Support
Looper's Delight
|
Support |
|
|
Talking about the Jaco/Hartke connection: Now that you mention it, I remember some Hartke ads during the last couple years of Jaco's life, where he was playing, I think, a Guild bass!!! I find artist endorsements to be pretty funny anyway. Since about 84, I've been on the Carvin mailing list (despite having never bought anything from them) so I get a catalog every so often from them (once or twice a year, I suppose). The ones back in the day pictured a number of guitarists going on about their guitars. One in particular that stands out in my mind is a guy named Snowy White. Snowy played with Thin Lizzy for a couple years during the early 80's, and also toured with Pink Floyd in 77 and 80, as well as playing on the most recent Roger Waters tour (he also took part in the Berlin performance of The Wall). Apart from this posed shot (which looks like someone handed the guitar to him in the studio or in a dressing room, and snapped a photo) in this one Carvin catalog, the only times I've ever seen Snowy playing anything other than a battered old gold top Les Paul were a pair of Thin Lizzy videos! The one for Chinatown he's playing a Carvin (same model he's holding in the catalog photo) and in the Killer On The Loose video, he's playing a Yamaha (similiar one to what Carlos Santana played during the late 70's, but without all the fancy inlay). All the live footage and photos I've seen of Snowy playing with Pink Floyd or Roger Waters or Thin Lizzy or doing his solo stuff, it's always been that Gold Top (except when playing acoustic, of course). I'm not positive, but when I saw Roger Waters in 99, I think Snowy might have been playing a PRS on at least one song (I was a bit far back, so it was hard to see just what he was using), though he's still playing that old Gold Top in the DVD that Waters put out, and that was filmed a little less than a year after the show I saw, so I'm guessing he at least used the Les Paul for most of the show I saw (it is worth noting that on the DVD, it looks like he's got a PRS onstage with him, perhaps as a back up). And then you have guys like Neal Schon. Back in the early 80's, Aria Pro offered a Neal Schon model, which, as far as I can see, was basically one of the regular guitars (the name of which I'm not sure), but with a Floyd Rose tremolo and perhaps some other minor changes. Then, a few years later, I start seeing Gibson ads with him in them (which made more sense, because he always used Les Pauls more than anything else, going back to his days with Santana). Then, of course, around the time Journey did Raised On Radio, suddenly, Neal has his own guitar company, which folded after a couple years. And now, it seems he switches around between a lot of stuff. The last time he was interviewed in Guitar Player, it was mentioned that he had recorded his newest solo album with a custom guitar (the name of which I forgot), but uses a PRS onstage with Journey, and I think he mentioned he still plays Strats and Les Pauls sometimes. And don't get me started on that Dimebag Darrell guy from Pantera (who played Dean ML's all throughout the early part of Pantera's career, he was always interviewed saying how great they were, then suddenly, out of nowhere, just as Dean started to come back on the scene, he not only starts playing a Washburn guitar, but the new guitar was nearly identicaly the old Dean guitars) Interestingly enough, the two guitarists that I can think of who have shown the most loyalty, as it were, didn't really do those kind of ads. Brian May, of course, always had his home made guitar, the Red Special that he's throughout his entire professional career, and the only time I remember seeing him doing ANY kind of endorsement ads, apart from some ads for Superwound guitar strings, was when Guild first started building the reproductions of the Red Special (the ones with the Kahler tremolos on them) in the mid 80's. Now, Burns is offering a copy of The Red Special, and Brian is featured prominently on their website. And Jerry Garcia, from about 73 up until 93, used almost nothing but a trio of guitars built by a luthier named Doug Irwin. Jerry DID play a Travis Bean sometimes for a period of time during the mid 70's, mainly 76-77, but he eventually went back to playing his first Irwin (which he eventually set aside for a second one, which he played for about a decade, and was retired upon recieving the third Irwin guitar in 89). It was until a guy named Stephen Cripes (who unfortunately passed away not too long after Jerry) built a guitar and sent it to the Grateful Dead's business office as a gift in 93 that Jerry stopped using the Irwin guitars. The only time I saw Jerry in a guitar ad of any kind was in the early 90's, when he and Bob Weir both started using custom made Alvarez acoustics. ===== May you never thirst! The Scuba Diver Presently Known As Chris "What do you get when you give a yo-yo to a flock of flamingos?"-James Earl Jones __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs http://www.hotjobs.com