I got a new guitar last night! I call it Porchtar I. Will there be a II or III? One never knows. Problem is, I don't know what Porchtar I is. It's a brandless wonder, an eclectic electric oddity - a freak of guitar nature! Check it out:
Yeah, it looks kinda like other guitars, but there's no manufacturer's name on it at all. No serial number, no info, no nothing. Kinda appears to have a Fender headstock, don't it? But if it really is, it's a factory second. Close inspection shows some poor cutting technique on it.
How about these pickups? Look an awful lot like classic Strats to me and to the guy at the guitar shop. He dates the thing maybe early to mid-70s. Maybe. But how do you tell. Was this homemade from scratch or from a kit? Is it Japanese? European? Eastern Bloc? Soviet? (That's my favorite theory - that I got a Soviet guitar. It's kinda like someone showed a picture of a Strat to a Russian instrument maker and said "Make one! Or die!")
And those knobs, those sweet sweet knobs! Shiny, shiny gold they are, gold I tells ya!!! But they are each imperfect. You can see the uppermost knob has an imperfection in the center, but so do the other two. It's like this came from the Island of Misfit Guitars.
Does it play good you ask? Sound good? The answer is very much yes. Action's a bit high but I'll tweak that. Really feels like a Fender neck too, like a decent Telecaster. The awesome thing is the sound, though. Huge! Hot! Hard! Sexy as all Hell! That's a five-position switch and it goes from the bottom with a dry, flat, chunky, chip-yr-teeth wicked Strat sound up to the top with a full-bore sweetly distorted humbuckingness Heaven kinda sound. And loud, loud, loud. I barely had to crank the volume on my Vox. It was worth the 60 bucks just for the pickups.
Oh. Last thing. There's no strap buttons on this baby. Never were. How odd. But that's all part of the beauty of Porchtar I, I guess.
Anybody have a clue about this? Lemme know.
7 comments:
You might have to take the neck off and look at the end bolted to the body.Any plates that can be removed?Neck to body.....? Did you get it at a guitar shop?Find out who sold it to them.As for the name....I might call it "Charlie"or Charliebox" after the island of misfit toys."Nobody wants a Charlie in the box".
Okay, I've removed the neck from the body but - ohmigod ohmigod so much blood so much blooooood why won't it stop coming ohmigod!!!!!!
I kinda saw this coming.Wish you had just taken pictures of the nurse you had abducted instead of this whole "new guitar"in the basement thing.Lord...had hoped you wouldnt start collecting "guitars"again.
Why why why did you tell me to do that! You know how easily led and handled I am, how weak I am! It was like a crimson Christmas fountain for chrissakes!
Sure looks like a ho-made job to me. The neck appears Fender shaped, but is that a mahogany headstock? Mahogany body? Not very Fender-like, there. Could be a one-of-a-kind find.
Yeah, I forgot - you're the Wood Boy, Ed! I think you're probably right. It's a fairly heavy, dense wood and very, very resonant. Sounds great unplugged, even.
Got The Boy down to the basement to jam a while yesterday. (He's been taking drum lessons for a couple years now and getting pretty good - "Daddy needs a drummer!")
I haven't played in a long while, but we had fun. I tested his ear, too. The new Guitar Hero has a Sonic Youth tune and this summer he's been asking me if I have anything by them. "Hmmm, Son, only those twenty or so albums sitting right there..." So I threw in some crude Sonicisms while we played.
I didn't fool him. Afterwards he said "That part you played sounded just like Sonic Youth, Dad."
I'm so freakin' proud of him! That and for the first time he really looked like a drummer while he played, ie, like a brainless rhythm machine, just bobbing along and banging it out. Sometimes you can see the dead space behind their eyes... ;)
Have the boy watch Al Jackson on drums in the Stax dvd.That is some seriously cool shit he's doing.
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