My friend, James, bought his 69 Les Paul (black) at Manny's for the outrageous sum of $460 back in '72

[Sandi]

I knew it was bought by Sam Ash, but no idea it was closing. I bought my

Rickenbacker 4001 bass across the street at "We Buy Used Guitars". Awesome

place. You went there and you could get A Real Deal if you knew what something

was worth and had the cajones to haggle.



My friend, James, bought his 69 Les Paul (black) at Manny's for the outrageous

sum of $460 back in '72. He still has that guitar.



What's going on with instruments? Where's the BUZZ? I'll flip you a tip: it's

EXACTLY like you know the rest of the biz: WalMart and tiny boutiques. You want

something that simply works and is cheap? Guitar Center, Sam Ash, et al. But if

you want the REAL DEAL, then you have to go directly to the luthiers. A hot rock

guitar luthiers right now is Scott French from California. Beautiful, well

crafted instruments perfect for rockin' out. If you're the outrageous punker

then Krappy Guitars from NJ makes some killer instruments. Rickenbacker is still

independent and if you want that Jingle Jangle, it has to be a Rickenbacker. I

saw an interview with David Crosby and he was saying how he and McGuin went to

see Hard days night by the Beatles, and the movie opens with that song and that

big BLANG! on the guitar. Crosby and McGuin looked at each other and said "WHAT

WAS THAT???" It was a rickenbacker 12 string played by Lennon. McGuin got one,

and the rest is history, and REM and all the other jangly "alternative" bnads

that folloed on owe so much of their sound to THAT instrument and that one

*MOMENT* from the hands of John Lennon.



For the edge-of-the-art afficionadoes, there's Warr guitars and similar extreme

instruments.

Basically, Bob - it's the same deal - Fender / Gibson / Ibanez / Yamaha run

roughshod over the planet with their Mexican and Korean (and soon to be Chinese)

built instruments - what the proletariat use. The pros use vintage instruments

(pre CBS Fenders, pre Epiphone merger Gibsons, etc.) or have them built by

luthiers ike French or Krappy or P R Smith.


The luthiers are good: they are relocalisation incarnate. We will need them more

and more as the empire collapses and we return to societies of locality: 100

mile food, local and or self-made entertainment, local theatre, etc. It's

inevitable. Rome wasn't conquered. It collapsed from within and retreated into

localised powers (feudalism). The process began after the economic collapse of

235 - 285. Two lost generations and by the end of the third century, feudalist

relations of production were set in place- two centuries before Rome was

pillaged and burned.



HW