Red Rider

This is the "Red Rider" It's a late 1980's American Fender wide neck work horse. The owner is George Paulos, & this gig tool is anything but stock. Dimarzio Wide Oval frets, custom electronics, & Duncan pickups which have been sauteed in a saucepan with salt water, & chili powder for that Texas bite. The wiring on this stratocaster has been modified to allow series pickup combinations using the mini-toggle between the volume & tone control. Series wiring give the single-coil pickups a big fat humbucking sound. Note the Callaham tremolo bridge assembly with titanium saddles. The guitar is strung with d'Addario .011 strings and tuned to Eb for heavy rock and blues. I've played numerous club dates with George in the 90's. He's a multi-talented musician, luthier, & technician, & is most noted for his work touring with Sha na na. You can see this axe in motion with the five piece rock & soul group Rythm Engine :

Friday August 5th at the Schooner Tavern, 2903 27th ave S Minneapolis, 

Saturday August 27th at the Valley Lounge , Hwy 13 & Yankee Doodle Road Eagan. 

1935 Gretsch Resonator

 

These old time dobro's were distributed by Gretsch, but in actuality were manufactured by Regal/ National who held the resonator patent. This is one of the oldest guitar that I've owned, & who doesn't love the "Mother of Toilet Seat" headstock. I'm honored to be lucky enough to have picked a gem that's been on this globe nearly 100 years. It took a heckuva lot of cleaning to get it back to usable form, but it was structually sound & I didn't have to perform any actual repairs. Ahh, the stories that this guitar could tell...