Almost a month ago I posted information about a special auction that was taking place by XOX Audio Tools, they auctioned off the 100th Handle Guitar with proceeds going to Guitars Not Guns, who provide free guitars and free lessons to foster children, at-risk youth and other deserving children. Well the guitar was sold so here is an excerpt from the press release:

”Going once, going twice, Sold!  The charity auction for the 100 Limited Edition Handle guitar is closed. Thank you to everyone who helped make this such a successful event. The winning bidder is the American Jeff Auen; a musician and collector of extraordinary musical instruments.  This initiative was conceived by XOX Audio Tools, the producers of the Handle guitar, and all proceeds will go to the children’s charity Guitars not Guns (http://www.guitarsnotguns.org).

”This revolutionary carbon fiber guitar the Handle has already won the ‘Good Design’ award from the Chicago Athenaeum Museum and ‘the Most Innovative Product’ award of the NAMM 2008 show.  XOX Audio Tools is thrilled with the results of their first charitable venture.  “We are very happy to have been able to help Guitars not Guns so effectively, and we promise that these positive actions won’t finish here.  Expect to see other charitable events organized by XOX in the future!” explains Peter Solomon director of XOX Audio Tools.

When Jeff Auen found out he was the winner of the auction he was overjoyed and commented:  “Guitars not Guns is an admirable endeavor and I’m happy to help.  I would even wish I had more time to open a chapter myself!” He can’t wait till he receives his custom built 100th guitar and continues: “My sons and I have been collecting unique guitars. The Handle sure fits the bill. It is not a just showpiece though, I will be playing this guitar live. I’m a sucker for really well designed products. The Handle caught my eye (much like a Ferrari does). I can’t wait to get my hands on it.” ”

Congratulations Jeff on your new axe and for helping a worthy cause.

Have you ever wondered what guitar Mark Knopfler plays? Well okay Mark Knopfler actually owns around 70 guitars apparently including his ‘54 Strat, ‘58 Les Paul, Danelectro 59-DCs etc. but the guitar that always springs to mind for me are his Pensa guitars, in my memory this is the only guitar I’ve ever seen him play but when I just checked YouTube I can find videos of him playing everything but!?!

Anyway, much as I like his fine collection of vintage Fender’s and Gibson’s none of them have that amazing quality of his hand made Pensa MK model. The photo on the left is the MK2 which is made using a carved quilt (or flame Maple) top with the finest quality solid Mahogany body and a Maple or Mahogany neck with tilt back headstock. You have a choice of Rosewood or Ebony fingerboard with 12” radius, 24.6” scale length and 22 frets. You also have a choice of hardtail (string-through) or stop tail bridge and Gotoh, Schaller or Sperzel tuners; gold hardware is standard.

Now if you are thinking that this guitar looks like a Suhr guitar there is a good reason, back in 1985 Rudy Pensa, collaborating with his then employee, John Suhr, began building many amazing instruments that are considered classics today. He sold them through his shop Rudy’s Music Stop which he opened on 48th Street, New York City in 1978. John Suhr opened up his own small factory building custom guitars to order in 1997 and now makes one of the most sought after guitar brand.

Have you ever wanted a guitar that looked like a bowling ball? I’ve found just the company for you! This model features a “Marbled Acrylic” Body-Top (Patent Pending), which is custom formulated with state of the art technologies and materials combined to achieve a hardened and durable surface, also like a bowling ball. As you might have realised I’m not particularly a fan of this finish but don’t let that put you off Paradise Guitars because aside from ’The Prophet‘ they do actually make a couple of very nice Korina guitars which caught my eye. The SP 1010 features and a hand selected genuine White Korina body with a full bookmatched Spalted Maple top, Floyd Rose® Tremolo Pro bridge and a 14 degree tilt back headstock on its 25.5” scale, 24/6100 Jumbo fret neck, which apparently offers easy playing for leads and chording.

Or if you would prefer a more “Wolfgang” kind of shape rather than a strat there is a nice SP 2020 also in Korina and Spalted Maple. As with the SP 1010 the neck is made from Birdseye Maple with a Birdseye Maple fingerboard with 24 Jumbo frets. Both of these guitars offer an optional extra Paradise “Hand-Grip” which is like the Ibanez JEM monkey grip.

Finally if you fancy something with a little more bling to it, check out The Resurrection, this mirrored gold top guitar will certainly get you noticed!

Last month I featured a DIY guitar made from Ikea tables, a nifty idea I thought. Well Karl left a comment that day and pointed me in the direction of Prairie Custom Guitars and in particular to the OSBcaster pictured left. So what is OSB? Well I had heard of MDF (medium density fibreboard) as they seem to use it to make just about everything these days to save money, well OSB stands for Oriented Strand Board which is formed by layering strands of wood in specific orientations, hence the name! This rather ugly wood seems a very odd choice for a guitar due to the fact it isn’t even a solid piece so sustain must be pretty scarce but Marty from Prairie Custom Guitars decided to make a Telecaster from OSB for fun and so the OSBcaster was born!

As you will see from the photos it started out life as a Fir backed guitar but then transformed into a complete OSB body with a piece of laminated Ash through the center for added strength and to allow hardware to be screwed into it. However, confusingly, the guitar seems to revert to the Fir backed version which he took a blow torch to for a true burst finish! I don’t know what it sounds like but the end result is actually pretty cool. I think Marty probably ended up spending a lot more time on this guitar than he first thought.

Check out some of Marty’s other projects such as this cool Wlanut Tele - the Nutcaster at Prairie Custom Guitars.

UPDATE: Marty has just cleared up my confusion, there are actually 2 guitars now, the natural finish and the sunburst!

Last week Gary from Thumbrella found this fantastic Swineshead Pickups Humbucker Keyring so I thought I would see what other guitar related keyrings were on the market. Well I didn’t have to look long before finding a company that specialises in miniature guitars and keyrings called MiniatureGuitarOutlet.com. The image on the left is labeled on their site as a ’Dark Wood Electric Guitar Keychain‘, which is a little bit strange considering this company create 9” replica guitars, you would think they would at least call it a Flying V?

Although they don’t acknowledge the different styles of guitar they actually create Les Pauls, Strats, Teles and Flying V’s in a range of colours and they are only $2.19 a piece.

MiniatureGuitarOutlet.com

I first heard of Tommy Emmanuel about 5 years ago when I heard ‘Train To Dusseldorf’ from his solo acoustic guitar album ‘Only’, I was instantly hooked and it inspired me to play again after a break of quite a long time. I bought an acoustic guitar, Tommy’s ‘Only’ album and the TAB book and I’ve been trying to get somewhere close to the virtuosic fingerstyle master ever since, you have to be optimistic don’t you?! Since ‘Only’ Tommy has released ‘Endless Road’ and ‘The Mystery’ on Steve Vai’s record label, Favored Nations. Both are essential listening for any guitarist, the technical ability of Tommy is amazing and is something he has been working on since the age of 6 when he was touring Australia with his dad and brother!

Well Tommy has just released a live double CD called ‘Center Stage’ on Favored Nations and Guitar Noize is giving 1 lucky person the chance to win a signed copy with 4 runners up also receiving a copy (unsigned, sorry). All you have to do is head over to the Competition page and enter your email address, it’s that easy.

I have just listened to ‘Center Stage’ and as a Tommy fan I was not disappointed, there are tracks from ‘Only’ such as the fantastic ‘Train To Dusseldorf’ and a percussive version of ‘Mombasa’ that has to be heard to be believed, it honestly sounds like an entire percussion section has joined Tommy onstage rather than him beating, scratching, plucking and brushing his guitar! There are also 4 new tracks ‘Ruby’s Eyes’, ‘Papa George’ (inspired by George Harrison), ‘Lenny Bro’ and ‘The Jolly Swagman’ which is a kind of celtic track like ‘Tall Fiddler’ (which by the way there is a blisteringly fast version on here) and ends with ‘Waltzing Matilda’ a nod back to his motherland Australia. There is also the obligatory Beatles Medley that Tommy is famous for playing in which he manages to combine tracks with ease starting with ‘Here Comes The Sun’ into ‘When I’m 64’ into ‘Daytripper’ into ‘Lady Madonna’.

CD 2 starts with a track by Merle Haggard called ‘Working Man Blues’ featuring Bob Littell on harmonica and Tommy singing, his guitar playing is better than his voice but it mixes up the set nicely. The next track is a great instrumental version of ‘Georgia on my mind’ with Bob Littell wailing the melody on harmonica and Tommy playing a cool bluesy solo, it really is a fantastic arrangement of the classic Ray Charles track. Other highlights include Tommy’s rendition of Amazing Grace, if you have never heard this bluesy version check out this video on YouTube now imagine it with Bob Littell’s harmonica taking turns on verses!

The nice thing about this CD is that it gives you an insight into Tommy’s sense of humour, especially on his ‘Story of a little boy’, he plays with a lot of humour and if you watch his videos you can see the enjoyment written all over his face, I think it takes a rare talent to convey this to an audience. He also plays using a lot of percussive techniques and he takes this to the next level on the track ‘Inittiation’ where he uses a delay effect to create an amazing soundscape which I think sounds very aboriginal to begin with but then moves into a more modern sounding piece , it is very ethereal and inventive. The CD closes with one of my favourite tracks to play, ‘Questions’ from Tommy’s ‘Only’ album, it is a slightly new arrangement compared to the 2000 album version and Tommy plays it with such precision it sounds incredibly simple, although as I found out when I was learning the piece it is far from simple to seperate the melody and harmonies in the way Tommy does so effortlessly.

So if you want to win this great CD all you have to do is go the Competition page here on Guitar Noize.

How about this for a guitar pedal, not exactly what you were expecting is it! These bicycle pedals would make a good gift for the guitarist who seems to have everything. Here are the stats:

Anodized in 2 colors
Triple bearings
Extruded/CNC-machined body
Body 6061 aluminum, extruded/CNC-machined, anodized, replaceable pins
Axle CNC-machined Cr-Mo (cartridge)
Bearings LSL bushing, sealed & needle
Size 109 x 92 mm
Weight 264 g/pc

You can buy these pedals now on ebay for US $60.99.

I’ve always been “drawn” (ha ha) to hand painted guitars ever since I saw Joe Satriani’s black guitar with the silver doodles on it, I think someone stole that guitar while he was touring “Flying in a Blue Dream”? Anyway I digress. I just came across these fantastic Les Paul guitars hand illustrated by Colby Nichols and Josh Kenyon, not only are these one off guitars great to look at but the two pictured above, ”Legends in the Wood” and ”A Household Nightmare” are part of the ’Music Saves Lives Gibson Guitar Project‘, yes it is quite a mouthful.

Music Saves Lives has focused its main efforts on blood donation and the bone marrow registry, reaching out by sharing facts and educating. The guitars were auctioned off on eBay but you can still buy prints and T Shirts. Check out the other guitars that were part of this worthy cause.

The guitars used are Les Paul Melody Maker’s with a Mahogany body, Rosewood fretboard, Chrome wraparound tailpiece and specially designed single coil pickups.

What do you buy the guitarist who has everything? How about a Braithwaite Orpheus? ”designed for the guitar player who knows that playing the instrument is more than just a hobby” and only $105… surely worth the money because not only can you fit all your cards and cash in this leather wallet but also 3 guitar picks because of course they take up so much space in your pocket!

”Without picks inserted, you can see the black silk lining the back of the pick holder, creating a look reminiscent of shark’s gills. With picks in, the true purpose of the wallet (and its owner) becomes clear.”

Yeah because with those picks in there I had no idea what the true purpose was!

Good news Aussies I have news of another competition just for us! FasterLouder.com.au, the Access All Areas pass to the latest in Australian rock music is giving 1 lucky person the chance to win this fantastic prize, a Gibson Les Paul Studio. 10 Runners up will receive double tickets to the ’Shine A Light‘ Gala screening on May 28 and the ‘Shine A Light’ soundtrack.

To enter simply head over to FasterLouder.com and register for a free account.