitars, or at least pictures of guitars. Women are really good too - at the shows and in general.

As we remember, it is fall, but the Philly Guitar Show is not held in Philly. It's in Oaks, just past King of Prussia. For some reason, King of Prussia is absolutely hilarious to anyone not from the area. Taking that into consideration, I shall not mention the Philly lane called Street Road.

As happens more often than not, it wasn't exactly a great event for lefties. However, there was still a lot to see to keep things interesting: tons of pedals, vintage and some new amps, and the perennial Greyhound rescue group. The dogs are pretty chilled out and sweet. Drop a few bucks in their jar and help the no longer needed racing dogs.

There were some exceedingly vintage guitars to be seen: some clearly for sale, some without any tags. I felt like a real idiot, taking pictures of them, not that this stopped me. I do this all for you. Do I sound sufficiently genuine?

First thing I almost bought was a leather handle to replace the one that failed catastrophically on a tweed amp. Something about a $50 leather handle forced me to leave it there.


The Taylor booth is always a lot of fun, even for lefties. Martin brought a cutaway lefty too - there is no upcharge for lefties.

new Taylor T5 and acoustic

Next is a real gem: an actual lefty Jimi Hendrix Monterey Strat. The originals were lefty, but the cheaper production models were backwards.

lefty Jimi Hendrix Monterey Strat

lefty 1965 Strat. Only $6995. A bargain at half the price!

lefty 1965 Strat




lefty Ric bass - think McCartney post Beatles

lefty Ric bass

lefty German Hofner bass - think McCartney Beatles

lefty Hofner German bass

a 2004 lefty Gretsch - check out the flame

lefty 2004 Gretsch

Here's a normal recent lefty Gibson SG

lefty recent Gibson SG

This is a one-off lefty PRS conversion, done by Paul Reed Smith himself and documented by a letter from Paul. This was before PRS did lefty guitars.

lefty PRS conversion

PRS just put out a lefty SE series guitar (made offshore, very reasonably priced). Here are two very expensive PRSes, American made, in less than attractive finishes.

expensive lefty PRS 1

expensive lefty PRS 2

That does it for the properly-oriented guitars. Next up, the backwards righty guitars.

This is a 1958 Stratocaster in really great shape. It's around the period I really like. I played one and it was pure magic.

1958 Strat

Here's what's described as a 1958-61 Strat. Perhaps it has multiple personalities. Perhaps some days it identifies as a banjo.

1958-61 Strat

This is a 1968 Telecaster. It's a rare 2 tone sunburst.

1968 Tele

vintage Gibson Firebird. No identification.

vintage Firebird

Gibson Les Paul TV Special. It was referred to as TV because it was always played in front of the TV. I make it up as I go along.

Les Paul TV Special

Gibson Les Paul SG -  this is a very old, special guitar, with the SG body shape before it morphed to the Les Paul shape we know and love. Referred to as Les Paul because Les Paul, a famous guitar player, got an endorsement. Les was the father of the electric guitar, an inventor and recording genius.

Les Paul SG

Gibson ES-345 (I think). The Custom Made plate was standard. It's in really good shape.

Gibson ES-345

If you're set on cousins, you can buy this 1961 dot ES-335. Dot denotes the fretboard markers. I believe this is a very desirable year.

The apple of my eye - a 1979 antigua Strat, the mirror image of my #1 guitar. I call it pukeburst. The best of avocado green and harvest gold.

1979 antigua Strat - pukeburst

You can never get enough pukeburst, so here's a matching acoustic. As you can see, there was a lot of variation in pukeburst. There are actually reissues, but they look even worse, if you can imagine that.

acoustic pukeburst

If the above two are pukeburst, the Japanese produced this shitburst. This is the kind of education one cannot get in school. Even private school.

Japanese shitburst

The expensive stuff starts here. These are two old Les Pauls and an SG

Les Pauls and an SG

You don't see a lot of 1969 Les Pauls

1969 Les Paul

This guitar is very special: a 1958 sunburst Les Paul so special, it has a name. Charlie. There's a great story behind this but I don't know it. There were about 3 lefties made during this period. I played one and it was decent. A fellow named McCartney has one. The other is in the US. Guitar Loons keep track of this kind of thing, even assigning names to them. These guitars are the Holy Grail: Jimmy Page has a few, Joe Walsh, and anybody who is anybody. One of the most famous Les Pauls of all time was Peter Green's (Fleetwood Mac, when they were a blues band), which he gave to Gary Moore. Gary's estate? (RIP) sold it to Kirk Hammett for about $2 mil.

1958 burst Les Paul - Charlie

It's a Les Paul. It's old. I can't see the writing on the tag and none of us can afford it. Note the single coil pickups. 

old Les Paul with single coil pickups

a 1952 Les Paul. This is a very old guitar. At only $10k, you can afford to buy a few. Why is it only $10k? How should I know.

1952 Les Paul

a 1960 Les Paul Special, refinished from sunburst. This lowers the value.

1960 Les Paul Special refin

1959 Les Paul Special - to go with your 1960 Les Paul Special above. Your wife's shoes match - why shouldn't your guitars? Notice the grain.

1959 Les Paul Special

There's a lot to be said about new Gibsons too, mainly that this rack contains many pointy ones. Flying V, Moderne, and Explorer are some names Gibson used. Notice the split headstock on the first guitar. This came about due to Barry Gibson using the scroll saw while drunk.  The founder, Orville Gibson, was a lefty, which explains why they're so hard to find.

a rack of pointy new Gibsons

enough Gibsons - let's see more Fenders

1955 Strats aren't too common. It's one of the first years for them. However, something about this one isn't sitting right - the finish, for one. The bakelite plastic parts tend to disintegrate over time. The pickguard is suspiciously new looking.

1955 Strat

How about a 1963 Strat. 1963 was a great year. How do I know? I don't. You can tell from the sticky this one has MOJO. Judging by the price ($16k), they charged extra for it. It really does speak to some of us.

1963 Strat with MOJO

1956 Esquire. Esquires became Telecasters after whoever owned the Esquire name sued Fender. Note that the Esquire only has one pickup, in the rear. Teles have one in the front too. Jeff Beck was a famous Esquire player. Jeff Beck could make a trashcan sound good.

1956 Fender Esquire

Another Holy Grail: a 1952 Telecaster. At only $55k, it's a steal. It's also a block of 1952 houses. This is so early in production, it still has diapers. Some of the guitars were labeled early or late in the year. Because everybody knows that in 1953, Jose Rosenstein started falling over from the paint fumes, so you want an early 1952 Fender.

1952 Tele

Danny Gatton (RIP) was the best unsung guitar hero in the world. The man was a master of many genres and entertained people all over the world. He worked with Fender on a Danny Gatton Telecaster and here is his #1. At $50k it's true history. The production guitars had 2 pickups instead of 3, but they were still Joe Barden pickups. These sounded authentic but were no-hum pickups. Next to this was a very early prototype. You'll have to take my word for it because, for some reason, I didn't take a picture. It might've been the guy who kept getting in front of me. If you read anything about anybody getting seriously injured at the show, I had nothing to do with it.

Danny Gatton's #1 Tele

1966 Telecaster is another fairly rare guitar, especially when it could be a 1967 too. The 1966 Tele came directly after the 1965 Telecaster, and was going for $6600. I like the color and condition. It remains backwards on purpose.

1966-67 Tele

a 1954 Stratocaster is pure unobtainium. Even I am ok with holding off til 1958. This will set you back $32k. Notice the front pickup cover disintegrating. Leo Fender obviously didn't do any age testing on his plastic. Leo was quite a frugal guy and wanted to produce a good product at a reasonable price. Leo also couldn't play an instrument, much like Cobain. This may be the first year for Strats.

1954 Strat

here's a 1961 Esquire to go with the 1956 Esquire a few guitars up. The finish has more character, which is a polite way of saying it's f-ing trashed. This is not a bad thing with guitars, although the nicer examples will be more expensive. This example is $11k. For your amusement is the 1968 neck for $1850. By way of comparison, you can get licensed Fender necks starting at under $200 (obviously they're NOT THE SAME).

1961 Esquire

One of the early effects boxes for guitar was the Electro Harmonix Big Muff (and Little Muff - submit tasteless comments to the comments section). This box made your guitar sound like it was roaring out of a cranked Marshall amp. It was incredibly popular. It is said that Jimi used one, which is no doubt due to some kind of time warp: Jimi died in 1970, before the Muff came out. 

For some reason, Big Muffs were also made in Russia. What no one will tell you is that this is the beginning of the Russian meddling in elections plan. They started with guitar effects. It turned out to be a piss poor plan because guitar players are frequently stupid and can't always find their way to the polling place. Or even remember what day of the week it is.

Notice the lovely and consistent Russian design ethic. The exquisitely round black knobs. The bigass footswitch. They also run on batteries that you can't even get in Russia anymore (I made that up).

Russian Big Muffs

On the way out of the show, something caught my eye. It was my finger and it hurt like hell.

Also on the way out, I saw this interesting booth. They were displaying some products from 360 Systems, an early synthesizer company. The piece of equipment that blew me away was Frank Zappa's prototype guitar synthesizer. I was in the presence of greatness! The gents at the booth didn't have exact specs or functions but noted that there were definitely 360 Systems products involved inside. It was obviously never completed. They have much more Zappa equipment. I hope we'll all get a chance to see it and hear about it. It has a lot of labeled functions and a keypad whose function no one can guess. Had it gone to completion, it would be called something like the Oral Cement Grungalizer.

Frank Zappa prototype guitar synth

Not to be outdone, this is Steve Howe's (Yes) prototype guitar synthesizer. All of them were described as tracking really poorly, due to the method of conversion.

Steve Howe prototype guitar synth

There were 300 ARP Avatars made. They were specifically for guitar. The giveaways are the lack of keyboard and the guitar input.

ARP Avatar guitar synth

Last but not least is the 360 Systems Guitar Synthesizer, built from lessons learned through the Zappa and Howe experiments.

360 Systems Guitar Synth

The gents at the booth also mentioned having a bit of Keith Emerson's rig. 

More as I find it.

There was every kind of effects box you'd ever want. There were wood guitar shape pick holders, unfinished bodies, ridiculously cheap guitars, effects from one transistor to $450 current technology, parts, a Bludotone head (Carlos Santana uses one now), designed as a copy of the rare and horribly expensive Dumble amp, which can be had on the used market now and then for five figures. The price goes up every time Robben Ford, Larry Carlton, or Stevie Ray Vaughan sneezes. There was the famous SRV Leslie, plus a few smaller varieties.  Strings and colored strings could be had, as well as great t-shirts and replacement windows. I suspect someone thought this would be a good idea, and it would be if the gathering included anything but guitar players. It expanded a bit since the last few times and it was a blast.

In the same bleak industrial park-like place were a few food joints. We discovered Cheeseburger Cheeseburger. The burgers were quite good, and we had some real knockout shakes (mine was brownie batter). No Coke - Pepsi. Recommended.

And that ends the Guitar Jones for 2018. The next Philly show is June or July, so if I remember to take pictures and can drag myself to putting them in a page, you'll all see them.

when I hit the spell checker button, it will promptly cough and die

Guitar Players: More Options

This might be interesting to guitar players, especially lefties. Normal people have to decide for themselves.


There's never been a better time to be a lefty guitar player.
This is what we call hyperbole.
Let's just say it's an interesting time to play guitar in general. Music is widely available, there's tons of information on YouTube, including pretty difficult songs to play and demos of gear. And makeup tips.


This missive was spawned by a number of developments by Fender. For the longest time, lefties could not purchase any offset Fender (Jaguar, Jazzmaster, etc). Fender has a configurator on their site, where you can pretty much build your own guitar. They just added a lefty option for the Jazzmaster. Regardless of which Fender you want, you should go play with it, to see what you can come up with for your 'dream guitar'. Your choices are Jazzmaster, Stratocaster, Telecaster, P Bass and J Bass; all available left-handed. You can choose wood, finish, hardware, pickups, and neck shape (you can choose a C neck or a slightly larger C neck).

Speaking of offsets, Fender also announced most of the offsets are available on a one time only basis from Fender Japan. You leave a deposit now and they deliver the guitar at the end of the year.

Speaking as myself, which is pretty much the end of the list of people for whom I can speak, I'm not as excited as some offset fans. If I were going to order one (or several) it would be because I wanted them for the collection. After looking and listening, I'm not sure an offset will fit sonically. The output of the pickups is down below my beloved Strat and the guitars sound kinda plinky, lacking sustain. While this may work perfectly for surf music and whatever else, it won't work for me. You don't see many blues and classic rock artists with offset Fenders. Cobain had a modified Jaguar, but he wasn't exactly know for tone. Oddly enough, you can buy a Cobain model (unless you're a lefty, talk about irony).

My big problem... well... the one I'll admit to... is the neck. There are two very important specifications to me: shape and radius. Radius is the curve of the fretboard. The lower the measurement, the more curved the board. The shape is literally the shape of the neck, from the side of the fretboard, around the back to the other side of the fretboard.  Back when Fender first started (1950s), the necks were huge, with a 7.25" radius, and a large V-shape. I grew up with late 70s Fenders, which were very similar to the vintage ones. Fender now refers to this neck as a U shape (I think - they're weird). You cannot purchase this neck on a stock Fender, including the Mod Shop. I spoke to Fender and was told if I don't like the C neck on all of their stock guitars these days, I'm screwed.

Fender has a long history of reproduction guitars, lately 50s, 60s, and 70s. Every time they do this, they mess up an important feature. The current 50s 'correct vintage' Strat has a fairly accurate neck shape, with a 9.5" radius, which was not made in the 50s. So it's somewhat less than correct vintage. Fender is obviously not bothered by this. In fact, only the crazies (who would that be?) are upset. There are U neck guitars available from Fender Japan, which I am investigating. The hurdle here seems to be a very large body of water, plus an exchange rate.


WHAT OTHER CHOICES DO I HAVE?

Glad you asked. Or I would have had to stop typing at the last paragraph.
If you like Fenders, your other choice is custom parts or custom guitars. I'd recommend you check Nash Guitars, somewhere up the the Northeast US, available on Reverb and a few stores. They are very vintage-correct and feel great (ok, the one I picked up backwards in a store). I can't help you with custom guitars, as there are way too many people who do this.

Parts are where it's at if you read this far. The biggest would have to be Warmoth. They have one of everything, at least. You can purchase stock guitars bodies or necks. You can also configure your own. Each step is explained, so you aren't going in blind. The stock necks start at about $150 and go way too far up, depending on whether you need African Pink Cocobora accents with a roasted quarter-sawn maple fretboard, and solid gold inlays of upright vacuums. There is no price difference for lefty or righty. The bodies in stock range from $260 to $600, but again, this is highly variable, depending on whether you like an in-stock body or designing your own.

Warmoth's options for designing your own body and neck go down to minute details. One of the reasons is that you can order what you specified right at the end. Each option has help available, so you're not scratching your head and squinting thoughtfully, in case anyone walks by. I read that your order does not come complete or built. They expect you to get the finish off the frets and put everything together. There may be an option for getting everything done for you but I haven't looked for it.

There is some wild stuff available. You can get wood you've never heard of or seen from countries you've never heard of or seen. Your neck will consist of one piece or a neck and a fretboard, depending on options. You can pick 2 different woods. Some are very colorful, with tonal details explained. You can pick Vintage, Modern, or Hybrid basic designs. This dictates which options you can select. For instance, the 7.25" radius is not available on Vintage, but is on Modern. There are a ton of options for radius, as well as compound radius, where it starts as 10" and goes to 16" at the end. Finished or non, gloss or satin or vintage stained. Even fretboard inlay shapes and colors. The necks are available in many shapes like current, V, soft V, boatneck, thin, and others. Keep in mind that you need to have some idea what shape you want: you can't return it easily. My problem is that I can't find anywhere to play anything other than stock Fender necks. In the fifth largest area in the US, there is nothing but garbage to be seen. Almost zero vintage.

The bodies are where most of the fun is. You can choose most popular body shapes for guitar or bass. Choose the wood, cap if you want it; clear or color finish; transparent, burst, or metallic colors. Mount the pickups on a standard pickguard or to the body. Most kinds of whammy bar. Lots of pickups, mostly Duncan (I like them). Tons of goodies.

When you're done, don't forget the hardware. You have a wide choice of these or you can get them and install yourself.

Again, when you're bored, sit down and have some fun configuring your dream neck and guitar.

Lots of people tell me to just go to Warmoth when I complain about Fender not having what I want. Warmoth is not a bargain outlet. Fender has a few necks they will sell you for exorbitant amounts, which Warmoth happily beats, but if you want one item different from stock, you will pay. Warmoth also supplies some necks to Fender.

For example:
Both guitars are configured as alike as possible, with no extras.
A Mod Shop Fender Stratocaster, lefty or righty, basic options, will cost $1699.
A Warmoth lefty or righty body is $370, body/pickups/hardware is 682.35.  The neck is about $262 without hardware. The grand total is $944.35 plus other stuff.  The difference is $754.65 plus whatever hardware you need and assembly for the Warmoth.  Neither of the prices can come down much, unless you use in-stock bodies and necks at Warmoth, and no body finish.

Or FUN STUFF:
If I changed from the basics on the Fender, it would still be $1699.
My Big Fun Ultimate Quilt Maple Cap, blue stain finish body is $715; $1067 with pickups+hardware. The neck, one piece flame maple is $416 plus tuners, for a grand total of $1483. If money was the only criterion, I'd save about $200 with Warmoth and get exactly what I wanted. Fender would essentially be a stock Fender that was expensive, with zero options for a neck I would play. Oddly enough, neither of these guitars had a lefty upcharge.



Another place I'd highly recommend is USA Custom Guitars. I haven't purchased anything from them yet, but I know stories of customer service and humanity far beyond regular retail.



your mileage may vary

Philly Guitar Show

Last weekend I attended the winter version of the Philly Guitar Show, which was neither in the winter, nor in Philly.  Depending on who you asked, it was either at the Philly Expo Center in Oaks or the Oaks Expo Center (in Oaks).

That aside, it's always fun going to these shows.  I might have missed two in many years.  From a left-handed perspective the shows are frequently disappointing but this one was more of a winner.  I bring you pictoral evidence....

First up, I wandered into a 1964 lefty Strat.  I have never seen one, no less played one.  As one would expect, it had that mojo only available in a vintage guitar.  It was burst with a big old rosewood board for only $14k.  Just so we lefties don't feel discriminated against, another booth had a righty 1964 Strat for the same price.  Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of it, although it was the one I wanted most.

Next up was a local dealer with an amazing collection of Taylors.  At the end of the collection was the lefty collection.

Technically speaking, there are only three, which is because the guy went to set the fourth one up after I played it.  They all played like butter and I will eventually have a few of them.  Just not now.

Around the corner my senses started to tingle when I saw this:

I can spot a late 70's Strat from across the room.  It was a 77.  And when I got closer, I almost dropped my coffee.  I know some of us are inveterate tinkerers but this guy went a little too far.  He installed a humbucker in the rear, which I must admit to doing on one of mine but then he went and added a switch or five.  And not the small toggles, no sir.  He added flat-handle toggles, in odd places, at odd angles.  I picked it up (because I like pain) and it felt decent but quite used.  Could probably use a fret job.  At about $1400, I decided to leave it there.

Here is your basic black Les Paul Custom (I have the Ibanez lawsuit version of this).  It was in good shape and relatively reasonably priced.

Here's a wine red Les Paul Standard Plus top from 2008 for $2150.

I know these are available but have never seen one til now.  It's the newish Squier Classic Vintage Tele (Strat also available).  These are some great deals, with pine bodies and acceptable hardware/pickups, at  a bargain price.  This model inspired me to build my own pine Tele (and when I say build, I mean I have had all the parts for a year and am waiting for the Finishing Department to get in gear).  The only problem with this series is the problem I have with all recent Fenders - the dratted C-neck they use.  But try one - you might love it.

When was the last time you saw a lefty EB0 bass?  For me, the answer is never.  And from what I remember, it's no great loss.  But still a curiosity.

Speaking of lefty basses, you don't often see a bass both lefty and in blue.  They also had one in maple. I don't have a blue guitar yet so this made me tingle a bit but I'll need a guitar before a blue bass.

=============================================

While that's about it for lefties (I didn't bother with the cheapies I saw), here are some interesting pieces of the backwards (right-handed) variety.

These were my favorites in the whole show, for their sheer hideousness.

Here is a custom-made Alembic guitar for Richard Betts, aka Dickey Betts, late of the Allmans.  Came complete with a Vintage Guitar story on its creation.

This was a classic beauty - a 1954 Telecaster in pretty fine condition for only $25k.  Below it is a picture of the neck with its date.

Les Paul enthusiasts got to behold this 1955 goldtop.  It was not priced and if you have to ask.....

The shows are held twice a year, June/July and November.  Check B3 Guitars for the schedule - they may be coming to your town.