Bizarre Guitars and Gear

[Franco]

Hey fellow freaks, I've been writing about weird gear for a while and thought I'd post some it for y'all to check out.  I basically grew up playing pawn shop guitars and grew to really love them.  They can still be had for cheap, and with a little work, can be everyday players!  Plus they have the garage sound in spades!!  Here's some examples of what I'm talking about:

Tiki Mask guitar

Bomber Boxx Fuzz

I have tons of weird guitar pics and just run the site as a hobby/passion, and I'd really dig talking oddball gear wit ya. 

Cheers

Franco

[G. Wood]

Wow. You have some cool stuff. Love the tiki! I'm very fond of waht you call "pawn shop guitars" too, and have posted pictures of some of mine in the other gear thread recently.

[Franco]

Yeah man, I was looking around in the other threads and saw lots of cool guitars!

[Franco]

Has anyone ever played a Russian guitar???  Here's a Ural video demo we did...

[G. Wood]

Nice! Yeah, I have read that they're unplayable junk, looks like you proved them wrong. Were the frets really that bad? Was it wear, or just poor work?

[Franco]

Wow, they are really bad! Very crude, the original bridge was something like balsa wood wrapped in metallic foil.  Communist era prudence combined with little to no guitar building experience went into these Urals.  The wiring is the craziest thing I've ever seen! Once they're wired point to point they sound great!  Here's a good article about the Ural guitars, and they're still cheap to buy.

[Mardy Pune]

Did you ever go to a site called Bunnybass? It was gallery after gallery of bizarre looking Bass Guitars. Its gone now, a real shame.

[THEE DIRTYBEATS]

Whew -- that Bomber Box is something else!

-A

THEE DIRTYBEATS maximum vintage garage
http://theedirtybeats.bandcamp.com

[Franco]

Nope, I never did see that site called Bunnybass, but it sounds like something I would've loved!  And the Bomber Boxx, it's one of my favorites, and it's cheap.  I get so pissed when I see NEW fuzz pedals selling for well over $200 or $300.  It's like an insult or something, I can't quite put my finger on it.  I built a few pedals over the years, and the components, unless they're rare NOS, are so cheap.  The BB used to sell for $110 brand new, but I'm not sure what Sean sells them for lately.  The cool thing is, it's his own circuit design as far as I know.  Totally original

[Franco]

Here's another article/demo we did on a 1960s Supro Normandy guitar.  These are still affordable and just flat out BALL!

[G. Wood]

I was reading the article about your friend who has a Teisco site, but I didn,t see a link to it.

[Franco]

Here's the link to that Teisco page.  It is getting a lil cluttered on my site...

[G. Wood]

Oh...that's the page I was reading. I thought there was another site.