"Guitarists": Exploiting our demographic has gone too far

[ToddM]

Originally posted by stuartj
Yeah, and the irony is that, if IIRC, it wasnt even made from Fender bits.

I thought it was a junked up Kramer?

[Victor]

Originally posted by ToddM
I thought it was a junked up Kramer?

What's even funnier about the $25k thing is that Eddie states (in the promo DVD put out by Fender) that he made the original from a $50 Boogie Bodies body from the seconds pile and an $80 Boogie Bodies neck.

I think he turned the same guitar into a "Kramer" by installing a Kramer neck (hockey stick style). I don't think he kept the same necks on for very long. No suprise Fender did'nt copy the original one to which he applied a "Gibson" logo on the headstock.......

This stuff is so well documented on the www it's amazing.

[bigchillcar]

i had a charvel back in the mid-80's, but really had wanted a kramer. whatever happened to them? is charvel still around? i've been out of electric guitar circles for around 15 years...

[VINMAN]

Recently sold my original ESP George Lynch Kamikaze . I bought it new in 1986 for $1100. Sold it for $1300

[Jim Richards]

Did you replace it with something a bit flashier?

[VINMAN]

Originally posted by Jim Richards
Did you replace it with something a bit flashier?

Hey, it was very fitting back in my "big hair" days.

[Rick Lee]

Actually, before EVH had the Fender copy come out, he was making custom Charvel paint jobs and selling them on eBay for pretty silly money, but nothing like $30k. What I learned in an interview with him on the Fender thing was that a lot of the "secrets" to the brown sound he revealed in interviews in the 80's were lies to throw people off. In the more recent interview he says he did the opposite of a lot of what he said he did to his amps and guitars back in the day.

Anyway, the Frankenstrat has nothing to do with any Kramer. He just added Kramer necks later on, as he was always swapping necks on that guitar. He had nothing to do with Kramer until around 1982-83, when Dennis Berardi, pres. of Kramer, ran into Ed's guitar tech on a flight to LA. That started the whole thing.

Back before Kramer got real big, Dennis and the three other big wigs there were still driving around to music stores in the NJ/NY/PA area to pitch their guitars. One night they came into the store where my then guitar teacher worked (Dave Phillips Music & Sound in NJ). They had with them one of the Baretta prototypes. My teacher begged them to sell it to him and they finally did for $500 cash right there. That was a very sweet axe, but was later stolen when his house was burglarized. I've played so many Barettas that were made months or just a year later and the necks were totally different.

Then, when EVH started making the Ernie Ball axes, they actually took the neck from his Frankenstrat and measured every mm of it with a laser, programmed the machines with that info and so each neck felt just like his old worn one. Totally 180 deg. different from the old Baretta neck. I've owned several of each and there is no difference in the necks at all between the Ernie Ball guitars (unless the owner wore them down further). But the Barettas were all hit or miss.

[stuartj]

Originally posted by Jim Richards
Did you replace it with something a bit flashier?

LOL. Yes, that green knob is too much.

[Jim Richards]

yep

[VINMAN]

Originally posted by stuartj
LOL. Yes, that green knob is too much.

Thats not my actual guitar. Mine had black knob and hardware. Hey now, I had some sense of style!!

[scottmandue]

Originally posted by Rick Lee

I was in the R&R Hall of Fame last Tues. and at the Queen exhibit, I was a little disappointed to see the Guild copy instead of Brian May's original. But I guess he's still playing it and only made one of them. I've played the Guild copy before. Why didn't I sound like Brian May? LOL.

Wasn't the story that Brians dad built that guitar for him when he was a kid?

Hey, I have an old Charvel strat in the closet... is it worth a bagillion dollars yet?

[ToddM]

His dad and him workd on it together... supposedly the body came from an old chimney mantle or something. You kind find out all about this stuff on the internet these days.

So the question is, if NONE of the EVH guitar was Fender, why the **** do we have a Fender replica of it???

[ToddM]

My fist guitar was an Ibanez RG570, all black with EMGs. That was a real fast playing guitar with an ultra slim neck; i kind of wish I never sold it because I cant do half the stuff on my strat that I was able to do on it. Either that or my dexterity sucks because im a 35 year old geezer

[rouxroux]

Nardis Custom Amps makes "Nigel Tufnel" faceplates for Marshall amps (an "autograph" plate for the JCM800), plus Master MV faceplates that "go to 11".

[Jim Richards]

Originally posted by ToddM
So the question is, if NONE of the EVH guitar was Fender, why the **** do we have a Fender replica of it???

Money

[Shuie]

Before Fender announced they were selling the Van Halen guitar, Id never read anything anywhere saying the original guitar was a Fender.

[Jim Richards]

Charvel's maybe?

http://www.evh-guitars.com/

[Rick Lee]

AFAIK, there is no Fender marking whatsoever on the EVH replica. I don't even know if the guy who's doing the guitars is a Fender employee or if he and EVH got Fender to put up the money and facilities for the project. Actually, the original Frankenstrat, the one on the cover of VH I, before he painted the guitar red, has but Fender part on it - the bridge. That was before Floyd Rose has come up with his locking system. Pretty amazing stuff when you listen to the first few VH albums and realize he did all that stuff without a locking bridge and nut and kept it all in tune. Blows my mind.

Ed put the Floyd Rose on the Frankenstrat sometime during the VHII tour, IIRC, but it was the version without the fine tuners then. Anyway, I don't think the original guitar was Charvel either. Charvel was a custom shop in those days, run out of the founder's garage. I think Ed paid him a visit and picked the body and neck from a pile of rejects, which were made by Linn Ellsworth and Boogie Bodies.

Then he tossed in a pickup from a Gibson ES-335, Schaller tuners, the Strat bridge, cut his own pick guard out of some plastic stock and thus was born the original Frankenstrat. A real beater, but the magic is in the hands that play it.

[Shuie]

I thought Id read that the guitar was a San Dimas Charvel body dozens of times, but I defer to Rick for anything VH related. Maybe it wasn't a Charvel, but I know I've never heard of any association between EVH and Fender before the announcement of this guitar. I guess it depends on whoever is paying him the most $$$.

[Jim Richards]

According to this, it's a collaboration between EVH and Fender

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/EVH-Eddie-Van-Halen-Frankenstein-Replica-Electric-Guitar?sku=513703&src=3WFRWXX