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Famous Monsters Dan Lawrence


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Gawd, do those magazine cover images bring back the memories. Forrest j. Ackerman was a (personal) icon during the early '60s. On the front, methinks I recognize cast members like  Lon Chaney from Phantom of the Opera (silent, 1925), an alien from Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943), the Ymir from 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957---early Ray Harryhausen SFX), the Japanese Frankenstein from Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965), and King Kong (presumably from the original in 1933). The ads on the back are cool, but izzat an anti-heroin ad on the upper cutaway horn?

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Love the guitar and I loved that magazine and all the movies it represented. What memories! I still break out those Universal movies from time to time....and Hammer and all the rest....

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Think I  may noted in this forum some years ago that the appearance of the critter named Spiga in 1968's Destroy All Monsters caused an acidhead (and arachno-phobic) friend of mine to freak out real bad...

kumonga_1967_01.jpg

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Just curious but any reason why you switched from the Gotoh Floyd on the original to the Schaller on the new one?

 

 

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1 hour ago, diablo175 said:

Just curious but any reason why you switched from the Gotoh Floyd on the original to the Schaller on the new one?

 

 

I purchased a donor. SS80 to have painted, this is how it came.   The Washburn labeled Floyd's had the same issues as the. Hamer ones. 

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Loved the Basil Gogos covers on the magazines, but I loved the Creepy and EERIE magazines even better. Still have those early issues. What was the reason that Steve Stevens changed from Hamer to Washburn? I really liked the first model, which was more Gibson style.

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Very cool guitar!  When I was a kid actually had one of those Uncle Fester’s light bulbs as seen in the ad on the back.  To be like Uncle Fester on TV and make it light up by sticking it in your mouth, you kept a strip of aluminum foil on your tongue.  

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6 hours ago, Hamer_SS_guy said:

What was the reason that Steve Stevens changed from Hamer to Washburn? I really liked the first model, which was more Gibson style.

Hamer had developed the 22 fret SSI.  Then they altered it to 24 frets.  Then they designed the 25.5" scale SSII.  Then they developed the bolt on for him but refused to call it a SSIII.  Steve was interested in the superstrat concept at the time, Hamer seemed to be worn out with the constant development of models for him.  Also, he was out of the Billy Idol band and the Atomic Playboys were a flop, so Steve's negotiating powers were diminished at that time.  

When Vince Neil cane along, so did Washburn.  However the Washburn agreement was USA only models, which they promptly broke with the SS40.  The Washburn relationship was less than a year.  Steve then was without a signature guitar until the Knaggs about a decade ago.  So the gap was from 1993 to about 2008.  

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I used to own a Washburn SS80 - they are great guitars.  I visited the Washburn custom shop (when it existed) in Illinois about 8 years ago and talked with Terry Atkins, the head of the custom shop at the time and also worked for Hamer before then.  He liked the SS80s and talked about working on the Hamer B12s and his current Washburn bass model he was prototyping.  I got there just before they sold their "Barbarella"  Washburn to a guy in Australia, which was also meant for Steve Stevens.  I also have a copied Barbarella graphic with built in ray-gun effects.  The graphic is from a different Barbarella comic though.  

I used to own vintagewashburn.com and talked to many people back in those days, one of them is my friend Dave who is the SS80 historian.  Cool guitar man - I didn't realize the original was destroyed.  When I had the website about 8 years ago, it was difficult to find good photos of the original monster guitar.

 

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1 hour ago, DarrenD said:

I used to own a Washburn SS80 - they are great guitars.  I visited the Washburn custom shop (when it existed) in Illinois about 8 years ago and talked with Terry Atkins, the head of the custom shop at the time and also worked for Hamer before then.  He liked the SS80s and talked about working on the Hamer B12s and his current Washburn bass model he was prototyping.  I got there just before they sold their "Barbarella"  Washburn to a guy in Australia, which was also meant for Steve Stevens.  I also have a copied Barbarella graphic with built in ray-gun effects.  The graphic is from a different Barbarella comic though.  

I used to own vintagewashburn.com and talked to many people back in those days, one of them is my friend Dave who is the SS80 historian.  Cool guitar man - I didn't realize the original was destroyed.  When I had the website about 8 years ago, it was difficult to find good photos of the original monster guitar.

 

I have the Barbarella and Frankenstein #1, the seller was Charles Carter the IT security expert from Australia.  

IMG_6214.JPG

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