That One Guitar - Charles Boehmig

Name: Charles Boehmig

City: Atlanta, GA

Instrument: Rickenbacker 330 FG

Like most everyone else on Earth, my first (and greatest) musical love was the Beatles.  Up until I was a freshman in college, I’d always wanted a Rickenbacker – either a guitar like John or George’s or a bass like Paul’s.  I finally got my first Ric when I was in school – a smaller-bodied 650 – but I never really bonded with it.  Many years (and a few Rickenbackers) later I found this 330 and it perfectly fits the adult me, as well as the Beatle-obsessed kid that still lives inside of me. 

Band: Used For Comparison

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That One Guitar - Michael Goldman

Your Name: Michael Goldman

City: Atlanta, GA

Instrument: 1937 National “O” Model

When I first began to play guitar around 12 yrs old, I was most obsessed with slide playing. Back then, slide wasn’t as accessible as it is now - there weren’t pre-fabbed slides that were commercially available, no one really taught slide and no one was building guitars dedicated to that purpose. The ‘30’s Nationals seemed to be the weapon of choice of the great slide masters and from looking at the record sleeves and few pictures that I could find, they took on a mythic quality for me. Problem was, if I could’ve found one, I couldn’t have afforded it and in Jacksonville, FL, in the late seventies no one had even seen one. I walked into a record store in 1982 and this guitar was behind the counter and it was for sale for $350.00 — an actual National in all of it’s brass and nickel plated glory. At the time for a college kid, an astronomical sum but there was no choice in the matter and somehow, I scrapped the money together and have owned this guitar ever since.

There is an indescribable magic to old Nationals. I’ve had a few but this guitar remains the “One.” Looking back on my trajectory as a guitarist, it was the few years after I bought this guitar, that what and how I wanted to play and how to have a voice of my own sort of coalesced. This National was crucial in that process. Everyone who has owned it has scratched their initials on the back, no way to treat a nice vintage instrument for sure, but this, to me, represents a river of American song going upstream through player to player all the way back to 1937. And eventually, it’ll pass from me into the hands of future players.

Nationals are back in production and many companies are building something similar and they are wonderful instruments and players can have severe option anxiety over the number of slides available on the market. Slide guitar seems to be everywhere nowadays. Despite all that, this guitar on the other hand, will always remind me that the process of making music remains a sacred mystery and ghosts are hiding in unlikely places like old metal guitars.

Bands: The Indicators, Stovall, Auction House Letters, Starr*Hustler, The Wheelknockers, The Belvederes, Schwartzkommando, The Skylarks

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That One Guitar - Andrés Galdames

Name: Andrés Galdames

City: Atlanta, GA

Instrument: Mid 70’s Fender Bassman 100 (Silverface)

Bought it off a band mate in 1994 as I didn’t have an amp.  A roommate of his gave it to him in lieu of rent, and he sold it along with a Peavey cab to me for $150.  One of the best monetary investments of my life.  I can’t play bass without this thing. If I use any other head, it’s just not the same experience.  Like I am playing some sort of foreign instrument that resembles a bass. 

I’m also a drummer. I love the opportunity to play another persons kit.  There is something inspiring about the way other people set up there drums, especially when it’s really different than how I set mine up. It makes me explore different ways to play and changes how I play. I get the same type of inspiration from playing different bass’ through my amp.  I have played a Jazz forever, but when I get my hands around a P bass neck, I switch things up.  Explore a little, as long as I have my Bassman 100 to play it though.  I would hate to hear what I sound like if I were forced to play someone else’s bass through someone elses’ amp.  Incidentally, I use this head as my main guitar rig if and when I ever need to.  Sounds great as a guitar amp as well.

Haven’t had much luck putting a date on the thing.  The chassis has a serial number that corresponds with a 1964 Bassman blackface, but from what I heard that just means the chassis was stamped out that particular year. Bassman 100’s were produced from 72-76.  Who knows, maybe the chassis just sat around the factory that long.

Bands: The Mendoza Line, Atticus Flinch, The Young Antiques, The Starling Family, Band. James Band.

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That One Guitar - Paul Melançon

Name: Paul Melançon

City: Atlanta, GA

Instrument: Fender Telecaster ‘85 Re-issue Pink Paisley

I found this in a music store in Gainesville, GA for $250. Someone had apparently special-ordered it, then balked once it arrived, and I suppose there wasn’t a big market for pink guitars in north Georgia.

I like a tacky guitar. When I found this one I already owned its sister version, a blue flower-print Strat, but it never really fit whatever the hell my style of playing is.  I think I became an actual guitar player over the time that I’ve owned this guitar, and the sound it makes is at least partly why. I’ve tried to make myself the sort of person who plays this sort of guitar.

I do not know what that means.

Band: Paul Melançon

Video: The Weekly Cover Thing with Paul Melancon #63

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That One Guitar - Tracy Clark

Name: Tracy Clark

City: Atlanta, GA

Instrument: Vintage companion typewriter

Virginia Plane was having practice a handful of years ago, and we were tackling a song called “Old Fashioned Girl” written by Mary O. Harrison. I really had no idea what the song was about yet. Being the band’s ‘grab-bagger’ (I pick up whatever instrument I think is needed for the song…it’s anarchy), I knew it needed some kind of percussive sound…but I’m not a drummer. Shaker, tambourine, clavs, and all the usuals weren’t making the cut. I saw a basket with a handle, grabbed some drum sticks and used that for awhile. I was getting close. I decided that the song needed a harder ‘chick chick chick’ and said “if only there was, like, a really old typewriter.” With that, Mary O. said she had one — it had the perfect balance of smack and volume for the song. We’ll take it to shows, set it up on a bar stool and put a microphone right where the typebars hit the roller. Sometimes if I’m lucky, the return ‘ding’ sounds at the end of the verse line. The best part is that the song is about Mary O.’s mom, and the typewriter was hers.

Band: Virginia Plane, occasionally Chickens & Pigs, formerly Preakness

Sound Sample: Old Fashioned Girl by Virginia Plane

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That One Guitar - Thom Heckel

Name: Thom Heckel

Hometown: Atlanta, GA

Instrument: 1965 Silvertone 1446L

Maybe 8, 9, 10 years ago I had wanted a Bigsby for my Tele and a buddy of mine wanted a lap guitar. So I traded him my 1966 Rickenbacker lap with the Horseshoe “Ry Cooder” pick up, thinking I was gonna take off the “Whoopee bar” and find another bridge for my new kick around Silvertone. Now you see, I’m pretty stupid, but I did take it to practice first and thank god! I had never felt feedback so warm and tingly shoot through an instrument into my pelvis and out of my toes and eyeballs at the same time, ever before. But surely I couldn’t dive bomb the tremolo and have it come back up in tune. Why yes, look at that, she stays in tune.  The neck and the action was like a slip and slide compared to my others.

Now I broke a ton of strings at first because I didn’t know how to handle such a delicate lady, I’m pretty stupid, you see?

But she has taught me the art of a lighter touch, yet we still can scream. The molding of tonal feedback, in which the sustain lends you the ability to skip the sandwich, go have a 3 course meal and come back to a mellow drone of sounds which may be mistaken for an organ, a saxaphone or even whales, is sempiternal. She has truly changed my approach, my style and my sound. I love my big, black, cheap guitar!

Said buddy asked if I ever wanted to trade back…I am sorry MR, and to you as well Nigel for the whole sandwich thing.

Bands: Bouldercrest Singing Group, The Sweetdick Jane

Sound Clip: Bouldercrest Singing Group - Forgive

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That One Guitar - Jenn Downs

Name: Jenn Downs

City: Atlanta, GA

Instrument: Danelectro Bass

In 2005 I was playing in my very first rock and roll band (the one show with the all girl industrial band doesn’t count) on a surprisingly sturdy, fire engine red Squire 2 bass. It sounded great, but it was decidedly NOT COOL. This became a problem when I wanted to join my next band, The Cogburns, who played Telecasters, custom Fender basses, Firebirds and Flying Vs.

One night before the bassist I ended up replacing moved out to LA, he played this Danelectro Bass on stage and I fell in love immediately. I think I remember begging him to sell it to me, even though it had a cat sticker and I do not like cats. He’d bought it from The Cogburns’ guitarist and epic storyteller who said it came from some pimp or heroin dealer who was a bluesman in the 70s. Who knows where it came from really, but I think it’s actually a 90s issue. It only cost me $200, my cheapest piece of gear and my most loved. Even my Thunderbird takes a backseat to my Dano. 

This bass has traveled with me all over the Southeast and one tour of England, it’s been my comfort in band breakups and my joy on stage, and it survived an on stage guitar tossing collision at (old) Lenny’s - note the two holes on the bottom right side are covered with Hello Kitty Bandaids.

Band: Superpill, The Downs

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That One Guitar - Matt Moldover

Name: Matt Moldover

City: San Francisco, CA

Instruments: The Mojo is a table-top controller I designed and built for playing and manipulating sounds on a computer.  The Robocaster is a hybrid controller-guitar, custom built and co-designed by Visionary Instruments.  It allows very flexible control of guitar tones, right from the face of the instrument. 

I’m inspired by artists who don’t just create fresh sounds and styles, but who also push the limitations of their instruments.  My search for new musical territory has led me to do the same.  Phenomenal things are possible with well established digital instruments.  We just need better ways to connect them to our analog bodies.

Band: Moldover

Sound Clip: Dearest One

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That One Guitar - Jenna Shea Mobley

Name: Jenna Shea Mobley

City: Atlanta, Georgia 

Instrument: I don’t know much about it. Fiddle that we bought new sometime in the mid 90s… been playing it ever since. Even though, I shouldn’t be playing a student fiddle professionally haha I just LOVE it though.

The fiddle is traveled with me all across the country (New York, California, Oregon, Colorado, etc.) and all across the world (France, England, Ireland, New Zealand, Tanzania, Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Ecuador, St. Croix).

I grew up on about 80 acres in an intentional community called Common Ground Community where I was always surrounded by old time music. Many of the members of the community played in a band called “Red Mountain White Trash” that toured around the contra dances across the country.

My daddy bought me the fiddle when I was first starting to play. He found with the help of one of my role models, Roger James, who played violin with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. 

 

I learned to play sitting around these jams around the campfire and going to contra dances. Now, I’m still playing that same fiddle with bands all over the southeast. 

Band name: City Mouse, Sailing to Denver

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That One Guitar - JD Mackinder

Name: JD Mackinder

City: Detroit, Michigan

Instrument: Fender copy P bass, created, designed, built and painted by Justin Brown of Dock Ellis Band, St Louis, MO

It’s important to me in that it was made by friend. This was the first show I’d played in two months, which is the longest I’d gone in over twenty years. I had recently quit my band and got the call from Justin’s wife Deanna to fill in for her band, Bubbahoney for the weekend. It seemed like a good time, so I left from Detroit, to St Louis, to play in Atlanta with my friends.

Band: Was supposed to be Bubbahoney, I think by the end of the weekend they had decided it was Detroit Red and the Filthy Dirties

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That One Guitar - Justin Brown

Name: Justin Brown

City: Saint Louis, Missouri

Instrument: Pine body Telecaster style. Finished and assembled by myself. 

I built this guitar over last part of 2012 and into early 2013. It has an enormous neck which feels great to me. The herringbone binding was a 90% success. It’s lightweight for long shows, and has a nice, mellow twang.

Band: The Dock Ellis Band, Jack Grelle & The Johnson Family

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That One Guitar - Ben Trickey

Name: Ben Trickey

City: Atlanta, GA

Instrument: Guild D-50 BG

This Guild is the first and only “fancy” guitar I ever bought. It has an LR Baggs pickup installed.

For years, I used cheaper guitars to record and play shows. There was the Fender I payed some guy $150 when I lived in western New York, which at the time was a lot of money for me. Then, I broke down and spent $250 on an electric acoustic Ibanez that was too thin and sounded horrible amplified. Then there was the Jasmine by Takamine my ex brother-in-law gave to me, I still have that one. All good guitars for what I needed them for. 

I could never get it in my head that I was good enough at guitar to warrant anything pricey. In fact, I still feel guilty knowing no crazy claw-hammer speed-of-sound play-off doesn’t happen on my Guild. It’s a good guitar, though. It’s dreadnaught style. About a year and a half after I bought it, I woke up with a hangover and it had been slightly smashed. Not all-the-way smashed, but slightly smashed.  

The person I brought the guitar to do repairs had it a long time. Longer than he said it would take, because he said he was giving me a deal. I really didn’t want the deal, I wanted my guitar fixed right, but he insisted on needing more time.  I finally had to go pay the man for the full repairs and grab the guitar before he was finished. See, I had to go on tour and go into the studio and I wanted this guitar, not the Jasmine, not the Ibanez, not the Fender, but this Guild to record and play on.

The guitar has cracks all along the edges, filled somewhat with superglue, the pegs are brand new.  There’s  a crack on the front of the guitar I have to watch, because if it spreads, I could be looking at some bad splintering.  

I love this guitar. It has a good mid-range I don’t hear in cheaper guitars. It now has a bit of character, like that guy you know with a scar on his face, or a slight limp no one ever mentions or inquires about.

Band name: Ben Trickey

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That One Guitar - Kim Ware

Name: Kim Ware

City: Atlanta, GA

Instrument: Ludwig / WFL snare drum

I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced a love at first sight feeling quite like the one I experienced the first time I saw my Ludwig drum set. It was at Music Loft in Wilmington, NC, in the mid-nineties. I was not necessarily looking for a new kit, but couldn’t resist what seemed to be a good price on a gorgeous, sparkle-green, vintage set. I am not a gear head by any stretch of the imagination. But here’s what I do know about this particular drum. It’s older than the rest of the kit, because it has the WFL badge. I was told that meant it’s mid 60s, but I suspect it may be even older, according to this page http://www.vintagedrumguide.com/ludwig_badges.html. I was also told the kit used to belong to Melissa Etheridge (no idea if that’s true). It is not the original finish, but I don’t mind, as it’s gorgeous. It’s also hands down the best-sounding snare I’ve ever played live. I play it with an Evans zero-ring because I like more snare, less ring, and a product called an Active Snare on the bottom, which I’ve used for years, something my old drummer friend Michael Wilson turned me on to (they sound fantastic, highly recommended). The result is crisp but deep, much like a marching snare drum. I don’t play drums much anymore, but I like to think my guitar playing is percussive, no doubt influenced by my years of drumming. This is my favorite drum, ever.

 

Band: the Good Graces

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That One Guitar - Nicolette Emanuelle

Name: Nicolette Emanuelle

City: Atlanta, GA

Instrument: Cello

I started playing Cello when I was 9, and when my parents got me a piano when I was 13 I fell in love. My piano was my love affair, it’s all I wanted to play - I never took lessons on it like I did the cello, but it spoke to me and we would talk for hours and hours. It was my voice for a long time and I always considered my cello to be more like my iron lung. I got work because of the cello, I was invited to play in bands, record, and tour because of my cello. I resented the hell out of my cello and would joking call it my old “ball and chain.” A few years ago my voice changed and I found that my piano and I didn’t talk like we used to. I had gone through a divorce, moved to the other side of the country and has to start all over again with nothing but my clothes and my instruments. I had to rebuild myself and found that in doing so I turned to my cello which has always been there for me. I had to work to learn to love and appreciate my cello, I started really listening and really trying to build a sound unique to me, my voice. And now I am in love, but not a fiery love that will fade or burn out, a long lasting love that took work and discipline, one I know I can count on. My piano and I are still great friends and lovers, but the feeling is very bittersweet. My cello is my husband and I now know with great confidence that we will be together until death.

A lot of people ask me why I play the cello, I think they expect some sentimental reason, or want to hear that ever since I was a baby I loved the instrument. The fact of the matter is when I was little I was an overachiever. I always entered the science fair, always joined the book club, or whatever else the teachers offered me that I though I could impress them with. So when I was 9 they said, “You can sign up for orchestra this year, but if you want to be in band you’ll have to wait until next year.” Well I had to join orchestra then, I wasn’t going to wait a year! Then it was, “You can pick either the violin, viola or cello, if you want to play bass you’ll have to wait until next year.” Well, I had to have the biggest instrument, because that meant it was the most impressive, so I picked the cello. The teacher insisted that my hands were too small for cello and that my parents wouldn’t get me one- so I has to prove her wrong on both counts. We didn’t have much growing up, but my mom was always very supportive when I gravitated toward something so she went down to the music store and rented me a cello. Later we bought one off an ad from the paper (the one I play today), it had belonged to the woman’s daughter who used to play, but didn’t any more. It was in an attic for years so it melted the varnish and gave it a unique texture. Later the end-pin got bent when I threw it at someone, missed them and hit the carpet. It’s been through a lot, but it’s always been there for me.

Band: Nicolette Emanuelle

Website: www.nicoletteemanuelle.com

Sound clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scpXBhNsqdI

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