May 20, 2007
Rock talk - Rock and Authenticity
Rock and Roll and the Vain Hunt for Authenticity
Way back in the day Eddie Van Halen, lead guitarist of Van Halen, was a musical Edison, constantly experimenting in an attempt to both attain his desired tone (the Brown Sound) and to get more tuning stability when using "dive-bomb" vibrato effects. To this end, Halen built his own "Frankenstrat" guitar, using spare parts that had been discarded by the manufacturer.
Halen did an ugly job of routing out the guitar's wooden body and installed a humbucking pickup in the bridge position, cut out the tone control leaving only the volume control functioning, and installed a prototype of the Floyd Rose tremolo. Over the years the guitar collected paint jobs, knocks and dings, cigarette burns, and reflective panels on the back (to reflect the stage lights back to the audience ... Lord, I do I wish I had gone to one of those shows).
The guitar looks ugly, but plays just the way Halen wanted it to play.
Now, if you wanted to, you could pick up a cheap guitar and then experiment with it — cut out the pickups, install new ones, bang it up, paint it, bang it up some more, paint it again. After a few years you would have your own "Frankenstrat" (or "Frankenpaul") that would represent your own sound, experiences, and years of living.
Or, you could fork over around $25,000 and get an Eddie Van Halen replica.
As you may have heard, a company has professionally, painstakingly re-created Halen's beat-up, ugly guitar in a 300 limited edition production run. Apparently so folks can hang them up on the wall instead of playing enough guitar to turn their own new guitar into a battle-scarred relic. I mean, really, you think someone is going to play a $25,000 guitar — risk breaking something that looks like its going to fall apart?
I don't mean to beat up on Halen, you can also get replica guitars that look identical to those used by Andy Summers, Rory Gallagher and others. And they are also a lot more expensive than a standard guitar.
But you can't purchase authenticity, not even for $25,000.
Now, I understand that most of these guitars are going to very rich Van Halen fans, and probably even the folks that made them didn't expect them to be played much. But looking past our $25,000 straw man, there are plenty of examples where we fetishize gear used by specific players (or gear designed to produce a sound specific to certain players). And that sort of thing worries me, a bit, for two reasons:
First off, heck people, Halen paid about $150 bucks for the body and neck of his guitar. Be a musician, not a guitar snob (I know ... this coming from a gadget freak).
Second, learning from people like Halen, Hendrix, Clapton, Vaughan and others is fine. But their talent isn't in some beat up guitar and their sound is their own. Even if you are going to be doing covers, please folks, make your gear and sound your own.
And don't be afraid of a few cigarette burns and dings along the way.