Barry Wood's NAMM Oddities 2008 Edition

 Packrat Barry

Guitars

The Egyptian Gods: Collect the entire pantheon!

I can't tell you how many times I thought to myself, "when is someone going to finally make a guitar in the image of Bast? That would rock!" Oh, I guess I can tell you, that would be zero times.

They've got a pretty good start with the three or four guitars I saw. But they'd better get busy. At last count there are at least 173 different gods in the Egyptian pantheon.

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The Egyptian Gods: Collect the entire pantheon

Centerfold

Here's a new twist or at least a new bend, in travel guitars. As the neck folds over into the compact configuration, the strings roll up onto the spring-loaded, cylindrical bridge assembly. When you're done, the whole thing fits neatly in small backpack-size soft case.

  • DeVillain Guitar Company
  • Gymnasiev, 16, 931 57 Skellefteå, Sweden
  • +46 (0) 910-150 10
  • www.devillain.com

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Centerfold

Voyage-air Guitar

For some reason, Oddities, like baseball movies, seem to come in pairs.

Not wanting the acoustic crowd to miss out on folding travel guitars, Voyage-air has provided us with foldable acoustic guitars.

It actually does a pretty good job of maintaining its tuning between the folding and unfolding process.

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Voyage-air Guitar

The Handle

For an incredibly sexy all-carbon-fiber guitar, it's got a pretty pedestrian name.

Lest you think this is going to be a dead-as-a-doornail bodiless guitar, think again. They've created a hollow resonance chamber in the lower part of the body to give it some life.

At 4.4 lbs. this is one of the lightest guitars I've seen, that's probably half of what most Les Pauls weigh.

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The Handle

Stop Staring at Me!

When I first saw at this guitar it seemed to me that the two sound holes looked like eyes. After I found out it was called the "Nakyd Laydie" I realised that those were not eyes. I was correct in my anthropomorphisizing though.

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Stop Staring at Me!

Nevermore

The Lenore is a limited edition guitar commemorating the bicentennial of the birth of Edgar Allen Poe.

One of the most impressive features is that all of the hardware is handmade. I believe they're only making 50 of them, so when all of these $12,900 guitars have been snapped up, as the raven says, nevermore.

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Nevermore

Paradis Diguit

This isn't just another pretty face. The Paradis has a drop-D extension at the nut, on-board DSP sub-octave processing and can be ordered with a built-in FireWire interface.

  • Rolf Spuler - Guitars Design Engineering GmbH
  • Im Halt 25
  • CH-5412 Gebenstorf
  • switzerland
  • +41 79 673 1551
  • http://www.rolfspuler.com

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Paradis Diguit

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

Maybe the dark science fiction reference doesn't quite fit, but recalling the Twilight Zone episode with the mouthless girl would be no better.

You'd think that a guitar with no forward-facing sound hole wouldn't project very well, but I was surprised. Even with the only port being on the side, I could hear it just fine out in front.

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I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

Guitar Gone Bad

For a guitar that looks like you wouldn't want to meet it in a dark alley, it's got a pretty tame name: R6020. This is a one-of-a-kind custom guitar that looks like they used a chainsaw for the final finish work. I like their use of a piece of rusty metal for the bottom corner. It adds an additional touch of danger.

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Guitar Gone Bad

A Frightening Pair

Last year Kraken brought us the left-handed tiger guitar. This year they're continuing their mission of making scary-looking instruments, a guitar that's all sharp and pointy and a bass that's just plain creepy.

  • Kraken Custom Guitars
  • 860-1, Dukdo-ri, Gwangjeok-myeon
  • Yangju-si, Gyeonggi-do 482-843, Korea
  • +82 31 871 6195
  • www.krakenguitars.com

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A Frightening Pair

Cutouts and Cutaways

This is the Baby Grand model from Marz Guitars. In addition to the artsy cutouts, the back of the guitar is not parallel to the top and it angles slightly towards the neck.

  • Marz Guitars of California
  • 3435 Ocean Park Blvd. #107
  • Santa Monica, CA 90405
  • (916) 257-2100
  • www.marzguitars.com

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Cutouts and Cutaways

My Luthier, Geppetto

I don't think they've left any piece of this guitar unadorned. Each guitar is unique because the carving is all done by hand.

  • Blueberry Guitars
  • 4500 Chemin Bois-franc
  • Ville St-Laurent, QC.,
  • Canada, H4S 1A7
  • (514) 333-3390
  • www.blueberryguitars.com

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My Luthier, Geppetto

Carbon Fiber & Nylon Strings

Last year one of my favorite Oddities was the Blackbird carbon travel guitar.

This year they were showing a prototype nylon string guitar that shares many of the same design features of their "Rider" steel string guitar.

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Carbon Fiber & Nylon Strings

Only For the True Fan

No stranger to the Oddities, Warrior makes yet another appearance with their Dan Marino carved guitar.

Even if I were a football fan, I think I would have to pass on this one. :-P

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Only For the True Fan

For the Budding Guitarist

I suppose I should start by apologizing for the title… but I won't.

I think they kind of missed the boat here by not making one of the green wings yellow. That would have netted them a bunch of sales to the reggae crowd.

  • M & M Merchandisers, Inc.
  • 1923 Bomar Avenue
  • Fort Worth, TX 76103
  • (800) 299-9035
  • www.mmwholesale.com

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For the Budding Guitarist

Cannabis Electricus

Continuing on with the chronic theme, here is the Rasta Ganja guitar. With the perforated front I think they should have build in a tiny smoke machine into the body for a real Cheech & Chong moment.

  • James Trussart Custom Guitars
  • 1307 Allesandro St.
  • Los Angeles, CA 90026
  • (213) 989-1554
  • www.jamestrussart.com

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Cannabis Electricus

Shhh, Maybe He's Just Sleeping

Or maybe not. I think that skeletons are somewhat less frightening when they're in a fetal position.

  • Hembry Guitars
  • 131 E Sleaford Rd.
  • Shelton WA 98584
  • (360) 427-8668

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Shhh, Maybe He's Just Sleeping

Cute Dead Things

Schecter has made appearances in the Oddities with some outrageous guitar artwork. This year I found their Porl Thompson signature guitar kind of cute and macabre.

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Cute Dead Things

The Dragon Guitar

I can't quite figure out if the dragon has stripped the skeleton of everything except his skull and spinal cord or if it's some kind of freakish, dead snake-man.

That guitar stand is pretty extravagant. I wouldn't want to trip over that in the dark.

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The Dragon Guitar

Now with the Patented Tone-Sucker!

What else could a big hunk of leather do to the tone of an acoustic guitar but make it suck?

  • C. F. Martin & Co., Inc.
  • 510 Sycamore Street
  • P. O. Box 329
  • Nazareth, Pennsylvania 18064-0329
  • (610) 759-2837
  • www.martinguitar.com

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Now with the Patented Tone-Sucker!

A Trio From Charvel/Jackson

I thought these three guitars rose above the usual self-indulgent, garish graphics that abound at NAMM.

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h1>A Trio From Charvel/Jackson

ESPecially Gaudy

On the other hand, these two guitars embody the essence of self-indulgent, garish graphics.

  • The ESP Guitar Company
  • 10903 Vanowen St., Unit A
  • North Hollywood, CA 91605
  • (800) 423-8388
  • www.espguitars.com

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ESPecially Gaudy

Nastars

The marketing folks of NASCAR know no bounds. You name any object that is available for purchase and odds are good that you can get it with a NASCAR logo.

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Nastars

The Silver Shredder

In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Joe Satriani's album, "Surfing with the Alien", Ibanez has produced a Silver Surfer guitar. They also rolled in a life-sized Silver Surfer to model it.

  • Ibanez Guitars
  • www.ibanez.com

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The Silver Shredder

DSP On The Go

The soon-to-be-released Escape EG-2, from Traveler Guitars, sports on-board signal processing with 16 effects. It's also got a jack so you can plug in your iPod.

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DSP On The Go

Flying W

It stands to reason that you'd call this a Flying W because a W looks a lot more like two Vs than two Us… it make sense to me, anyway.

On the wall it looks more like a Flying M which, I suppose, is a reasonable interpretation since it's a Dave Mustain model.

  • Armadillo Enterprises, Inc.
  • 4924 West Waters Ave.
  • Tampa, Florida 33634
  • (813) 600-3920
  • www.deanguitars.com

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Flying W

Clever Camouflage

I think this is a new record. Minarik has now made it into the Oddities three times with essentially the same guitar. The first time was when they introduced the Inferno Guitar. The second time was when they stuck broken mirror pieces to an Inferno. This year the Inferno goes stealth with a tiger hidden in the flames… or flames hidden around a tiger.

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minarik

Luna Sol Paul

Luna has a knack for making instruments that are different enough to end up in the Oddities, yet normal enough for regular folks.

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Luna Sol Paul
Next Up: Other Goodies

©2008 Barry Wood