I'm in Lust

*Sigh*

 

Mapleglo

Rickenbacker 660

Now that is mighty pretty

The Cremery - Groovy Guitars

Following on from my Gordon Smith sycophantism, I wanted to mention somebody else in the UK that is making some groovy looking guitars. They have only been around a short amount of time compared to GSG, and to be perfectly honest I'm not sure whether they make totally individual guitars or those they have on their web site are a 'range' of products, as it were, but either way they are way cool. Maybe I should read the words rather than just staring at the guitars with my mouth open.

If I'm honest, I'm actually hoping that they are total one-offs as that would make them even more so rather awesome.

They are called The Creamery, by the way, better mention that hadn't I?

Anyway, the first of theirs I saw was a Zachary-inspired butcher's block telecaster, which looks utterly lovely. I quite fancied having a go at one myself when I came across the phlegmatic Mr. Zachary, but never quite got to Ikea to buy the board, but I might do yet.

Following on from that though, I used my offset-radar and discovered their Jazzmaster influenced guitar the Blackguard One. This looks gorgeous (I may have mentioned it before, thinking about it) and I would love to have a thrash on such a thing.

Since then, they have become winders of their own pickups and added to the guitar list (which makes me think - hope - that maybe they are one-offs) and generally got all rather swish-like.

So one off guitar makers or something new and special in guitarland, I don't know, but either way, they look beautiful and I think worthy of a long-term-eye-kept-on type of agenda.

I hope they don't mind me showing you a couple of their photos - if you are from The Creamery and do, let me know and I'll draw some artist impressions with crayons instead...

Gordon Smith - That's the way to do it...

I was talking about my plans for the yet-to-be-named guitars I want to make, and how they will be different from the total-one-offs I've been putting together so far.

For the infrequent flyers among you, the basic idea was that people would get a bit more of a choice. My attempt at a vaguely custom-like made-to-order thingie.

All of the associated hot air reminded me of the rather wonderful Gordon Smith Guitars, as basically that is exactly what they do - they have some fantastic designs and put you a guitar together to order.

Not that I'm saying GS are full of hot air - I think they are fantastic - or that Jooky ones will look like Gordon Smith's, there's not a lot of point in doing that, but I don't mind admitting that they are pretty inspirational and I'm not too shy to copy a good idea here or even over thereish.

My favourite Gordon Smith guitar is probably the simplest, the GS 1.6. It is under-stated, simplistic and utterly brilliant to play. I'll try and remember to put a photo up of one, but to give you an idea it is a sort of single pickup Les Paul Junior type-o-thing - the one I prefer, obviously, is the one with a P90 rather than the coil-tapped humbie.

You might think that it is odd to be praising 'a copy' of a Gibson classic, but the two I've tried are much better than the Gibbo equivalent, the tones much more usable and the necks are beauty-filled to play, so no apologies for that.

GS are the pooch's bobbins as far as I'm concerned, and the consistent six-month waiting list reinforces that. They are also handmade by a British luthier, not churned out of a robotic CNC on a production line, so they are truly individual, and beautifully made.

(I have no affiliation with GS Guitars, by the way, I just like them. So there.)

So am I going to rip off their guitars?
Nope, I want to make something different, but I can see the sense of how they work and I like the way they do things. So maybe that I will unashamedly snaffle

Any Colour You Like Baby

One of the things that has set me on my merry way with all this Jooky stuff, is the idea that in these days of mass production in guitarland, big American corporations utilising off-shore construction and everything else, that it is still possible to do-it-small, and make something cool without charging thousands for it.

Don't get me wrong, money is useful, but I'd much rather have the fun of building things without being scared that I've invested my life savings, or borrowed shed-loads of money, and that if I don't sell that Swarovski  encrusted Flying V for a few grand I'm back on the streets and pimping the brats to the local priest.

Which of course is why the guitars I've sold so far have been - let's face it - crazily cheap, and despite being all the things that normally cost the earth (one-off, unique, hand-made etc.) that's the way I like it. Saying that, I got told that they were suspiciously cheap, and I have noticed that the more I charge for them the quicker they sell, but there we are...guitarists are a strange breed. Luckily I can eat whether they sell or not.

But suspiciously cheap?
Well, I can see the point of the suggestion. If you put a couple hundred quid's worth of pickups in a guitar and then sell it for the same sort of price, it does look odd, I guess.

So how does that happen?
Well, as I might have mentioned once or thrice, Jooky guitars are generally made from parts I've bought second-hand -  not always, but most of the time - or sometimes even based on guitars I've been given. Well, twice in fact, but here's hoping.

This means of course that the parts are cheaper, and whilst I could still maybe charge based on their retail. value, I don't really want to. Seems a bit unfair in truth. Often then, guitars will have parts that are worth a load more than the complete guitars are up for, but so be it

Everybody wins.

Don't get me wrong, I don't make a loss on them (actually I did on one, but there we are) but I'd rather they were out there being played than sitting here waiting for somebody to pay thru their schnozzle.

Well, that's the story so far, and for the Kylie/Leona/'Ones' guitars, that is going to be the way of things forever more, I think. If I'm not painting corners a bit close to home.

Moving forward then, with my ideas for shiny new guitars, how does that work then?
Well, I'm planning on building bodies from scratch, and then using top quality pre-made necks until I get the bottle to try making those too.

Pickups and other parts? I'm thinking that generally these will be new, mainly because when I come to sell such beasties, I want to give people options - not just say, 'you can have a Gibson pickup which I've seen listed on Ebay, if you are sharpish'.

All of which sounds a bit more luthier-like than Jooky, but I guess that is where the twist comes in, as I'm planning on making the bodies from reclaimed timbers, whether that is wood from a groovy reclamation yard, or old fireplaces or furniture, time will tell, but either way I don't see myself buying ready-to-use guitar 'blocks' that just need shaping.

Basically then, the idea is that I will have a couple of designs for the body, and then choices for the neck, pickups and hardware - and then of course, being Jooklyland, some interesting options for the finishes...which should be fun.

So again, my perfect plan part 73 1/2 - I talk sooo very much.

My Kinda Business

Have you seen, the most beautiful guitar in the world...? OK, it's a bass, but...

As I mentioned the other day, I've been thinking deep and long about building a Jooky guitar body from scratch, and so - more than any other time - I've been looking really carefully at a lot of guitars. Don't get me wrong, I know how they work and understand all that radius bobbins and intonation things and stuff, but I mean more from an aesthetic point of view. I'm thinking about form, baby, and trying to get my head around why it is that I like some guitars but not others.

And saying that - why I like - is probably a good starting point. If I'm going to come-up with my own design, I guess the easiest and most sensible way to do it is either to take an existing 'shape' - a Les Paul, Strat or Tele - and change a few of the curves. This will no doubt make the guitar more saleable too, and lets face it the majority of electric guitar players probably play a guitar that is more or less one of those shapes, even if that majority are playing a guitar that is influenced rather than influential.

I don't want to do that though - lovely though the Holy Trinity are, I can't really see the point.

So I want to do something a bit different.

At the other end of the spectrum then, we have the I'm-not-like-everybody-else approach, where odd and weird shapes are created not out of any desire for playability, but rather to scream LOOK AT ME. By that I mean the BC Rich kind of stuff, and the weird and wonderful things luthiers put together to get a few column inches in the press and on-line which will hopefully gain them a few more punters through the door. Though we know most of them will be asking for a Strat or Tele with added extras, when they do arrive.

But I don't want to do that either. I've done the Spring collection shock jock thing before, and fun though it is, I can't say I want to make things I really don't want to play myself. I may only ever make one guitar anyway, so it would be a shame to have some monster in the corner that I can only play on stilts with a false arm to hit the glockenspiel.

So where does that leave me? Well, I'm kinda ruling myself out of the heavy metal arena as it isn't my cuppa and I've never fell in love with the pointy things they play.
I'm also unlikely to go for the Holy three, much as I love playing those sort of guitars you have to ask - what would be the point of yet another copy of such things?

But what does that leave? I mean, the guitars I love are things like Jazzmasters, Jaguars - the whole offset thing - so they would naturally come into my thinking. I've said before that I love the look of a lot of the old Voxes, the Teardrop especially, but even the Phantom is interesting in a lot of ways, and I like the idea of stretching what a guitar can do without getting into Midi and track pads and the like. I also love the look of Rickenbackers, surely the most underrated guitar of all time. Ok the 330 and 360s get all the attention alongside that funny bass thing whose name escapes me, but their solid bodies look amazing. I just love the curves on a Rickie, less interested in the chrome addiction, but there we go. Some of the old Epiphones were excellent too - again the shapes are interesting and a lot of the time deceptively simple and you have to love that classic feel to their necks when you find a good oldie. Dan Electros are a similar case - the double-horned one especially, one of the most beautiful guitars I've ever seen.

So in terms of a body shape, I guess what I'm saying is that I want something that is going to look like a lost, small builder classic that stopped getting made in the Seventies because they never sold enough to stay in business, not a tweaked version of a guitar that everybody wants to play.

There, that sounds like my kind of business plan.

Sloth-filled and Lethargy Incarnate

Well, it's been a while and if I'm totally honest hardly anything has occurred in the land of Jook. Not that I see that as a permanent state of being, but it was the end of the school holibobs and then first-days-at-school, and other stuff got in the way.

This domestic blissfulness has given me a chance to think though, and I now have a pretty good idea of where I'm going on a number of fronts, and the biggest bombshell is that I will probably continue to do the odd Leona or Kylie guitar, as basically I like it. What will be different though, is that they will be more of a custom thing, but more about that soon I guess

As far as the pedals go, the 'TG Growler' I have been prototyping - breadboarding, I am very technical - and should be able to build the first one in a couple of weeks time when the youngest bratski is at school full-time and I have time to breathe. The open-wired one sounds good, and I've got a couple of alternatives to play with there too, which are interestingly cool. Not sure if I said before, but this is going to be a two-button-thingie, with a fuzz and a boost able to work together or on their ownsome.

As for Jooky pedals, I've got a good idea where that will go too, so the long winter months should be filled quite nicely.

In the longer term, I've been playing a wee bit with ideas for a Jooky guitar body design, and have surprised myself as it proved to be relatively cool, though maybe I should wait until I've built one before I get too cocky about that. I'm really into the idea of doing a body from scratch and have some nice ideas I think that will be a bit different from the usual Fender and Gibson re-treads. Again though, more on that as it moves...

And there we are. Not a lot new to report, but things should pick-up soon, methinks...