Frankfurt April 1, 2006 | photo: Rick Shubb
As each day winds down Rick and I are usually to be found in the lounge on the Executive floor of the Hotel Maritim, where, over a glass or two of the house champagne, we gleefully compare the day’s finds.
High on our list on the first day was a guitar pick resembling a nit-comb, presumably for those players with personal hygiene problems, though I felt that the plastic capo that could conceivably hold down one string (always supposing that one would ever want to hold down just one string) should have, perhaps, taken first place.
Both Rick and I freely admit that, deep in our psyches, there does lurk the fear that we, too, could one day slip over that fine line and create something destined for the drawer.
(I would have to admit that my String Wizard, a device allowing the player to make ball-or loop-end strings, skated pretty damn’ close!)
But, craziness apart, the Messe is where new ideas are first seen. The John Pearse Strings booth is right opposite the Saga booth, so I always have to check it out, to see what they’ve added to their catalogue.
Richard Kelsden Saga’s guitar-playing president, is a bluegrasser through and through, and he’s turned his passion into a highly successful international business. What Martin’s Harry Rosenbloom did for Japanese guitar-building in the sixties Richard has done in China. First with mandolins and high-quality banjos. Then Gypsy-jazz recreations of the legendary Maccaferri and Selmer guitars. Then back to bluegrass again with the much-lauded Blueridge guitar line.
This year I saw two new Gypsy-jazz models, a modele John Jorgensen with eye-catching Brazilian rosewood and a modele Lulo Reinhardt with silver-plated tuners and tailpiece. Just gorgeous! Plus three additions to the Trinity College line – a fourteen-fret, and two twelve-fret steel-strung guitars, aimed at the modern professional fingerstylist.
So, what other things caught my eye?
The new Shubb Capo Noir is a fine addition to the line. Tres elegant – and almost invisible in use. I need a couple. Rick’s Talon guitar stand is also a fine piece of design. When is an acoustic model going to appear, I wonder?
When I happened past a lot of interest was being generated by the Outdoor Guitar Company -- a terz-sized acoustic guitar that takes to pieces with the removal of just one hex-bolt…and which reassembles – IN TUNE! - in less time than it takes me to tell you about it. It comes in a sturdy hardshell case and features a rather clever bracing-less soundboard construction utilizing a bonded inner-soundboard.
The tone and volume of these instruments has lifted them right out of the ‘novelty’ category as I could easily see using one to do a gig, should the airline decide that my guitar would benefit from a flight to Kazakhstan. I do feel, however that calling it the Outdoor Guitar might limit its appeal rather. I can see more jet-setting executives buying one than L.L. Beaners. Also I think that the builders might consider switching manufacture to the Orient, as €800 is rather steep. However, as they say, the market will decide.
AER amps, yet again, take my breath away. How can something that small put out so much warmth and clarity of tone? When Steve White is demonstrating I swear you can hear him from two aisles away.
I noticed that the Tora Bora Boys, on the Saga booth, were using a very neat, small mixing board, along with their Schertler system. I sashayed down to the Schertler booth to find out what it was (I use a Schertler system) only to learn that they have stopped making it - and just have a few left on the shelf in the warehouse.
WHY???? I love my system, but it would be SO much more handy if I had a matching mixer, on the floor, down by my feet.
More gorgeous Ren Ferguson guitars on the Gibson booth. He is such a consummate luthier that he CAN build a $50,000 guitar that doesn’t look like a Mumbai taxi-cab. (Other luthiers please take heed!)
On the subject of luthiers, it was most heartening to see so many new young builders exhibiting for the first time.
Astounding prices being asked – and gotten – for luthier tonewood. Makes me glad I’m not still building instruments. I can’t help but look askance at the hype surrounding wood prices. Brazilian rosewood is pretty, I know….but a $5,000 premium??? Come on!
Also I can remember when you couldn’t give Adirondak spruce away. Guitar companies disliked its mottled appearance so much that they came up with the idea of the sunburst in order to hide it. Now it’s the flavour of the month and the hapless punter has to pay through the nose if he wants it on his guitar.
Being wheelchair-bound rather hampered me this year, so I was confined to Hall 3.1. Still there was plenty to see.
In an attempt to avoid buying yet another guitar, I brought a nice little Martin from home to keep me company on the booth. Unfortunately the hall organizers placed temptation just a few booths away.
Gottschall Guitars!
Going back to my initial comments about off-the-wall ideas, let me wax poetic about these rather strange beasts. Herr Gottschall’s guitars first caught my attention about ten years ago. Imagine a guitar built on a megaphonic principle, with no soundhole, but instead a body construction that allows for the body, both above and below the shoulder joint, to be open. I confess that I had consigned these rather beautiful instruments to the Rick’s drawer, never taking the time to sit down and actually play one. This year I did. Magnificent! As I drove away, at Messe end, I had yet another guitar to find room for in my cluttered workshop.
What can I say, I’m a weak man. 
at the Gotschall Guitars stand
