Guitars, page 6

Teisco

Spectrum 5

1966

Five colored buttons, stereo out, and a Japanese badge nobody took seriously. Mark Knopfler ended up with three.

Tobias

Classic

1986

You didn’t take a Tobias Classic off a wall. You ordered one from a Hollywood shop, and you waited.

Tokai

Talbo

1983

The copy company’s own idea: a guitar body poured like an engine block. Its fans wouldn’t let it stay gone.

Tom Anderson

Classic

1991

Tom Anderson grew up on vintage guitars and wanted them a little better. Forty years later, he’s still at it.

Travis Bean

TB1000

1974

A motocross racer watched a repairman fight wooden necks all day. So he made one out of aluminum.

Univox

Hi-Flier

1968

A Japanese copy of a Mosrite, found in pawnshops by a kid who kept breaking them.

Valley Arts

Custom Pro

1987

The top of the line at Valley Arts wasn’t a spec sheet. It was “any way you wanted it.”

Veleno

Veleno

1970

A rocket-parts machinist built an aluminum guitar, hid it in a closet, and waited to be asked twice.

Vigier

Excalibur

1991

Patrice Vigier gave his strangest ideas the most ordinary body he could find, so people would pick them up.

Vox

Phantom

1962

No Fenders in Britain, so Vox built a Strat in a five-sided coat you could spot from the back of the hall.

Vox

Mark III

1963

Vox built Brian Jones a white teardrop, then sold everyone else a different guitar. The reissues chose his.

Wal

Custom Bass

1980

Geddy Lee borrowed his producer’s. Justin Chancellor borrowed a friend’s. Then both ordered their own.

Warwick

Streamer

1984

It started as a German copy of a bass Europe couldn’t get. By the time the lawyers came back, it wasn’t one.

Warwick

Thumb

1985

Named for one funk player’s thumb, fixed by Jack Bruce’s complaint, and the bass Bruce said he’d quit without.

Warwick

Corvette

1992

Warwick’s first bolt-on was never shaped by hand. Then the players got their hands on it.

Washburn

N4

1990

Washburn could copy Nuno Bettencourt’s guitar down to the last ding. It couldn’t copy the years in it.

Watkins

Rapier 33

1960

The Strat was the guitar everybody knew. The Rapier was the one a British kid could take home.

Yamaha

FG180

1966

Built to survive a ship’s hold. Decades later, the photos put one in Elliott Smith’s hands at the Oscars.

Yamaha

SG-2000

1976

Santana told Yamaha to put a chunk of metal under the strings. They listened, and the notes stopped dying.

Yamaha

BB-2000

1978

Andy Rourke’s main bass was a Precision. For the funky stuff, he picked up a Yamaha.

Yamaha

Pacifica

1990

No hit record, no famous owner, no legend. Just the guitar that’s ready when a beginner is.

Yamaha

SA2200

1991

It borrowed someone else’s outline in 1991, and it has been quietly refusing to change ever since.

Yamaha

TRB-5

1994

When the synthesizers came for the low end, bassists added strings. This was the five you could buy.

Yamaha

AES620

2003

Two magazine awards in its first year, gone by 2007 or 2008. Its owners just keep changing the pots.

Zemaitis

Metal Front

1970

A sheet of metal stopped the hum. A shotgun engraver made it the thing you stare at.

Zon

Sonus

1992

Joe Zon spent years fixing other people’s bass necks. Then he built one with nothing on it to adjust.