mc2

Anyone have a photo of what guitar this was about?

THIS....if you can find one. Old 60s Vox hollowbody 12. It's been my main 12 for decades. It has the Vox treble boost built in with a on/off switch....the same one that Roger McGuinn tore out of a Vox and had installed in his main Ric 12 that he recorded a lot of The Byrds stuff with. THAT was his secret. This Vox sounds more like a Ric 12 (since a lot of folks identify its souns with The Byrds) than a stock Ric 12. The neck also has a decent amount of width, I have big bass player hands and it is one of the wider 12s. Only thing I changed on my main one was put on mini Schaller tuners. I've had so many offeres by guitarists asking to buy it over the years that I've lost count. Even jamming side-by-side with guys with Rics, they always ask to play it and try to figure out why it sounds better than their Rics. Great 12. I also always string it with acoustic bronze strings...a trick luthier Ryan Brodesser turned ne onto ages ago. Lower tension but still a nice jangle.

I kind of think that guitars over a certain price, say $10,000, need to be made with feet or lampshades on them.....since most people who buy them don't play them. They end up as display pieces. They'd be more marketable if they could double as fancy end tables or lights in the estates of their owners. Functional art. ....or at least have a built-in bottle opener for your beers. ...or an MP3 slot and speakers. Also, you have to figure that it will take some time to sell a $30k guitar in this market, so Jol may be thinking ahead. That $30k U.S. might only be worth $10 in American Dollars by the time it sells.

WHOA! BRILLIANT!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVdh-kysytc...feature=related --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEfCt1QgFrc One of my fave little known covers.... "Goin', Goin', Gone" -- Rather obscure Bob Dylan tune (his only studio LP for Electra/Asylum) covered on Rubaiyat: Elektra's 40th Anniversary by Bill Frisell, Robin Holcomb & Wayne Horvitz

I thought Brandon Lee was "The Crow?"

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...id=244349925268 NICE one....has your name all over it!

I agree. Just a bunch of haters whining because she hit the big time after years of paying in NYC/NJ dive clubs playing rock covers. IMO she writes and sings waaay better than Madonna or any of those who targeted the same niche over the years. Cetainly out markets any of them. I don't see her as a Dale Bozzio....I see more Cher/Madonna in the dance/gay/costume market that made her...but you can hear her rock background because she has a better sense of melody/hooks than Cher or Madonna did.

Around 20 years ago when I was editor of one of the music trade magazines, I started a marketing company with one of my main freelance writers. We originally called it Maye-Cohn Marketing Communications (using our two last names) and Cohn's wife had the brainstorm of "MC2" to shorten the long name, combining the two parts. When Cohn relocated to Atlanta, he let me have the name and our clients. A creepy sidenote....my only sibling, who I rarely see due to his line of work...first emailed me in the late 90s and HIS permanent email turned out to be a very similar famous equation...."pieare2," as in Pie R Squared. How odd is that? We were both big math/science geeks in HS, so I guess it got engrained in us.

That's actually a band I'd never heard of...but just saw this other cover by them of an old Small Faces song. BUT...this bands reminds me of another discussion we had on the HFC once about "Canadian Bands" sounding "Canadian." THIS band is a perfect example on these two songs. It immediately SOUNDS Canadian. I still cannot put into words exactly what that is...it just does. It has nothing to do with genre, there is just some element that makes it different from American, British, Australian, German, etc. Sort of like picking out Dan Akroyd, John Candy, Eugee Levy, Jim Carrey or Michael J. Fox as Canadian....maybe it's in the beer? Maybe it's too polite? Even the most nasty Canadians still don't seem like they'd shoot or stab you. I think you might need that "edge" in certain music or acting roles, no? Like R.E.M.....great band...but THEY could almost be Canadian.

The trick to doing a successful cover and putting your own stamp on it....is having the foresight to NOT pick a song that is such a classic anthem that you stand NO chance to top it. Good example here: STH

I've seen that one before somewhere....maybe for sale before? Looks like they sliced the neck and middle section of the body, glued on some ugly wings and retopped it? Looks more like a TLE than a Mirage now. WHY???

It was pretty amazing that an ex- husband and wife could actually hold a band together for 10 years without killing each other.

...but if Jay-Z starts wearing one around his neck on a gold chain or they put a digitaized one in the hands of an animated rocker on Guitar Hero 3.......Jol might sell zillions.

Yes...'cuz you shot the pic without the trem bar attached and a pic jammed in the strings

Great photo, you refinished it a cool color. ......John and Monty eventually parted ways and Monty stopped working. John had a small workshop in the city where he continued doing work for me. John did the woodwork on the first 6 or 7 virtuosos! An unsung Hamer Hero. Paul Hamer Paul Hamer Paul... Wow! Thanks for the new info on this. Much appreciated. Steve Matthis actually picked the refin color before I got it from him. Yeah, cool color. May I ask a few more question? I've been a bassist forever it seems but I also play guitar. Because of my really big hands/long reach I especially LOVE the Virtuoso (the design I heard was not especially loved by all at Hamer?) Since you mentioned the Virt....here are mine. I recently let the marble one go. The korina one I think is a prototype...all small dot inlays, deeper scallops, slightly different body bevels? The SN# predates any of the dates of the original run of 10. Some previous owner hacked off some of the upper frets and put a humbucker in it with the pole pieces off. So, I put blade PUP in it so I don't get dropouts on bends w/a 6-way. It's actually my favorite Hamer 6-string I've ever owned. Also...I have a couple Hamers with YOUR SIGNATURE on them under the clearcoats. Any recollections about the axes/owners and why they got signed? The fancy Scepter was made for "George Gryparis" (name on headstock) and your sig in the trem cavity....and the '82 fretless Cruise Bass has "Scooter" on the truss cover, with your (and Jol's) sigs on the back. Last oddball Hamer ID question for the moment.....The Standard 8 pictured (SN0599) has a 4-to-8 headstock conversion that I was told by two different people was done while new at the factory for Jon Brandt...but he was out of CT by the time it was ready and he never picked it up. Supposedly the first long-scale Hamer root-octave bass? True/False/Myth? I was also told that the same "Scooter" guy bought it at the factory after Brandt didn't claim it. My info came from John Tooke, a friend who ordered a number of early custom Hamer basses (Quad 12, B12A, B12S, etc.) -jon/mc2

Oh yeah...Gracin's WAS spelled that way. huh? Oops....appologies to Pop.

Paul... Thanks for the info. No, no damage to the back of the peghead. Just the normal 30+ years of checking, dings, etc. I LOVE the way you guys did the early big pegheads, sort of overkill in a '60s TBird vibe. The double Jazz PUPs with the Gibson EB-3 pup/bridge was also very cool. Besides gigging regularly up in Rochester area, I was the all-nite DJ at the big underground FM radios station back then, WCMF. And yeah....Six String Sales only lasted a few years under Hubberman. I remember my stolen gear showing up in his front window one day and after I confronted him...he said come back in an hour and give him time to call the guy who sold it to him. When I went back an hour later it was all gone and he acted like he hadn't a clue what I was talking about. I called the cops. Geez. He's a character. I ran across him bidding against me on a Hamer on EBAY about 10 years ago. The "hhubberman" in his email was a dead giveaway. He worked with a number of the big L.A. "hair bands" of the 80s as a guitar tech, etc. and had what I think was sort of a used music gear/pawn shop near Guitar Center in Hollywood. One of the HFC members was his partner there. Small music world, no? Everyone eventually resurfaces. BTW...I bought my first bass cab at Grayson's on LI (and my first bass amp head...a used SUNN 200S at nearby Sam Ash in Hempstead down in the basement) when I was in HS. ***Any chance you recognize that refinned mystery Hamer bass/6string doubleneck above from 1981 with "TK" on the headstock, that no one at the factory had a record of? -mc2

Paul.... Any chance you have any recollection of this Hamer doubleneck? The factory refinished it, so it would have been a different color when originally made. The pots date it to 1981 and it was not stamped with a SN# when found by another HFC member (Serial Steve.) The large "T K" initials on the headstock are original, so maybe that might help? I'm told it was found for sale used at, I believe, a Daddy's Junky Music up in New England, partially stripped and pretty beat up. Hamer claimed it was definitely one of their's, so did the refin for Serial Steve and stamped a SN# on it when they had it in for the refin. Since it would have likely been a four-digit era piece and the pots date it to early or even pre-Cruise Bass....it would be interesting to know anything else about it, if you recall. It's not in any of the factory logs that they do have. There were two other similar (but later) Cruise/Phantom doublenecks made, that are owned by other HFC members. One was a red/black Zulu finish and the other is SN#0716 (natural finish with twice as many knobs/switches,) which puts it in 1984. -mc2

I always love seeing this one! I'll tell you guys....THIS one is special to me. The original owner, Freddie Cavalli, had it for 30 years, plyed the living crap out of it on tours and recordings. He put it on consignment at a shop in the Netherlands and after I inquired to buy it changed his mind. We went back and forth for like two years, until he finally decided to part with it. The store owner and he were gracious enough to even include a digital video clip personalized to me of Freddie playing the bass in his apartment and wishing me luck with "thid great bass." Then, we had a major fiasco after it was shipped. The store misunderstood the transport company it used and once it arrived air freight at JFK Airport in NYC, I went to pick it up and they wanted and additional $750 US FOR SHIPPING and fees...on top of around $300 I'd already paid. I told the freight company to fk-off and the sender and freight company took amonth to hash it out. After a month the sender said all was good and the freight company had written off those fees and to go pick up the bass (STILL sitting in a hanger on a skid in JFK all this time!) So, I again drive into NYC to the freight company and they hand me a bill for almost ANOTHER $750 for "30 Days Storage!!" Well....I got VERY unfriendly and started calling them a LOT of names....and started to dial the police on my cell phone...and they backed down and just handed me the claim form to go get it at the terminal. I was a little shocked to see just the huge original Hamer roadcase from 1977, full of tour stickers, etc. laying on a skid, unboxed, that a forklift dropped at my feet with a BANG! Gesh!! I opened it up to check if it was still in one piece and it looked like Freddie had never cleaned it once in 30 years. Stickers on the back, hand spooge, dried sweat, neck strap pin screw snapped off in three places....eeeewwww!!! Man, it looked WELL played. REAL relicing! The Hamer logo had clear red nail polish over it that took me a full day to get off. But it cleaned up pretty nice and plays/sounds GREAT! Anyway....after all that, not even a month later I got an email telling me that Freddie Cavalli had passed away from cancer. So, he'd only decided to part with his Hamer Standard after 30 years while, literally, on his death bed. So, the bass is really special to me from all of that. Here's a pic of Freddie from an 80s promo poster and also of him playing it in the late 70s with Herman Brood & Wild Romance using this Standard. There was a film documentary done about them a few years back. Herman Brood was a fairly famous guy over in his part of the world and killed himself by jumping to his death off of a hotel roof of the Amsterdam Hilton. Very rock & roll, no? The event is noted as the most significant ever in Dutch pop music.

Paul.... I'm curious as to where in the "early Hamer dealer" chronology Six String Sales up in Rochester NY fell? We had Standards in the #0030 and #0070 range in the studio when we did our first album that were both bought from Howie Hubberman who owned that store. Do you recall who the first half dozen Hamer dealers were? Here's Standard Bass SN#0054 that I got a few years ago from Frankie Cavalli of the Dutch band Herman Brood & Wild Romance. Well played but still in the original road case Hamer shipped it to him in. Great bass!

The singer's Sweedish accent throws it off for me....reminds me of Abba But seriously, the music is OK and melodic but I'd prefer more of a singer wihout the Cookie Monster vox, or at least one who switched between that and real vox. Some shampoo company REALLY needs to tap into the four guys twirling their hair in unison thing. I think it could be a funny TV commercial for the biker/metal market. Sounds like Queens of the Stone Age doing "School's Out" by Alice Cooper.....

WOW!!....how VERY cool is this? Hey Ted...isn't this sort of like owning a perfect condition '55 Ford Thunderbird for years, but missing just one original part that was near impossible to find....and then one day you find it? The HFC seems finally "complete." Welcome Paul!

Since Paul & Jol both seem to be free.....maybe they can start a guitar company?

I'm in! Check yer PayPal. Man...I can relate. When I was in 5th grade we moved to the next town over and my dad didn't buy me a new gym uniform for three weeks. So, I ended up having to show up the first three weeks to gym class with the competing school's uniform. I ended up being branded as "the new kid from the next town over" for the next two years, getting jumped after school and in the halls almost every day. Real fun. Even got my nose broken defending my little brother durng that period. Ahhhh, memories.

I've seen a LOT of $70 guitar in closets or under beds with webs on them