Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Better than loud






My friend Billy makes guitars. Real Guitars. Loud Guitars. Guitars that scare parents. Builds 'em by hand from the ground up. And his signature sound comes from pickups he winds - yep, by hand - on a spindle he conjured out of an old fan motor. Not much gets done by hand start-to-finish any more. In our modern every day world, we pretty much expect something to be processed with automation somewhere along the line, wether it's our cell phone calls or the cheese on our sandwich.

Not here.

To a craftsman, "by hand" means "repeatable", but not "duplicate". Born of a common parent, each of these guitars grows into what is essentially a solo performance. Turn it up...