GUITARS OF BEAUTY

Rita: Is it any secret who owns the most impressive guitars? Let’s find out. Lolita: Okay, I will steal guitar secrets from my friends and share them with you, so there will be no secrets between us. LINDA VIENS (Angeline/ Sgt. Maxwell’s Peace Chorus): The most impressive guitars I know are the “art guitars” lovingly crafted by the multi-talented Asa Brebner; each with it’s own theme—hand-painted, encrusted with glitter, jewels, plastic army men, and Barbie doll heads! *** NICHOLE CLARKE (Orange Nichole): I am fickle about guitars so it’s hard to choose ONE that’s been the most impressive. But recently I’ve been impressed with Charlie Chesterman’s black Rickenbacker 381, which may be the loveliest guitar ever—and my friend Rhys’ Roland G707. It has a handle! *** JEN D’ANGORA (Downbeat 5): JJ Rassler has a ’61 Les Paul Junior that he’s owned for over 30 years. There were other models of Juniors in late ’50s and in ’60s that became the Juniors we know now, but the design of his guitar is the design that became the SG. It features one P-90 single coil pickup. He got it around ’75—it had been owned by Billy Cole (the Real Kids/Nervous Eaters.) When Lenny Kaye and Patti Smith came to see DMZ at the Rat back then, Patti jumped on stage with them, and Lenny jumped on JJ’s back, and strummed this guitar while JJ made the chords. *** MIKE PIEHL (Reverse/ Tim Gearan): My father always told the story of being stationed at Fort Knox in the early ’60s: On leave, they went into a little diner. One of the guys in their group was black and they refused to serve him. All the soldiers were bullshit! And it turned into a huge scene. “This guy’s fighting for your country and you can’t make him a fucking sandwich?” He told me that when I was very young and because of it, I’ve never been a racist prick. I’ve been other kinds of pricks but not racist. *** JASON SANFORD (Neptune): The most impressive guitar is owned by Terry, from the Ex. He bought the guitar when he was 16, and he has played it for all 30 years that the Ex has been making music. At some point it became a five-string when part of the headstock and the high-E tuning machine snapped off during a rowdy show. I have never seen a guitar more worn and scarred and imbued with the aura of a lifetime of punk. *** SCOTT PITTMAN (Frank Morey & His Band/ The Shods): My brother, Rowie, is a fantastic craftsman of anything wood, metal, electronic, or anything. He made his first guitar absolutely from scratch. The Glingtone sounds better than the best Tele, but the custom woodwork and metalwork makes it look like nothing else. Plays perfectly and effortlessly and is weighted to perfection. It pisses me off, because I wish he had this idea years ago; but also because Kevin and Manimal of the Shods, and Amy from Darkbuster got on the list before me to get one—I’m his brother and I have to get serial number five?! *** FRANK ROWE (Classic Ruins): The most impressive guitar I’ve ever seen was Eric Rosenfeld’s ’51 Fender Broadcaster, one of the first Fenders ever built. It was scarred, it was battered, it was worn, and when he played it in the sun with Catfish Black on a Sunday free concert on Cambridge Common, it made sounds that can’t be explained. It got stolen long ago. Whoever has it now is sitting on about fifty thousand bucks. Lolita: There still are guitar secrets. Who has that ’51 Broadcaster?