Friday, August 15, 2008

Solidbodies The Movie

Posted by Jon in • Guitar DVDs

Solidbodies the movie
If you are guitarist, and lets face it you’re at the wrong site if you’re not, you are going to love this DVD. Solidbodies the movie documents the greatest rivalry in guitar history, Fender Versus Gibson. The film includes interviews with Joe Bonamassa and vintage guitar guru George Gruhn and Henry Garza of the Los Lonely Boys, there is also little excerpt of a Joe Bonamassa gig playing his sparkly gold strat, which is funny considering Gibson just released the Joe Bonamassa Gold Top Les Paul! The film is only 50 minutes long so it moves along at a quick pace but there is a lot of interesting information about Gibson and Fender from the early days which I had no idea about such as the design of the Gibson SG, if you don’t know then you’ll just have to buy the DVD and find out! They talk about how the ‘59 Les Paul became the guitar that everyone wanted in the 60’s when it had temporarily ceased production and how the later 60’s Les Pauls still didn’t match the ‘59 so it became even more desirable. It also shows how the CBS takeover of Fender affected the quality and almost ruined the reputation of the Stratocaster and Telecaster until CBS finally sold the company and they made a comeback. There is also a section about how companies like Kramer eclipsed Gibson and Fender in guitar sales throughout the 80’s as players looked for guitars with a Floyd Rose and a modern look before the grunge scene put Kramer out of business! Of course Kramer is now owned by Gibson and focusses on cheap asian made (Korean maybe) instruments.

The film is very well shot and produced which is something that is sometimes lacking in independent films, they have obviously spent a lot of time on the details. There are a few clips of guitarists, Wes Jeans, John Roth and Steve Selvidge playing Les Pauls and Strats to show the difference between the Les Paul’s powerful humbucker sound and the Strat’s brighter twangier blues and country sound with a little bit rock as a nod to Hendrix. I would have liked the film to have been fleshed out with some concert footage from some of the great Strat and Les Paul players like Hendrix, Page etc. but I assume there were legal problems or licensing issues, thankfully Joe Bonamassa complied. I would also liked the film to have been longer as the running time is only 50 mins, I could have easily watched another hour and would have liked to seen some of the guitarists in question talking about their personal collections especially Joe Bonamassa but apart from that I think it is a great DVD and one that should be among every guitarists collection!

Check out http://solidbodiesthemovie.com for details on how to purchase the DVD.

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