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He forced the guard to the ground at gunpoint, FBI Special Agent Elizabeth Cardenas wrote in an affidavit. Having had this type of experience within only 20 minutes or so of playing-time, it’s no wonder why many notable players including Phish’s Trey Anastasio have started playing on Frank Brothers recently. While we are on the subject of guitars that do the vintage-Gibson feel right, one boutique entry did a dirty number on this writer in an isolation booth at NAMM. From the moment the guitar is in your hands, it feels right at home, and you won’t want to put it down. There is no part about this guitar that feels cheap—everything about it screams expertly made. While the bodies are sleek and contoured with a tummy cut and rolling neck joint, the necks as a whole are a bit chunky, sort of like a vintage Gibson.
Solid Body
The standard C to D neck shape is a real winner, at least personally, and allowed me free range to switch from rhythms to leads with ease no matter where I was on the fretboard. There’s something about the design of the guitar that gives it a serious weighted feel while you’re playing it without adding any real pounds. The models I tried came loaded with hand-wound Lollar pickups (arguably the best boutique pickup company out there) and as a result, they all sounded articulate and crisp from the first riff. I was bowled over by the Bobcat after I was able to get tones that ranged from biting country to blistering blues all the way to round almost archtop-like jazz with just the flick of a pickup switch and the turn of a tone knob. This sunburst Magnatone Mark V, designed by Paul Bigsby, is a perfect picture of elegance, lovingly worn and utterly charming in its stately split inlays and chrome accoutrements.
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Paired with the GoodTone P90s, this guitar will remind your ears a lot of a ‘50s Les Paul Special in the best way possible. The first on this list (and arguably some of my favorite builds of the entire show) come from a Los Angeles-area company known as Shabat Guitars. Named after its founder—former LsL Instruments luthier, Avi Shabat—Shabat Guitars is poised to become a heavy hitter in the world of boutique guitars. The Epiphone Casino is clearly a heavyweight in the hollowbody world, and this example is a knock-out.
Prisma Guitars
To that effect, it is very balanced as an instrument and the tuning stability was rock-solid, especially in comparison to a modern Gibson or PRS. At around $4000 for a Laguz, it is more than a worthy contender for your next high-end guitar, and, at that level, it is even arguably one of the most value-packed boutique guitars when you factor in the quality of build. If you are looking for a buzz-free Fender-style guitar with super fast-playing action and absurd tuning stability---these are the guitars for you. With the 9.5- to 12-inch radii, you can really dig in and bend like a bluesman on these guitars. On an aesthetic level, the guitars are stunners and per the website, whatever model you want is completely customizable with the cost ranging from $2k to $3k (a steal for the level of quality).
Security, from start to finish
What it really comes down to is the guitar itself, how it plays and sounds compared to the cost. While monolithic brands like Fender and Ibanez came through mightily on a number of new models and initiatives, the real highlights of NAMM for me were the smaller boutique brands. With the ever-rising prices of household name guitars, the price/value gap continues to close between the base entries of those big brands and the offerings of smaller builders. Another beautiful example of a 1960s hollowbody underdog comes in the form of a sunburst Silvertone model 1429. The subtly flamed maple top and shaded sunburst finish makes for a striking combination, as does the unique triple on-off switching appointments on the model. A tortoiseshell headstock overlay, pickguard, and control plate contrasts nicely with the brown-to-yellow burst.
Shop Gear
There were a huge number of excellent boutique brands at NAMM this year, but the following guitars took the cake and then some during my one-on-one demos. From the headstock options (who doesn’t want a matching Snakehead headstock in Sherwood Green?) to the quality of the relicing (if that’s what you’re into), it’s hard to find a fault with the work that Avi and company are doing. Across every model that I tried, the hand-built craftsmanship was virtually unparalleled and the playing experience was a total pleasure. As mentioned, Truetone deals in Custom Shop guitars, which includes a gorgeous Gretsch White Penguin. Jaded as we guitar players can be, there’s still nothing quite so alluring as a gently faded white finish set against gleaming gold-sparkle drum-wrap binding. Rounding out the luxury package are Filter’Tron pickups, a Gretsch Bigsby, a Rocking Bar bridge – all in an aged gold finish.
While this concept may seem gimmicky in theory, in practice these are handmade instruments for serious players and some of the more visually spectacular guitars being produced today. When people hear the term "boutique," their minds may automatically go to guitars that are prohibitively expensive. The unfortunate truth in guitar is that the general cost of all instruments—boutique or not—are going up. In fact, you could say that boutique costs are actually more stable and value-packed compared to the big brands when you factor in things like innovation and the increased quality control. Many players are rightly realizing that a headstock is just a headstock and a classic-design is just that—a single design (and one of many).
Outstanding Boutique Guitar Companies at NAMM 2018
Several of the suspects had met each other while serving time in state prison, according to court records. In case you've recently abandoned all forms of social media or haven’t been checking in on your favorite gear news sites, NAMM 2018 took place over this past weekend. Throughout the enormous music industry trade show, your humble correspondent roamed the halls and booths of the Anaheim Convention Center doing my due diligence. In another, it’s a gentleman who seems keen on two 90s Stratocasters, but neither of them quite fit his needs.
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That’s right—unlike every other model of theirs to date—Prisma is now building guitars out of regular ol’ blanks of wood like most everybody else. Inside, the retail space is huge with guitars lining every wall at least five rows up. To your left is the checkout counter, and behind that, the side of the shop where you’ll find higher-end US brands like Fender Custom Shop and Gretsch.
Once you’ve visited the bright lights of Guitar Center Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard, here are four other must-see shops in the area. Later that day, detectives arrested Disaac Jones, 33, after his DNA was found on a glove left inside the getaway car used in one of the heists, according to Delph’s affidavit. One of the suspects wore a white painter suit and trained an AR-15 at the driver before he handed over his keys to one of the accomplices and they took off in the truck, which was later found abandoned.
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The first instrument we noticed when we walked into the shop was a gorgeous and largely unfaded 1967 Fender Antigua Coronado II. Brainchild of famed Rickenbacker designer Roger Rossmeisl, the Coronado represents Fender’s initial foray into hollowbody instruments, which also included the Rossmeisl-designed Montego Jazz guitar. While neither found an audience at the time, appreciation for the Coronado has grown considerably in recent years. This totally original example features that signature grey-to-cream finish with ‘Antigua’ proudly emblazoned on the pickguard, rare pearloid button Fender-Grover tuners, and the fantastic, optional Mustang-style vibrato.
In one instance, it’s a customer who calls herself “a beginner,” yet her brother had told her not to bother with any guitar that cost less than $2,000. Shai suggests a guitar costing far less than that instead, reassuring her that such a large drop in the bucket shouldn’t be a barrier for entry into the world of music. Some shops may try to wow you with their golden-era Bursts and rock ’n’ roll connections, but Old Style isn’t so much shock and awe, it’s about the feeling of connection to the greater good of music itself. All of the planning that goes into it, from flight and hotel reservations, where to eat, to figuring out what to do with your days, it seems that vacations can often feel like anything but. And on top of all of that, musicians will naturally want to know where to see the coolest stuff and the best deals.
One, a Lace Sensor-equipped Clapton sig, feels great, but doesn’t have the traditional Strat sound. The other, a limited edition Hendrix Strat with the reverse headstock, has the sound but not the same ultra-slick feel he likes. Shai agrees that he could sell him either one and make modifications, but maybe the better course of action is to track down something that ticks all the right boxes. This is just one example of Old Style actually influencing the musical landscape of its city, something many shops just can’t claim to have done. It’s one thing to simply offer products, but quite another to peddle shared sound experiences to the outside world. Your purchases also help protect forests, including trees traditionally used to make instruments.
It’s a small but well curated shop with a no-nonsense atmosphere, the kind of place perfectly suited for those looking for real world opinions and experience and quality repairs. Owner, proprietor, and namesake Norm Harris started buying up old guitars in the 1960s, long before the idea of the vintage market as we know it had solidified. An expert in all things guitar – you name it, he knows it – Norm put his extensive knowledge to use and stockpiled truckloads of instruments and banked on a boom down the road. Chances are you know his name, or at least the name of the shop, so it’s safe to say his foresight paid off. As he returned with the money, a man wearing a white jumpsuit stepped out of a white Lexus SUV holding a rifle, Detective Emily Delph of the LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division wrote in a search warrant affidavit. The crew is believed to have first struck in February 2022 when three of its members approached an armored car driver picking up cash from a Wescom Credit Union in Hawthorne.
Yes, it’s 100 per cent original (check out the gold truss rod nut) and available for purchase. Investigators found further evidence which linked him to the heists and on March 21 this year, a SWAT team gathered at a Reseda Boulevard apartment building to serve a search and arrest warrant on the suspect. Delph wrote in a search warrant affidavit which phone records showed Young had also been near the site of some of the robberies when they occurred. According to a search warrant affidavit, Davis is a member of the West Boulevard Crips, while Hobson is affiliated the Black P Stones. A string of daring daylight heists in Los Angeles where gang members held up armored trucks at gunpoint and got away with millions of dollars had played out like a Hollywood movie — but were recently busted by cops. What was new for Prisma this year was their first non-skateboard deck composed model, the Mattsonia.
To your right from the front door, you’ll find a wood-panelled section where most of the used and more affordable guitars hang, as well as bigger amplifiers of new and used varieties. Should you be more interested in what’s fresh on the market, downtown Santa Monica’s Truetone Music will certainly scratch that particular itch. It’s a one-stop shop for top brands such as Fender, Gretsch, Danelectro, Orange, Ernie Ball, Supro, Rickenbacker, and PRS. In addition, Truetone has a huge selection of pedals and offers in-house lessons and repairs.
