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Sat 9/7/02
It's so hard... nearly impossible...
to imagine the future. (When I started this place I could never
have predicted this "email" thing.) And it's actually
almost as hard to imagine the past.
Our building here at Pittsburgh Guitars was built in 1889. Sometimes
when we're standing in front of the store we try to picture what
it must have been like, and smelled like, in 1889 when all of
the traffic in front of our store was on horseback. We're guessin'
it smelled BAD. But it's impossible to imagine what it was really
like... and what it would be like to not know any better. (It
would be 19 more years before Henry Ford built the Model T, and
many many more years before cars became the primary mode of travel
on East Carson Street.)
Moving ahead in history, if you
had a band in 1952, you would just accept the fact that you had
to find a way to get your bass player's huge upright bass to
every gig. And, as more and more guitars started using pickups,
and amps were getting so powerful that some of them were putting
out up to 20 watts(!!!!) your bass player was getting harder
to hear.
But like the 1889 horse fumes,
in 1952 you just didn't know it could be any different.
THAT was the world that Leo Fender
turned on its ear with his new invention: a small, easy-to-hold,
fretted, electric "Precision" bass!
Now, in 2002, it's almost impossible
to imagine what a radical idea that was. But when you think about
it, in the history of Rock & Roll, Leo's Precision Bass may
even be a more significant invention than his Telecaster!
Well, that was the stuff that
was going through my mind as I was setting up the new "History
Of The Electric Bass" in the store showcase, featuring 14
different basses from 1952 to 1962. And it's also interesting
to see how the other manufacturers tried to compete with Fender
in this new field. Both Gibson and Hofner chose the violin shape
route. And Gretsch? Well, there's no explaining what they did...
See You soon,
Carl
PS: The answer to last week's question:
The Pythagorean Theorem tells us that in a right triangle, the
sum of the squares of the two legs is equal to the square of
the hypotenuse. So, in our example 60 squared is 3600, 481 squared
is 231361. 3600 plus 231361 = 234961. And the square root of
234961 is 484.72 or $484.72 **NOTE** Since a lot of folks got
headaches trying to figure that out, we're going to honor that
deal THIS WEEK too.
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Sat 9/21/02
I went to the dentist this morning
and it's really amazing how things have technologically changed
in dentist-land. Now, when you get a filling, they put some goop
on the tooth, shine a light on it, and it's solid and ready to
go in seconds! And the X-Ray machine downloads immediately to
a laptop computer... in color! It made me think how cool it would
be to X-Ray some guitars. (Guitars are always on my mind. Don't
know why...) And one guitar that would look wacky under the surface
is a Danelectro.
Nat Daniels started making guitars
in 1954, and he soon came up with a design that was both easy
to make and cheap. His Danelectro guitars featured an inexpensive
pine frame with masonite tops and backs. And thanks to their
reliable construction and low price, thousands of kids in the
1950s and 1960s learned to play on a Danelectro. (From 1954 until
1966 Daniels also made guitars for Sears, which were marketed
under the "Silvertone" name.)
In 1966 Nat Daniels sold his
company to MCA, and, as often happens when a big corporation
buys a small company, Danelectro was out of business by 1969.
In 1997 a guy in California bought
the long-unused "Danelectro" name and started to reintroduce
the old models. They are still nice guitars, and still inexpensive.
We've sold lots of them here at Pittsburgh Guitars. And we're
featuring a few this week as our email special.
See You soon,
Carl
PS: More about Nat Daniels:
Nat Daniels is hardly a household name in the history of electric
guitars, but he should be. In addition to making the first pine/masonite
guitar; he made the first six-string bass; he marketed the first
electric sitar; he started using jumbo frets five years before
Gibson; he designed a neck-tilt adjustment for his guitars ten
years before Fender started to use a nearly identical system;
he was the first person to use an .008 gauge string on a guitar;
he was the first manufacturer to shield the inside of the guitar's
control cavity to stop buzz; and he designed the first tear-drop
shaped guitar body (later used by Vox) and the famous Danelectro
Longhorn body. And all of his instruments featured his uniquely
designed "Lipstick Tube" pickups, which actually used
real lipstick tube covers that he bought from a cosmetics firm
in New York.
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Sat 9/28/02
Yesterday we were talking to
one of our customers, Bill Allen, about the guitars that a guitar
player "must have." A Strat, of course; a Martin Acoustic,
a Rickenbacker 12-String, and the old trusty Les Paul. It reminded
me of the origin of The Les Paul, and the different opinions
of those involved. Les Paul says that he designed the guitar.
Gibson says that they were ready to make a solid electric guitar
and they wanted somebody famous to help market it. (Gibson noticed
the success Leo Fender was having with the new Telecaster. They
had to come up with something to compete.) Les Paul was famous,
and his name helped make the guitar a household name. Les had
been experimenting for years with the solid body concept, and
Gibson & Les Paul were a good match.
Gibson has a history of using
famous endorsers. To name a few, there's the Gibson Trini Lopez
Model, the Barney Kessel, the Johnny Smith, and the B. B. King
Lucille.
Now, Gibson has come up with
"Signature Strings." After all, how many times have
you said to yourself, "I would be such a better player if
only I had Ace Frehley Strings on my guitar?"
See You soon,
Carl
PS: We have a few sets of tickets
to a new movie in town, "I Am Trying to Break your Heart."
It's a documentary about the band Wilco and it follows the band
through the making of their fourth album, "Yankee Hotel
Foxtrot." The show is at the Harris Theatre, 809 Liberty
Avenue, Downtown, and the tickets will be good for Monday Oct
30 thru Thurs Nov 3rd. If you're interested, write back. We have
a pair of tickets for the first 4 folks who respond.
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