One of the original  Mousegeetars in  the Disney vault Today is April 1st, and it’s time to start on a new project. We will need several grades of sandpaper, some varnish remover, different sizes of paint brushes, some wire cutters, and Bondo™. 1961 Gibson ES-335 Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. We will also need a 1961 cherry red Gibson ES-335. I guess we can substitute a newer Epiphone version. If you must. 1961 P.A.F Humbucking guitar pickup First of all we need to remove that neck pickup. Just set it aside to use for another projec ..read more

When recording, guitarists have been going direct into the board for as long as I an remember letting the engineer shape their sound. Due to digital recording, we now have audio interfaces and apps that include effects, reverbs, compression, auto tune, and amp types and cabinet simulators. You can use these to record music. You can even play music live without lugging a heavy amplifier to your gig. When I was younger, I used to lug around a 1965 Deluxe Reverb, then later a 1969 Bandmaster with head and cabinet to gigs. I had to take the back seat out of my VW Beetle to fit the cabinet in the c ..read more

  The Chinese Guitar Invasion Beatles on Sullivan 1964 I am old enough to recall the British Invasion. Back in February of 1965 The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Those countless teens that were not fortunate enough to be at the show watched The Beatles perform on television that Sunday night. After that many decided to learn to play guitar.  Mid 1960 Kawai guitar This resulted in a guitar boon that lasted for about three years. Musical instrument sales of guitars soared, and most of these instruments were made in Japan by various manufactu ..read more

The Beatles on Ed Sullivan 1964 The Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964. Although I was just a kid, I’d been listening to rock music for several years before on the local AM radio stations. Yep, AM. FM would come later. Most of the artists I liked played guitar. When The Beatles showed up I was glued to their perfomance. That just did it for me.  I just had to have a guitar. 1960 Wish Book And every Christmas the Wish Book aka THE CATALOG showed up in our mail. We received three or four of these from different stores. I would turn right ..read more

  DeArmond Trem Trol 800 In 1948 possibly the first commercially produced standalone guitar effects unit was made. It was called the Trem Trol 800 Tremolo. Built by DeArmond in Toledo, Ohio. It passed the guitar signal through a water-based electrolytic fluid to augment the original tone. Bo Diddley credits this unit as part of the basis for his guitar sound.  1959 Magnatone 260 amp By the 1950’s some guitar amplifiers, such as Fender, Ampeg, Magnatone, and Danelectro  included tremolo, and reverberation.  Magnatone amps included real frequency modul ..read more

  Ignacio Nacho Baños A few years back a friend mentioned Nachocasters, and their builder Nacho Baños, That certainly piqued my interest.   Who is this guy? And what are Nachocasters?  So here is a deep dive to find out all that I could about  Ignacio ‘Nacho” Baños. Valencia Ignacio Baños. grew up in the beautiful Spanish town of Valencia. Like so many of us who were bitten by the ‘guitar bug’ he became obsessed with vintage Fender Telecasters from the 1950’s. His family owned a manufacturing business and his story began when he was an undergr ..read more

  Fender X Children's Guitar A few weeks ago I ran across a news article stating that Fender is offering a 3 string electric guitar. My first thought was,  Say what!?  Fender X  Children's Guitar I investigated this and realized this is a tiny guitar marketed for children as their first guitar.  Harmony Patrician I recall those long-ago years when I got my first guitar at age 12. It was an old Harmony Patrician archtop model from the late 1940’s strung with heavy gauge Black Diamond strings that were almost an inch off ..read more

  Deke Moffittt Band My parents loved Big Band Music from the 1940's and '50's. I grew up listening to The Great American Songbook. There were still some big bands around when I was growing into my teen years. And because of the popularity in the 40's and 50's a guy could make a living playing horns or percussion in a 25 piece band.  Bill Haley and The Comets But by the 1950's  live music started to favor The Combo consisting of 3 to 6 players, due because the cost of paying four players outweighed the cost of maintaining twenty-five full time musicians.  ..read more

  For the majority of 2022 I have been unable to continue the Unique Guitar Blog due to illness and changes in my life.   Regrettably 2022 welcomed me to the new normal. Looking back from November and December of 2021, I began having significant mobility issues. I had been using a cane to steady myself for several years when walking in public, but as my wife pointed out, my walking was becoming much worse.  In December of last year, I developed double vision. This condition was quite annoying. I could not drive. I had to close one eye to focus.  My docto ..read more

    The Beatles on Ed Sullivan 1964 The Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964. Although I was just a kid, I’d been listening to rock music for several years before on the local AM radio stations. Yep, AM. FM would come later. Most of the artists I liked played guitar. When The Beatles showed up I was glued to their perfomance. That just did it for me.  I just had to have a guitar. 1960 Wish Book And every Christmas the Wish Book aka THE CATALOG showed up in our mail. We received three or four of these from different stores. I woul ..read more