Biz Prof

Verily, verily. And with that in mind, "Paging Mr. Dimarzio to the double-cream courtesy phone..."

Love it, Crunch. There's almost nothing better than a proper Tele platform.

The riffage penned by Steve Clark and Pete "Hamer with legs" Willis has stood the test of time. I wish the lads could have better handled their penchant for hooch.

"Dings and dongs..." WTF?!?

How about the outro solo at 4:48? Absolutely oozing with badass.

Carlin or Ringo by a mile.

Hands down, the best true portable travel amp I've owned. I bought mine used via CL and will take it with me for the third straight year on the family beach vacation. If you like shopping local CL for guitars, it makes for the perfect parking-lot-meet-up demo amp.

So...which was your favorite Thomas narrator--Ringo, George Carlin, or Alec Baldwin? 😁

I'm certain it's been discussed here ad nauseum, but to me, Hamer--both structurally and culturally--seemed to have three (maybe four or five if you count the firm's infancy or post-mortem build-outs separately) distinct eras: the early years (Palatine, early Arlington Heights) through the mid '80s, the Arlington Heights/Kaman-induced growth spurt (late '80s through the late '90s), and the New Hartford era (late '90s through the end). Players have their preferences, although I think we can agree that all eras of Hamers were remarkable. I have the same tendencies you do toward the '90s Arlington Heights era, although the prospect of owning an early-era Special or Sunburst would be intriguing.

Both the Gibson and Epiphone Kalamazoo-made Spirit models were unabashed copies of the Hamer Sunburst. I think these particular Gibsons were produced in '82 and '83, right on the heels of the Sunburst's rise to prominence. Perhaps if Paul and Jol had sued Gibson....

Not a Hamer and likely the cheapest guitar I own. Bought it solely to practice fretwork, try out pickups, and to experiment with applying a bursted flake finish. The finish turned out surprisingly well.

You might...or might not find this video entertaining...

While I realize it's much easier to suggest certain things when it's someone else's project, I strongly encourage you to do what I feel that anyone should do when repairing/restoring an old, heavily-modded paddle-head Blitz: plane the sides of the paddle headstock, glue on properly thicknessed mahogany "ears", and then bandsaw/rout/drill the enlarged peghead blank to form the six-inline hockey stick shape found on Floyd-equipped Blitzes a couple of years after yours was built. It will look a hell of lot better than the 3+3 headstock with that body shape, and an OFR will actually look correct on it. FWIW, I'm pretty sure that Murkat did a similar conversion for Cynic on a Blitz with a Sustain Block bridge, but I'm almost certain that Jay reformed it have a real-deal 4-digit headstock shape instead of the hockey stick shape. Seems like Stike put a pearl finish on it, but that might have been another Blitz project. Whatever the case, it was cool as shit and I was insanely jealous. ETA: I found that old Blitz rehab thread. Still jealous; what a nice restoration/rebuild!

Completely whiffed on it being an 8er instead of a 12er. <Doh!>

Whilst discussing early REM records with a pal over lunch, I recommended that he go back carefully listen and follow Mike Mills' bass lines on those first three albums. He'd never really thought about what seemed obvious to me--that Mills' lines were the core melodic component of each tune. Wonder what he thinks about that 12er FB beyond its provenance.