The Guitars of Our Lives (Vintage Guitar Picture Contest)

I get a lot of people sending pictures to me. The most interesting ones always fit into two categories: 1) photos of people with their earliest guitars and 2) kids with guitars. It strikes me that they are kind of the same. Us “older” folks reminiscing of our youth, and us ”older” folks seeing the young kids today finding the same passion we did so many years ago. So, I want to build a picture collage of all that stuff, right here on the net so all can enjoy it.

I want to keep it “vintage” looking for the most part, with pictures of kids as well. So please, only send old pictures (1950-1980) or modern pictures of people under 12 years old. OK? I won’t bother posting pictures that don’t fit this criteria.

The contest:

1. Submit your pictures using the form at the bottom of this page.
2. And (within reason) we will include them all on this page.
3. Please make them INTERNET friendly (less than 1000 pixels in width and height).
4. The contest will run forever (we hope!).
5. Every few months we will randomly draw an entry from a hat and the winner will receive a FREE EASTWOOD Guitar of their choice, up to $600 value (including shipping which is $49 N. America, $99 Europe/Japan, $179 elsewhere). If you want to get something more expensive, pay the difference.

We will store the photos under your email address name, that is the only way we can figure out the winner. When the winner is selected, we will email them and they will have 72 hours to respond. If we do not hear back, we will pick a different wwinner. All photos on this page remain in the contest forever!

Keep it simple, keep it fun!

Eastwood Airline '59 Custom Electric Guitar (Limited Edition Indigo)

We only made 24 of them last year, and here are the remaining serial numbers in stock: 12, 15,16, 17, 20. First come, first served! Order using the BUY NOW button below, then send a separate email with your serial number request.

Eastwood Airline '59 Custom Electric Guitar (Limited Edition Indigo)

Eastwood Airline '59 Custom Electric Guitar (Limited Edition Indigo)

Eastwood Airline '59 Custom Electric Guitar (Limited Edition Indigo)

Eastwood Airline '59 Custom Electric Guitar (Limited Edition Indigo)

Eastwood Airline '59 Custom Electric Guitar (Limited Edition Indigo)

Eastwood Airline '59 Custom Electric Guitar (Limited Edition Indigo)

Eastwood Airline '59 Custom Electric Guitar (Limited Edition Indigo)

Eastwood Airline '59 Custom Electric Guitar (Limited Edition Indigo)

Eastwood Airline '59 Custom Electric Guitar (Limited Edition Indigo)

Eastwood Sidejack DLX Electric Guitar (Sunburst, Left-Handed)

BUY NOW:  $449

Eastwood Airline Electric Mandola (Seafoam Green)

Following on the success of their top selling Mandocaster, Eastwood introduces the Airline Mandola. It features a solid Seafoam green alder body in a USA map shape with an 18” scale maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. A single Humbucker pickup with volume and tone controls delivers a deep, dark, mysterious tone that is completely unique sounding – like a baritone mandolin. The Mandola is tuned in fifths (C-G-D-A low-to-high) and a fifth lower than a mandolin. Historically, the larger Mandola is the actually ancestor of the Mandolin, the name of which means simply “little Mandola”.

“As with all our Eastwood and Airline models we are striving to offer something a little different for today’s modern players,” said Mike Robinson, President and founder of Eastwood Guitars, “Last year we introduced a Lap Steel and a very successful electric Mandocaster. The Mandola fits perfectly into this new family of instruments along with the Folkstar, Ukulele and Tenor. All of these models will continue to help our customers expand their sound.”

Airline Electric Mandola

Only $299

FREE SHIPPING* until July 31st (* North America only, $49 to Europe)

Throwback Suburbia have long been endorsees of Eastwood Guitars and now the two have joined forces for the band’s summer tour, hoping to reach fans of both classic melody and stylish guitars.

Throwback Suburbia will play a series of shows up and down the west coast, promoting their self-titled album and the guitars they faithfully depend on. Throwback Suburbia will share their tour experiences with fans by posting daily video entries with ultimate plans for releasing an extended documentary in the coming months.

Come out to one or more of the following shows and mention the catch phrase “I Get It,” to receive free Eastwood swag.

July 23
Old Ironsides – Sacramento, CA

July 24
The Joint – Los Angeles, CA
International Pop Overthrow Festival

July 25
Cat Club – Hollywood, CA

July 27
Zia Records – Las Vegas, NV

July 27
Beauty Bar – Las Vegas, NV

July 28
Beauty Bar – San Diego, CA

July 29
Alex’s Bar – Long Beach, CA

July 30
Thee Parkside – San Francisco, CA

August 5
Oregon Gardens w/ Pat Benetar – Silverton OR

Eric, Mike, Jimi, Paul and Mark
Throwback Suburbia
Web: www.throwbacksuburbia.com
Email: info@throwbacksuburbia.com

Throwback Suburbia: Summer 2010 West Coast Tour

Eastwood Doral Electric Jazz Guitar

The Eastwood Doral is a full size archtop guitar, featuring a laminated spruce top with curly maple sides and back as well as a three piece rock maple neck. Where the Doral separates itself from other archtops is the versatility of the coil tapped humbucking pickups that afford you the opportunity to switch between vintage voiced humbuckers and P90 voiced singled coil pickups. Joey Leone, Doral design team leader said, “As a professional player I’ve always dreamed of having two L5’s, the mid sixties humbucking model Wes Montgomery played, and the 50’s era L5 CES Scotty Moore played with Elvis. This guitar delivers both sounds.”

Eastwood Doral Electric Jazz Guitar

One other feature of the Eastwood Doral electric jazz guitar is the pickup spacing, the neck pickup is spaced slightly away from the neck an idea that was used on several Gibson one pickup models in the 50’s and 60’s, and on the sleeper of a guitar, the Ibanez Joe Pass Model from the 70’s. This gives the front pickup a bit more of a low mid voicing, a real plus on a spruce topped guitar which can be a bit muddy and have trouble cutting through a larger ensemble. The Doral replicates the natural acoustic sound of the guitar more accurately. The bridge pickup is moved slightly away from the bridge as well, this gives you a more useable sound as opposed to the “treble pickup” with no treble sound found on L5’s. Lastly, this gives you a slightly different sound when both pickups are employed, very similar to the sound many players love on the short scale Byrdland.

“Since the overwhelming success of the Joey Leone Signature models last year, we have been looking for other ways to introduce high-end models at mid-range prices,” said Mike Robinson, President and founder of Eastwood Guitars, “Many guitarists are accustomed to paying $3,000+ for a “quality” high-end guitar. We’ve found a way to deliver that guitar, at half the price and twice the features.”

Chris Haney: Co-Creator of Trivial Pursuit

Trivial Pursuit was born when Haney and friend Scott Abbott got together for a game of Scrabble in the late ’70s. Their banter turned to ideas for their own game and by the end of the evening they had come up with the formula that would eventually turn them into millionaires. Released in 1982, it took off after a slow start. “We had no idea just how successful it would become,” Scott added. “We didn’t realize it would transcend games players and become, with the Cabbage Patch Kids, what Time magazine in 1984 called an American social phenomenon.”

The duo sold the rights to toy giant Hasbro in 2008 for $80 million US. Like all his friends, Abbott chuckled when asked to suggest a defining anecdote about Haney, suggesting there were too many to choose from. “He was not a scholar in the conventional sense,” Abbott laughed. “He had no use for the classroom. He always said, ‘I quit school in Grade 12. It was the biggest mistake I ever made. I should have done it in Grade 10.’

Why BLOG about Chris Haney at MRG? As some of you know, my passion for golf is equal to my passion for goofy guitars. Four or fives times each week I have the honor to play a couple of GREAT golf courses here in Toronto – The Devil’s Pulpit and The Devil’s Paintbrush – both of which are ranked in the top 20 in the country and both exist due to the vision of Chris Haney and Scott Abbott. In the late 1980’s they followed their passion for the game and built the Devil’s Pulpit which opened in 1990 followed by the second course two years later.

Toronto golf courses: Devil's Paintbrush & Devil's Pulpit

So, if you are a guitar player, trivia fan and you like to play golf, you should some day plan to take a walk in the house that Haney built. Both courses are a worthwhile experience, and Chris was very proud of them. Sad to see Chris go so early, a crisp reminder of our mortality and the need for some personal legacy. Fortunately by virtue of the Devil’s Pulpit and Paintbrush, Chris succeeded in doing that, and in my mind FAR beyond the legacy of Trivial Pursuit.

• Some very cool products come out.
• Some slimy companies try to sell their (generally) useless products with scantily clad women (and, hey, I’m all for scantily clad women, but it seems out of place, silly and kind of skanky in a bad way at a trade show).
• There are rooms and rooms of guitars and amps and pedals to check out.
• And there is what seems like a whole floor of drummers and drum products to avoid. (Only the most aurally masochistic of us should ever have to endure the “World’s Fastest Drummer” competition.)
• A surprisingly large amount of guys (most in their 40’s, but some younger, however this is an offense that even youth offers no excuse for) walk around with sunglasses inside and look pretty much like their trying to win a “look like a pathetic moron” contest.
• And so on.

But, it’s still a blast and a half to go—largely because the Eastwood crew (Mike Robinson, et al) are some of the greatest people to hang with. So, what happened this year at NAMM? What follows are some random notes and observations, things I saw and heard, from the NAMM show, this year’s model.

• One of the things about booth placement at NAMM, is that you’re pretty much at the mercy of the gods…or, at the very least, whomever it is who decides what booths go where. The Eastwood booth was in the company of several very cool booths. It was, however, maddeningly placed kitty-corner to some “carry it in a bag” acoustic amplifier. The theory behind this gizmo seemed to be that any singer-songwriter could carry this tall thin speaker and amp and play a gig anywhere without back strain. Unfortunately, the makers didn’t seem to consider ear strain when making this. The sound quality was not helped by the fact that everyone who demo’d the thing seemed to be the first handful of people they could find off the street who knew a G C and D chord and who promised to howl out of tune at any public opportunity. But the amplification system itself sounded so bad that I don’t think Bob Dylan himself could have sounded good through it. As the great and funny Peter Robinson said at one point, “That thing sounds like someone strumming a screen door.”
• The booth directly behind us seemed to be for some brand of bass. However this wasn’t some company trying to take business from, say, people who play Fender Precisions. People who play, you know, actual bass. No, this bass was for guys who thought holding down the bottom and playing tastefully and melodically were archaic notions and quaint ideas of the past. Not for them subtlety or musicality…bass is made for playing as fast as possible. And it gets even better if you can tap and snap as often as possible. Spend four eight hour days with this tuneless rumble directly behind your booth, and you will go insane. You’ve been warned.
• Relic guitars are, inexplicably, as popular as ever. I may get some flak for this but, damn it people, if you want a beat-up looking guitar, beat up your own damn guitar. For one thing, there’s something truly disingenuous about having a fake cluster of wear on your guitar. Do it yourself! Play the hell out of it. It’s not hard to beat a guitar up—I’ve done it to several. However, the worst thing about these “relics” is that they LOOK fake as all hell (including the ones that cost about as much as a car coming out of various custom shops in, not to name names or anything, places like Corona, CA). I have a 1969 Telecaster I’ve had since 1982. It was beat up when I got it. In the twenty-eight years I’ve had it, I’ve played it more than any other of my guitars. It’s been on several tours. It’s been through THREE sets of frets. It has acquired beer and sweat and blood (all, literally) in its electronics. It’s been banged around by luggage carriers, band-mates, tour vans with crappy suspension and questionable brakes and played night after night for years by yours truly. It’s full of dings, scratches, wear marks and a couple of cigarette burns. Why do I tell you all this? Because, as beat up as my Tele is (and I’ve hardly taken great care of it, physically) is has NOWHERE near the “wear” of the average “relic” guitar. I checked out several “relics” (from several well known brands—all the big players) and they, without exception, looked extreme, ridiculous and phony. I can see the logic of wanting to feel a worn-in neck, but these relic bodies are goofy. Most look like a stoned teenager took a belt sander and mallet to them in shop class.
• Boy, are there a LOT of pedals for guitar players available. Many of them seem to have so much gain, it has NO importance what amp you put behind it. It kind of cracks me up that people will buy a three thousand dollar amp and then put a pedal in front of it that so blocks the tone and personality, they might as well be playing guitar through a Radio Shack PA.
• There are, and this is an estimate, about five thousand guitar players at NAMM better than me (I say this estimating the number of guitar plays at NAMM at about five thousand). Somewhat reassuring in this estimate, however, is that fewer than a hundred of them play anything I’d want to play. There’s an astounding amount of truly stunning, and truly awful, noodling out there.
• Based on the purely anecdotal evidence of walking around the NAMM show, I would say that there are a LOT of bass players who don’t know what a bass player’s job is. Yes, Jaco Pastorious and Stanley Clark may have been geniuses, but I think they may have ruined a generation or two of bass players. I’m not saying you have to play Nashville bass and just sit on the root, or that you can’t play it as a lead instrument at time—hell, I love Mingus, for instance, or Entwistle, and they didn’t play “traditional” bass. But, damn, I heard so many profoundly AWFUL bass players just cramming a bunch of notes and slapping and pulling and not seeming to know a thing about the bottom or the melody. It’s an epidemic, people. If you have a bass player like this in your family or band, it might be time for a thud staff intervention. This “style” of playing needs a drastic reaction. Say, public shunning, or something.
• I had to listen to a guy, some “artist” at a pedal booth demo (wearing a purple suit and purple fedora and more makeup than Tammy Faye Baker) play “Pride and Joy” and (yes, really) “Mustang Sally” several times in four days. He was, sadly, on the way to the bathroom, the food and the beer. He was also, sadly, on the way BACK from the bathroom, food and the beer. He played a Strat through a Tubescreamer and a Wah and he sounded exactly like Stevie Ray Vaughan, except for those ever so subtle little things we like to call originality and genius.
• A lot of guys (the ones not shredding like someone named Blackie, or Sinister, or Diabolical Jones or Really Scary Larry or whatever their mascara-stained faces are) play “Pride and Joy” when they sit to test a guitar.
• An otherwise stunningly attractive woman in her mid 40’s with a “SCORPIONS” tattoo tramp stamped at the small of her back. Just sad.
• Along with the bozos who wear sunglasses indoors (and NO, I will never let up on you clowns until you’re swept from the Earth), there were plenty of guys trying to dress like rock stars—long coats, silly boots, one Goth guy trying to look all scary with those weird “look! My eyes are red! Ooooh, scary,” contact lenses, and so on. Really, NAMM is an interesting place to go to see how pathetically some men handle middle age. Guys, the pencil-thin mustaches, the pancake makeup, the black wigs…it would be funny if it weren’t so obvious and so naked in its Peter Pan desperation.
• I checked out the Peavey booth, thinking I’d been unfair a couple years back saying everything they made was ugly. But, no, I was right. They make fine, dependable, at times first-rate products. But they slap that hideous early 80’s ‘lightening bolt’ Peavey logo on everything and they seem to have the worst aesthetic sense in the business. Obviously they’re doing something right, having been in the biz since 1965, but boy, their stuff is tough on the eyes.
• What else? Well, lots of cool guitars. Some fine looking amps (it’s hard as all hell to tell if they’re good sounding at NAMM, since you can’t turn the volume up, which is good, in the long run). More Ukuleles than I’ve ever seen in one place. A Paul McCartney impersonator at the Hofner booth who didn’t look much like Paul McCartney. And, perhaps much sadder, a Catwoman impersonator at the Hallmark booth who didn’t look nearly enough like Julie Newmar. But, then, not enough people in this world look enough like Julie Newmar, so what’s one to do?
• I’d be remiss not to mention National Treasure Deke Dickerson and his annual Guitar Geek Festival. The man knows how to put on a show and this year was no exception.

So, that’s something of a wrap on this year’s NAMM show. In between all the guitars, the amps, the goofy guys with sunglasses indoors were many hours spent laughing and hanging out with the guys from Eastwood (and I would quote some of the jokes and conversations, but none of them approached anything like a G-rating, so you’ll have to be out of that vulgar loop, my friends)—truly some of the greatest guys I know and people who make even a casual gathering in a hotel room better than most parties. Even though I’m still hearing really bad folksingers and slappy bass bozos as I try to sleep at night, I can’t wait until next year.

Small Is Beautiful: Under 10 Watt Guitar Amps Grow Up
Last year I discussed what I believed to be the growing fascination with power reduction. At that time I reviewed the ways in which an amp’s power can be reduced: attenuators, variable power reduction, switchable power reduction, pentode/triode operation and single tube, low watt amps.

One year later it turns out that the industry seems to have focused on single tube amps and either variable or switchable power reduction.

In 2009 the already crowded ranks of the ‘under-10-watt’ category grew significantly. Three aspects of that growth are, I believe, interesting and give us an indication of what’s coming.

1. VERY low power. Not only did many manufacturers introduce under-10-watt amps, a number of them provided the ability to reduce power to under 1 watt – sometimes well under 1 watt. I believe this acknowledges the fact that the vast majority of electric guitar players – if not all – spend a significant portion of their time playing at home. Therefore, it makes sense to provide amps optimized for home playing and less than a 1 watt output is necessary to obtain the best tone at bedroom volume.
2. The economy made me do it. The impact of the economy has helped fuel the industry’s interest in low power amps – 2009’s Mesa’s Mark V and the PRS amp line being notable exceptions. In the worst economy since The Great Depression it makes sense that manufacturers introduced lower priced products. Relatively few guitarists were willing and able to spend over $1,000 on a guitar amp this past year – and likely won’t for some time to come.
3. The economy made me do it, part II. Boutique builders embraced low power for the same reason the rest of the industry did: to have something to sell! Good news for tone hounds! Prior to the world’s economic bubble bursting, boutique amps were overwhelmingly focused on 15-18 watts and above – (2+ power tubes).

Where are we headed?
I believe that the low power amp trend will have legs at least as long as the ‘18 watt’ trend – that is 5+ years. For the next few years expect to see more under-10-watters hit the market. This trend will be long lived for two reasons:

1. First, with the global economy expected to experience only limited growth over the next two years (and perhaps longer) and unemployment expected to decline at a very slow rate, high ticket guitar amps will not be selling like hot cakes. As I mentioned above, amp companies have to have something to sell at a price people are able to pay. Hello under-10-watters!
2. Second, I predict the electric guitar world will discover that under-10-watt amps can provide GREAT tone and surprising flexibility – they can be legitimate tone machines suitable for more than just bedroom strumming.

The positive result for all electric guitarists is that as more and more builders pursue low power amps of their own, the quality and variety of under-10-watt amps will increase – just like 15-18 watters did a few years ago, which were considered low power amps before the under-10-watt trend took hold!

Guitar Amp Industry Reacts to Change – Extension, Contraction and Caution
It’s no surprise that this year the Crystal Ball is clouded by the effects of the economy. Most industries (all?) have been forced to change tactics. Here’s how I think the guitar amp industry will cope.

Up until the fall of 2008 the overall guitar market was as overheated as the rest of economy. Vintage guitar prices were sky high, manufacturers were introducing new products at a rapid rate, a boutique builder baby boom was in full swing with new arrivals being born almost every week. Music Industry revenue statistics confirmed double digit annual growth: guitarists were buying gear like there was no tomorrow.

Sound familiar? Substitute guitars and amps with almost any product you can think of and the scenario was the same.

And then we hit the wall.

How have manufacturers reacted and how will they struggle through until sales start to grow?

Product Line Extension – Want More Pedals?
As mentioned above regarding low power amps, many guitar amp companies that previously relied on $1,000+ products to sustain business are searching for lower priced offerings that appeal to income battered guitar players.

This is confirmed by an interesting fact about how this recession differs from those of the past: the sale of ‘luxury’ products have dropped right along with everything else. In every recession since the Depression, luxury goods manufacturers (in our case think boutique builders) enjoyed relatively robust sales: those with money kept buying high-end items. Not this time.

So, I believe that in addition to under-10-watt amps many amp builders will extend their product lines by creating their own line of effects pedals. After all, compared to a guitar amplifier an effects pedal requires less labor, fewer components (usually), no power supply (or an off the shelf, cheap wall wart), a dramatically smaller and less costly cabinet and, as is the case with combo amps, they don’t require a large and expensive speaker.

To an amp company, that looks like a promising path to a relatively inexpensive product line add-on. I’m certain that I am not the only amp builder who has thought of that!

However, will extending a previously amp-only product line by adding pedals be the ‘answer’ to increased sales? Maybe.

We all know the pedal market is as crowded as the amp market if not more so. Will amp company offerings cause guitarists to buy a pedal when they otherwise wouldn’t or cause them to choose the amp company’s product vs. a pedal company’s?

Time will tell, but those amp companies that successfully launch a line of pedals will do so solely on the merit of their product (and their marketing budget!): amp builder pedals will have to be sufficiently different from the crowd to garner attention and sales.

Can that happen? Who knows for sure, but I believe you will see an increasing number of pedals offered by amp companies that are, of course, designed using their knowledge of tube amp design and tone – not from a pedal manufacturer’s ‘pedal-centric’ perspective.

So, expect to see pedals that are designed to form a ’system’ with an amp rather than being simply an add on. How a pedal compliments, enhances and changes the amp’s tone (and vice versa) and how the pedal interacts with the amp’s first preamp stage will, I think, be areas of interest for amp-centric pedal designers.

Pedals designed to, in effect (bad pun), add another channel or multiple channels to an amp… pedals designed with a frequency response perfectly matched to an amp’s voicing… overdrive and distortion based on the detailed knowledge of how tubes produce their particular mojo and long experience ‘voicing’ amps. I think that amp builder’s will have their own take on pedal design, particularly in conjunction with their own amps.

Guitar Amp Product Line Contraction – Less Choice
I think we will see some amp companies narrowing their product lines. Following the unfortunate theme of this article, higher priced and/or lower volume models may see the end of their life cycle in the coming 12 months.

Too bad for guitarists, but inevitable at least to some extent I think.

Guitar Amp Product Line Caution – Fewer New Products
This is another prediction that isn’t a surprise. When sales are down there is less money available for research, product development and product launches. Plus, these days the risk inherent in any product launch is much greater than in the past.

So, as was evident in 2009 – aside from low power amps – I believe that the number of new amp product introductions will significantly lag that of past years.

Again, too bad for guitarists, but inevitable.

2009 Tube Tone Crystal Ball Revisited.
Last year I made three predictions. As it turns out, it looks like I called two of them correctly!

1. End of the 18 Watt Guitar Amp Trend: In my opinion 2009 proved what I believed was already happening in 2008: the fascination with dual EL84 amps has ended. Although I don’t have precise statistics, I think there were dramatically fewer amps of this type launched in 2009 – yes, launches were down overall, but other than perhaps a small hand full none were twin 84s. As I pointed out last year, this is not to say that EL84 based, 18 watters aren’t good amps! In fact, the trend was legitimate – these things can sound fantastic!!
2. Guitar Amp Power Reduction – enough said above.
3. PCB Amps On The Rise: My prediction that more ‘high-end’ amps will feature printed circuit boards (PCBs) instead of hand made, stuffed and soldered circuit board has not been realized. Nonetheless, I believe that this change will occur, but when it will start given the current industry situation, who knows.

I’d like to know what you think is happening in the world of tube amps. Send me an email at: Don@MackAmps.com.

Mack Amps: Skyraider SR-15 Amp (front)

Don Mackrill
www.MackAmps.com

Neko Case on David Letterman featuring Jon Rauhouse on his Eastwood Classic 12:

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John Fogerty playing some killer slide guitar on his Airline Coronado:

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The Decemberists on Late Late Show, Chris Funk with his Eastwood Messenger:

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Another cool video featuring the Eastwood Coronado guitar by The Jett Blackk Heart Attack:

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Chris Spedding with his Airline Town & Country:

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Music Radar demo featuring the Airline RS-II guitar:

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German player Einar Gast with his Airline Town & Country:

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Colin Newman of GITHEAD with his Eastwood Breadwinner:

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Liverpool band OWLS with a lefty Eastwood Ichiban: