We are having a Music Swap Meet

June 12th – 13th.

9am – 3pm

This will take place at the old Gottschalks, Totem Lake Mall, Kirkland Washington.

120th Avenue Northeast & Totem Lake Way, Kirkland, WA 98034

Right across from Guitar Center.

Map

Video here;

Music Swap Meet Totem Lake Mall June 12 -13, 2010

All musical related items are welcome.

• Guitars
• Amps
• Drums
• Instruments
• Recording Gear
• DJ Systems
• Books
• Memorabilia
• Vinyl
• CDs
• Videos
• Pro Audio, Stage & Lighting
• Speakers
• Strings
• Cables
• Audio & Video connectors
• Music Gear Accessories
• Promotional Products
FREE PARKING
General Public Admission: $1.00
Sellers Space: $25

If it has to do with music, bring it and sell it.

Lots of Free Parking

Contact Mick or Kelly at

info@guitararcheology.com

for details or to reserve a space

Available from 1961 to 1974. The Barney Kessel Featured double pointed cutaways, 2 humbucking pickups, tune-o-matic bridge, trapeze tailpiece, rosewood fingerboard with parallelogram inlays, nickel plated parts in a cherry sunburst finish.

I hadn’t played drums since sitting in with Billy Gibbons in Mexico years ago, but the request seemed simple enough. Play a simple drum track on a song demo for a friend in Los Angeles, Michael Jaye. Mike had a Masters in Journalism from USC and we had met at producer Charlie Greene’s office in Hollywood years before. Till now, Mike had been content to be a creative wonder boy in advertising. After his exposure to Charlie’s world he decided to turn his copywriting skills to songwriting and become a rock star via his new act, Tyrants In Therapy. Always willing to help, I agreed to fly in for the session. The drum kit was entire crap. Wobbly stands, funky foot pedal, crappy snare. Mike’s songwriting partner was about eight and a half months pregnant and would play the piano and sing. Mike introduced me to the bass player, who I noticed had driven up in a new Porsche. I was preoccupied with getting the drums set up and didn’t really catch his name but he was friendly and looked competent. We’re doing one song, how hard can it be? It was hard. Really hard, and I sucked big time. I couldn’t find the groove and the time eluded me. It was the worst musical experience in my entire life. It didn’t help that I hated the song. After way too many takes with me stinking up the joint Mike called it a day and joined us in the studio. The bass player was wrapping up his cord and Mike called us together. “Buck is the Gibson guy” says Mike. “Gibson guy?” says the bass player, whose name apparently is Kenny Gradney of that hugely popular Los Angeles band, Little Feat…Little Feat! I showed my musical ass to the bass player of Little Feat! Right now on the charts with the best live album ever, “Waiting For Columbus”, part of the rhythm section with not just one, but two great drummers, Richie Hayward and Sam Clayton? I had wimped out on tape in front of that guy? This was going to cost me, (or Gibson) big time. I pinned Kenny against the wall and informed him that, in exchange for keeping his mouth shut and not telling the music world, and especially Richie Hayward, about this recording session, he could be featured in a big Gibson advertising campaign and buried in instruments. Kenny knew the guitar gods were now smiling down upon him.

I finally had a unique instrument to work with. Since John Entwistle had almost single-handedly introduced the Alembic bass to the music business, Norlin thought he would be the perfect player to evaluate the Gibson RD 77 active-electronics bass. Could we talk to him? Actually, I couldn’t wait to get him involved. It wasn’t about the free instruments. At that point in his career he had a truck full. It was more about the exposure. Gibson has a huge advertising and promotion budget. They can put your face in music stores across the world. They can put your name on an instrument that will live on way past your record contract. This wasn’t a Who deal, this was a John Entwistle deal, and as far as I was concerned, payback for all the things he’d done for me. Like every other picker on the planet, John grew up with a Gibson catalog under his pillow, and now he would be one of those faces staring out from the pages. John and I flew into Chicago and met an assembled platoon of Gibson managers and Norlin brass from New York. It was a strange meeting of cultures. Norlin’s musician-guitarist-expert on the payroll was Bruce Bolen, a Chicago Jazz guitarist looking for his first record deal. Bruce wore the plaid pants, wide lapels and ugly tie and tried to be one of the corporate guys. It was obvious that all the managers knew about the Who and the legendary tales of destruction. They were visibly surprised that Entwistle was such a soft-spoken gentleman. During John’s tour of the offices, people hung back in awe as if waiting for the pyrotechnic finale. By dinnertime John had the group eating out of the palm of his hand. They hung on every thickly English accented word. At dinner we sat next to each other at the table with half-a-dozen other corporate heavies. Toward the end of the meal, John reached out and picked up an expended wine bottle. “Do you know why they leave this little bit of wine in the bottom of the bottle?” John asked. No one knew. “Because of the sediment” he said, illuminating the bottom of the bottle with the table candle. “Oohs”, and “Aahs”. John put the bottle down and returned to his desert. The waiter walked up to the table, picked up the wine bottle and poured the dregs into John’s glass. “Anyone care for any more wine”? John turned to me, lowered his head and gave me “the look” over the top of his glasses.

I finally found an artist to endorse the Gibson S-1 (Strat copy). Ronnie Wood had paid his dues with Rod Stewart in the Small Faces and now he was joining the Rolling Stones. He wanted his friends to know about his promotion, and what better way than a high profile advertising campaign by Gibson? I was telling the photographer not to print any pictures showing Mr. Wood playing through the Fender amplifier.

In the 70’s the Gibson guitars artist relations office was operated out of Buck Munger’s home basement recording studio in northeast Portland, Oregon. When the first half-inch video cameras hit the market Buck grabbed one and started shooting low key back stage interviews with Gibson artists directed at the plant workers and field reps to boost morale and increase sales. This is an intro to the first Artist Relations field tape. Buck introduces a trashed Les Paul given to him backstage by Pete Townshend. The guitar was destroyed by Pete because he discovered it had a faulty neck. When he became convinced that something was wrong he bashed it against the wall and indeed the center core of the neck was rotted. So he told Alan Rogan the roadie to save it for that guy from Gibson. In this video Buck also touts the Bo Diddley “Mark Series” model acoustic. In truth, at the time, the Mark Series acoustics were the first costly boondoggle by Gibson’s new owners the Norlin Corporation, having spent thousands to develop a whole new bridge concept outside the Gibson design team. Unfortunately, also outside the design team they added a plastic ring around the guitar’s sound hole, which instantly turned off the players and killed sales. Munger picked up the little square guitar in the office of Gibson’s Kalamazoo plant while visiting the factory with John Entwistle of the Who. After walking through the factory collecting instruments Entwistle were invited into Carl’s office. A row of unfinished prototype instruments lined the wall. One instrument stood out. A little square guitar with the new Mark Series bridge. What in the heck is this. “Oh that, says Carl. The New York Norlin guys discovered Ovation guitars (with a plastic back) and they instructed us to build them a prototype so they could evaluate the acoustical properties of plastic.” “I could see Carl was not comfortable telling this story, says Buck, these were his corporate bosses he was talking about and I was the corporate Artist Relations guy.” “Carl said he looked all over for something plastic like the back of a guitar and all he could come up with was this refrigerator vegetable drawer.” So the Gibson craftsmen, who had established the baseline for excellence in the guitar building business were forced to build a guitar on a refrigerator drawer. “I asked for it, and after all the Entwistle freebies I guess Carl was glad to get rid of it.”

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

Buck Munger w/ Pete Townshend\’s Guitar 1975

I got these pics from Brian Brock back in the day, just after he acquired this beautiful 1959 Les Paul.  He told me he traded a Cadillac for it !

Howard Roberts

I met some interesting people passing through the Sunn office. Our policy of free amplifier loaners to professionals drew a wide variety of players including guitar giant, Howard Roberts. HR was already legendary in the Hollywood music business. Born in Phoenix, he started playing professionally at 15 and moved to Los An…geles at 20. A couple of years later Downbeat named him “Jazz Newcomer Star of The Year” and shortly thereafter he left the clubs and moved into Hollywood’s recording studios to help usher in Rock-n-Roll. HR played on Ricky Nelson’s “Bee-Bop Baby”, Eddie Cochran’s “Sittin’ In The Balcony” and Peggy Lee’s “Fever” He played the iconic opening notes to “The Twilight Zone” television theme and did albums with Chet Atkins and Duane Eddy. He had Top 20 hits with Elvis, Pat Boone, Bobby Darin, Dean Martin, Bobby Vee, Larry Williams, Gene McDaniels and a dozen others. He became the first-call guy for rock guitar in movies and TV and was a regular on the recordings of the Beachboys and the Monkees. He also had his own career as a Jazz Guitarist with four albums on Verve and nine on Capitol by the time he showed up in the Sunn office. Howard’s interest extended way past borrowing an amp. HR thought the only thing Sunn didn’t have in the line, was a small studio amp, and he had an innovative design that involved interchangeable equalizer modules. He and one of his students, Ron Benson, had built several dozen for HR’s studio contacts. Howard was also helping a friend up in Los Gatos named Bud Eastman start the first magazine specifically for guitarists called “Guitar Player”. Eastman joked that people asked “what are you going to write about after the first issue?” Howard also had an idea for a trade-school for professional guitarists that grew out of his seminars. He was working on that with another student of his named Pat Hicks. This was an active time in Howard’s career. He was tired of grinding out elevator-music jazz albums for Capitol and dazzled by my stories of the average album front-money deal for this new wave of guitar stars. Howard was ready to make his move. I’ll have to admit I was a little stunned when he asked me, would I consider being his personal manager?

Buck Munger

I got this set back in the 80’s from the original owner.  He bought this set on December 6, 1941 to play in the Navy Band.  Everything changed the next day and the set was put away until he took it out years later..

1941 Gibson ES-150 & EH-185