Cigar Box Guitars and The Spirit of '76

One thing I’ve not really talked about so far on the old Jooky blogthing, is the humble blues monster that is the Cigar Box Guitar, but in a way they are what set us on our merry ‘journey’ in the first place. If you haven’t come across them, they are exactly what you’d think. Guitars made out of wooden cigar boxes or anything else that the builder had available to them at the time. They can be as simple as a plank, a box, a couple of bolts and a couple more strings, or at the other end of the scale, some people build what can only be described as beautiful pieces of art.

Much like ‘normal’ guitars then.

And despite the fact that it is still quite small, there is a very real ‘movement’ going on around the whole CBG (as they are known), DIY scene. A scene that is growing alongside other areas such as the DIY Pedal makers, and other pockets of people who are perhaps fed-up of being pushed toward yet another variation on the Strat, The Les Paul and the rest of the mass market, big business orthodoxy.

Sisters (and Brothers) are doing it for themselves, and I for one think that is the coolest thing that has happened in this decade.

The focus for all of the CBG side (so far anyway) has been The Cigar Box Nation, which is a Facebook kind of site dedicated to the homemade. Within this is an active, self perpetuating community of builders offering a fantastic resource for anybody that wants to have a go at building one themselves. Free plans, plenty of advice and no end of Mojo is on offer and if you aren’t up to building your own, there are plenty of friendly faces who will help you out with one-they-made-earlier.

But I’m not being cynical, it is an amazing collection of people, and perhaps surprisingly there is a thriving British builder group, that I must admit includes a couple of people that have inspired me no end, and without whom this whole Jooky adventure wouldn't have happened.

The first of these that I came across was a Yorkshire based fella, going by the name Smojo. I ‘found’ his blog whilst searching around for some blues music, as you do, and I have to say he blew me away with the fact that he was making some really cool instruments out of, well, junk.

Now, I’ll be honest if I’d had some money I would have probably just bought one of his guitars and that would have been that, but I didn’t and so instead I read all of the excellent advice he’d put together and decided to build my own instead. So he lost a sale, but I can’t imagine he would have particularly cared about that, as like most people I’ve met in the CBG world since, I really think his motivation is more likely to be in the doing rather than the retail.

Nobody is getting rich hand-making guitars and selling them for £70 or £80, lets face it.

One final gift from Smojo then was a link to the Cigar Box Nation site, where there are some amazingly talented people, and you are guaranteed an ‘Oz’ moment the first time you look at the collections of builders’ photos of their work. After years of wandering around guitar shops where the same old guitars are reissued, designs recycled and at best given new names and pictured clutched by this season's Disney-faced endorsee, seeing such a variety of different shapes, sizes and ideas is simply mind blowing.

Originality and talent, can you believe?

I think I saw more imagination in five minutes on the ‘Nation’ site than I have in twenty-five years of visiting music shops. But as I said, it was a really nice surprise to find that there is a thriving British ‘chapter’ among the ranks, and I am only sorry that I never made it to the first CBG Festival in Birmingham in October. It sounds like it was quite an event.

But I was talking inspiration, and the second builder I stumbled across was another Yorkshire based bloke going by the name of Juju, and man this guy is putting together some fantastic guitars. Even among the ‘Nation’s’ builders where there are some brilliant craftsmen, Juju stands out as something completely different, and I can remember seeing a foto of his ‘Plank’ guitar at the time I was finishing my first (very basic) three string box. I felt like I had gone to night school to build an acoustic and looked up to find Paul Reed Smith next to me. I didn't give up, but man...

(I also understood the Waterboys song ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ better than ever before.)

But despite the rainbow in Juju's hand, I finished my CBG and I was well chuffed with it, but left with a feeling that I could take this as far as I wanted. Even the orthodoxy of the two by one and a cigar box had gone out of the window. It finally sank in that quite literally anything goes. Inspired, I thought about what really buzzed me out and I then made an amp or two. Nothing flash, but they worked and were fuzzy and fun. Next, I tried making an effect pedal or three and then started to have a go at designing my own. I didn't find it easy, don't get me wrong I'm not the most practical geezer around, but if I set my mind to it I could do-it-myself.

And so on, and so on, and now here we are.
We’re doing something we want, and that is the truth of the matter.
Whether it is CBGs or the amps and effects we’re putting together, it is all about individuality and that Ye Olde Punk ethic that means you don’t have to take what you are given, you can have what it is you like, all you have to do is give it a go.
It’s all cool.

But some people are cooler than others, and you should check them out.
You don’t know where you’ll end-up going with it.

Smojo’ blog is HERE.

Smojo’s website is HERE (I notice he is doing some tin box amps too now, well worth checking out. Blimey, praising the competition, what was I thinking ;)

Juju’s web site is HERE. Check out Planks 1 & 2.

The Cigar Box Nation site is HERE

p.s. The foto is my first attempt at building a CBG. The full story of that debacle should appear on the Guitar Tools web site sometime in the next few weeks. The other box, regular viewers will recognise as our first ever #1 Cheryl-tone amp, which is being rejigged today as it happens, and sounding pretty foxy I have to admit.