2009 - Guyatone LG-127t

I got this bad boy a little after my first child was born, a kind of celebration. I'd wandered into a local guitar shop and saw this upside down melted strat shape on the wall and was instantly enamored. It was but a year from my introduction to and subsequent obsession with Man or Astro Man? Their unusual choices of guitars and other instruments instantly appealed to the science fiction fan in me.

I'd never been interested in surf music, but Man or Astro Man? really opened my eyes to the genre. Unfortunately little else is as good as these guys in my opinion. Every day I'll put on a couple of MOAM songs on the stereo or portable music playing device. Can't get enough. 

The Guyatone guitar is a  strange beastie. It has this really hard wood neck, I've bumped it a lot and there have been no dents and barely a scratch. The body is light and as it turns out made of laminated wood. The pickups are somewhere between a P90 and a Strat single coil in tone, a lot of bit but also the hollow honk.  The vibrato is straight off a Jazzmaster and works quite well, the original arm was gone but the shop gave me a replacement. The replacement was from a Jazzmaster, but was too long for my playing style so I went out and bought a bar from a Strat style tremolo. The neck is narrow and very round, suits my small hands and my sloppy playing style. The action drifts a bit as my palm constantly hits the thumbscrew on the bridge.

I've never heard anything so good ad this guitar plugged into a Vox AC15 with a stack of verb and a little tremolo. Makes my valve jr's seem lame by comparison. I love this guitar and am glad that I bought it, however it did inspire me to an even greater purchase.....