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The world occasionally produces one of those rare thinkers whose name becomes iconic. Thomas Edison lit up the world; Albert Einstein profoundly altered the study of physics; Walt Disney reimagined entertainment; and Leo Fender invented the electric guitar. Fender grew up in Fullerton, California, where his interest in electronics lead him to open his own radio repair shop in 1938. It wasn’t long before musicians and band leaders turned to him for help in repairing their equipment. And the rest, as they say, is history. Fender’s revolutionary guitar, the Fender Stratocaster...

Decoded: The HiLo-Tron and Goldfoil (Ry Cooder) Pickups Over the past few years I've re-built hundreds of pickups; many are the well known Fender style single coils and Gibson style humbuckers.  However, I also work on and build a lot of lesser known models.  I'd like to talk about two of these, the Gretsch style HiLo Tron and the most famous of all "Goldfoils", the one in Ry Cooder's "Coodercaster".  Ya ready, let's dig in! The reason I decided to group these two very different designs together...

BK Butler Mini Boogee Matrix Tube Pedal Hi gang!  So this will be, for the most part a video blog.  I recently sold my stupidly rare Mini Boogee Pedal, but I made a little demo video before shipping her out.  These things are legendary!  There is lotsa chatter about these among serious players, but most folks have never even SEEN one in real life.  BK Butler made only a few of these by hand from 1980-1981, then Randall Smith (Mesa-Boogie) asked him to use another name and in 1982-84 he made a...

Howdy folks, as I pen this blog it is approaching the 4th of July and I just read this fun little blog about "The Most Patriotic Guitars Ever".  It was a fun read ... but ... it left out what I feel is probably the most Patriotic of all guitars, those famous Red, White, & Blue beauties played by guitar pioneer and mentor to sooo many, Mr, Buck Owens.  Let's talk about that. Buck and his right-hand man, Don Rich created the famous "Bakersfield Sound"; many serious Tele string-benders will flat-out tell ya that...