Buy My Guitars? Just Don't Feel You Have To Rush....

The Pink Panther One - Funky as a Funkster in Platforms

It's funny making all these Jooky guitars, because every time I do one it is because I want to play it - I make them to my taste, if you see what I mean, and then due to 'the rules of Jookydom' I have to move them on.

You could, of course, ask

"Why do you have to move them on?"

and I would have to reply...

"Well, I decided when I started that I couldn't really carry on making guitars and have them pile up for ever more, instead then I promised that I would sell any I made. The good part is that other people seem to want them too, and the money I get from flogging them pays for the parts for the next one I make etc."

Which is the truth, even if it sounds like an arty excuse for commerce, but there we are.

Whatever the truth of it all and whether I'm trying to convince myself more than anyone else - The downside is that I seem to have this constant generation game conveyor belt of guitars I really, really love, slowly moving out of reach.

In fact apart from an old acoustic, I don't actually own a guitar anymore - I just play them between the times when I make them and when they go out the door to pastures new and no doubt owners that can play them a lot better than I can anyway.

I do keep promising myself that I'll buy myself a guitar to play, but they are never quite what I want, if you see what I mean, as really what I want is a Jooky guitar and that is the only sort I can't have.

The Lulu One - All Corroded Copper and Paisley Teledom

The point of this rambling?

Well, I have fancied a Les Paul for ages, but none of the ones I ever try really hit the spot.
Although The Golden Shower One suits me perfectly.

Also, I'd like another Jazzmaster, but would it be better than the ones I've made myself - The Blue Moon One is gorgeous and The Pink Panther One is a funky as F&*k. And don't even get me started on The Psychedelic Surf One.? 

But would I find one to match up to my own made-to-my-taste creations?

Not to my mind as I made them all 'just' how I want them and you can't really improve on that.

So do I break the rules and keep one, or should I just go and buy something and mod it, but not tell anybody it is a Jooky one.

Can I even do that?
I dunno.

Saying all that, I've seen a couple of Yamaha SGs I quite like the look of...and there is always the Old Burny One, and there is a Tokai Lemon Drop I like the look of in a local shop, and maybe, maybe I should just save my pennies and get Wez Venables to make one for me...who knows. I also saw a Vox Teardrop the other day too, and I have wanted one of them for eons, and then of course...

So in summary - I'm loving The Golden Shower One and The Pink Panther One at the moment.
They both are exactly what i want in guitars.
They are both for sale, and no doubt one of these days, they will move on to pastures new, I know that.
Just don't feel you have to buy them just yet, eh?
Give a bloke a bit of fun first eh?
Tis only fair...

I am what I am...la la laaa

One thing I've been threatening to do for a while is buy a router. This might be quite an admission for a 'Guitar maker', and if I were a traditional luthier, it would either be commercial suicide (on the basis that I must be buying the woody bits in) or a massive selling point, as the alternative would be that I am hand chiseling everything out of old tree stumps.

In my case of course, neither is true as so far my 'approach' has been to buy pre-Mojo'd parts (second hand to you and me) and turn them into something new. In the poetry/art world this is known as 'found art', and is seen as very clever. In my case it is probably because I am cheap.

But a router I am getting as basically, there are jobs that would be a lot easier (I need to fit a soapbar P90 and a full sized humbucker in Andy's J-Bird One, when the body is routed for three single coils, f'rinstance), but also because I still want to make a couple of types of original-ish bodies myself. Not through any need to be seen as  a 'real' luthier - just because I'm wondering if I can, and to be honest I am limited to some extent by the bodies I have available when I sit down to make something. I'm nowt if not pragmatical-like.

I do see Jooky as something different though, and it is nice that a few people seem to get that too. I've said it before that there are loads of really talented luthiers in the UK - people like Wes Venables, The Creamery, Feline, all of whom I've mentioned here, and I'm quite happy to not be one of them. Jooky is a bit more punk than that, I think, and all about the 'What if' rather than the 'what sells'. The fact that people do buy them here and there means I can carry on making more. If that makes me a hobbiest to be sneered at, well, I've been laughed at before and still got on with what I see as cool and not done or felt the worse for it. I've been in the art and literary world for years, trust me them there people can sneer to Olympic standard.

So this is me, off to buy a router this week, for better or worse. This is what I do and all is cool as far as I am concerned. Join in, watch or ignore me as you see fit, it is all the same to me, sugar. But I tell you want, nobody makes guitars like I do. La la & laaaaa  ;)

The Way Things Are Most Of The Time

It’s always nice to have an ethos, it makes life so much more interesting and challenging in a self-restrictive, masochistic kind of way. The reason I mention it is because a few rather cool people are getting-with-the-Jooky idea, and generally liking the guitars we are coming up with.

Which of course is lovely, and I’m really pleased about that. For all of my shy retiring ways, and this all being to amuse myself, a bit of recognition is good. I write this blog, after all, so I'm not kidding myself.

What I probably do not make clear though is what this Jookiness is all about, and maybe I should explain.

Firstly, I wanted us – me – to make things.
This is a departure in my life, and therefore it is about fun.

So: I want to have fun making things.

Secondly, I don’t really like things that are made by the million, even by the dozen. I like one-offs and stuff that is unique. Not that my life is full of rare and vintage bobbins, but if I get the option, I tend toward the oddball and mainly unusual.

So: I want to have fun making things nobody else has.

Thirdly, I like the idea of recycling. I mean, I’m not fighting the seagulls to sift thru your black bags, but I like the idea of making things out of old stuff. More specifically, making bedraggled looking guitars out of second-hand or battered and torn parts that I can pick up from freecycle, classified ads, on guitar forums or Ebay or whatever.

So: I want to have fun making things nobody else has from stuff other people have decided that they don’t need anymore.

Fourthly, whilst being practical and being of a mind that I’d rather finish something by buying a bit or two, instead of waiting forever for one to turn up, I do have a self inflicted rule that pretty much all of the components – body, neck, pickups, tuners etc. – must be second-hand.

This makes things a bit trickier – I can’t just decide that I want particular brands of pickups, say; I have to wait until they are available or go with an alternative. But saying that, it does keep the thing interesting – what would PRS soapbars sound like in a Strat? Does a Seymour Duncan ’59 work with a ceramic Gibson humbucker in the same guitar...? - stuff like that.

And amazingly – and whisper this as it could rock the guitar world to it’s tweedy core – as long as you can make a hole in the guitar so everything fits – most things seem to work nicely so far.

So there we are. The Jooky ethos or mission statement or something:

“I want to have fun making things nobody else has, from stuff other people have decided that they don’t need anymore, even if that can be a pain in the bum sometimes. Because it is cool, and that is a good enough reason for doing most anything.”