Tony Cochran Guitars

IonoGlobe electric guitar by Tony Cochran Guitars The most...

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:38:52 -0400

IonoGlobe electric guitar by Tony Cochran Guitars

The most unique feature of this electric guitar is the fully wired metal ball right by the neck. Farber Endison played this guitar in the late 50’s for a band called The Bubble Tops. Their specialty was car oriented Rock-a-billy music before anyone wanted to hear it. When Farber’s Uncle, Gropper T. Endison, was on safari in what is now known as Namibia, he had nearly been hit by a baseball size metal ball that fell from he sky. (This stuff still happens there. Google it.) He gave it to Farber claiming he could no longer bear the noises it made in his head. Farber’s brother, Clayton, a hypothetical electrical genius, wired it to the guitar and told Farber that it would enhance the almost inaudible, and probably imagined, sounds emanating from the orb. It was probably not true. What we do know is that soon after, Farber grew out his hair, quit wearing shoes, and would only play the guitar in a cave found in the mountains behind his parents’ house. He was found dead in 1965, deep in the cave with the guitar in his lap. There was a partially eaten sandwich and the diagram for five never before heard chords. To this day Clayton will not release them to the public.

OSScaster Electric Guitar by Tony Cochran Guitars This is the...

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 18:12:00 -0400

OSScaster Electric Guitar by Tony Cochran Guitars

This is the only electric guitar in existence where both an OSS device and a Tone Baker have been electronically mated successfully. Buckle up, guitarionados, this instrument is a rough old relic but its story is almost unbelievable. Osso Bucca was an immigrant who came to America in the ’60s after being fired by Galanti Guitar in Italy. He brought his knowledge of “radio gain” (that’s how it translates to English) with him to Wyoming. There he met up with Tex Gilders who had been fired by Fender for working on a device of his own, called a “Baker”. It’s not real clear what either of these devices is supposed to do singularly but, supposedly, they do it way better in tandem. The only quote from Gilder and Bucca was a note that said, “It does for tone what an oven does for biscuits”. I agree.

Strobotac Electric Guitar - by Tony Cochran GuitarsThis electric...

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 17:14:59 -0500

Strobotac Electric Guitar - by Tony Cochran Guitars

This electric guitar was the result of sound experiments performed by Clavin P. Bogold in 1961. Unlike conventional guitar music, where notes are echoed in reverb, he attempted to make a device that preverbed or, in other words, reversed reverb. Everything was so analog and noisy back then. He recorded some surfer tunes with the guitar, but they just came out sad and oddly satanic. Now the motor knob is stuck and the elevation button and comfort control switch are not hooked up. It doesn’t preverb. It doesn’t reverb. It just verbs. Sounds amazing anyway. It might be the one-of-a-kind Strobolux Pacemaker Line bridge.
- See more at: http://www.tonycochranguitars.com/strobotac.html

Sandpiper Electric Guitar - by Tony Cochran Guitars Monaco...

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 17:06:00 -0500

Sandpiper Electric Guitar - by Tony Cochran Guitars

Monaco “Stallion” Ceriani worked his magic with this electric guitar at the now shuttered Sandpiper Motel and Lounge in Bolivia, NC. His music was a peculiar mix of P-Funk and Psychedelic Jazz with a weird Reggae flavor that left everyone confused about how to dance to it. It is rumored he built the guitar from the broken shell of a 1965 Firebird, an old Epiphone, and his dead Mom’s jewelry box. The Lounge was closed in 1975 when US 17 caused a decline in attendance. The Stallion decided to sell the guitar and switch to screenwriting. He was contributor to many Different Strokes episodes, as well as being a musical consultant to The Partridge Family. - See more at: http://www.tonycochranguitars.com/sandpiper.html

The “Quick” Electric Guiatar This is the only...

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:01:15 -0500

The “Quick” Electric Guiatar

This is the only electric guitar in existence fitted with a “Quick”. The inventor, Frank Dombus, adapted this device to many musical instruments, including 2 saxophones and a unique electric bongo drum. In theory, the chrome sonic torquer bars between the pickups are receivers for the “Quick” which appears to be what Frank labeled the framework of ominous electric looking paraphernalia wedged into the guitar below the bridge. It would get hot, it would smoke, it would vibrate, and it stunk to hell when running, but it would take notes from average all the way to “what in the world”. If it was a good note, it would sail to the sublime, but if it was a bad note, it became so bad that people actually became angry at the violation. Frank let one sorry guitar player borrow it for a gig one night and so many notes hit so many people so very wrong they never found the fellow again. The guitar resurfaced in the late 80’s with the “Quick” in such disrepair it may never work again. A schematic is included with purchase.

Angel 199 - Tony Cochran Guitars This electric guitar was...

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 18:29:32 -0500

Angel 199 - Tony Cochran Guitars

This electric guitar was supposedly purchased in Rio de Janeiro, under odd circumstances, around April or May of 1965. I love it but can’t wait to get rid of it. The guy who bought it said there had been a horrible train wreck down there and the old woman who found it in the aftermath, crated and intact, couldn’t wait to get rid of it either. He sold it to me because HE couldn’t wait to get rid of it. He didn’t have the crate anymore, but said it had a broken seal from a Lithuanian monastery. There is a medallion of St. Michael below the bridge and the number 199 on a tag above the bridge pickup. It’s not clear why. I have no instructions on how to operate the wild circuitry, but it’s pretty. The guitar plays nice, but you don’t want it sitting out if you are by yourself. Play it when other people are with you or you’ll be the next one who can’t wait to get rid of it.

Arkanacaster Guitar by Tony Cochran Guitars This electric...

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 10:29:20 -0500

Arkanacaster Guitar

by Tony Cochran Guitars

This electric guitar was the property of Country Western star Diamond Ted Raymond of Deadtree, Arkansas. He fitted it with what he called “a harmonic deceptor”, a crude, but effective planking system that humanized bent notes. Diamond Ted specialized in a particularly nasty breed of Honky Tonk called Flinch Wailing. After it was outlawed by the state and condemned in the Catholic Telegraph, Diamond Ted went underground with his performances until his death in 1961. He passed out drunk while eating peanut butter with his hands, and squirrels ate his fingers off. He bled to death. Rumor has it … he wanted his guitar buried with him, but his lousy brother stole it from the funeral home. The deceptor doesn’t seem to work anymore, but it’s still a handsome piece.

Smashmouth Bass...

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 19:25:13 -0400

Smashmouth Bass guitar

This electric bass guitar was played by Philip Endicot, who worked for General Radio back in the late 40’s - early 50’s. He scavenged parts there like a fat man in a bologna factory. His real passion was a 5 piece jazz band he belonged to called “Reform School”. This was one of the first jazz groups to go electric in Concord. He would use the pilfered parts on his bass in a quest to find “smashmouth boom”. Caught stealing red handed at G.R. in ‘58, he was sent to jail where he died in a fight over cigarettes, non-filtered Pall Malls to be exact. His brother inherited the bass and stuck it in his attic until 1998 when I bought it at his garage sale. It has the ultra rare contactor, a cool dark tone reed, and the infamous type 740 capacitance test bridge that G.R. was supposedly developing for a guy named Leo in Fullerton. (Never proven.)

LIKE us at www.facebook.com/TonyCochranGuitars for details & photos link

Rick Springfield owns & features his 3 Tony Cochran Guitars...

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 18:52:00 -0400

Tony Cochran Guitars "Separatorcaster" on Rick Springfield CD

Tony Cochran Guitars "Coppercaster" on Rick Springfield CD

Tony Cochran Guitars "Separatorcaster" on Rick Springfield CD

Rick Springfield owns & features his 3 Tony Cochran Guitars on his new CD
Songs For The End Of The World

Rick Springfield has 4 different covers, 3 with Tony Cochran Guitars and 1 with his raygun, for his new CD released October 9, 2012. Credit to Tony Cochran Guitars is on the home page of Rick’s website http://www.rickspringfield.com/s4eow/s4eow.html and inside each CD. The Separatorcaster and Coppercaster electric guitars are on 3 CD covers and the Alumicaster appears in promos. Rick says he is playing the guitars on stage and any TV he does for promo of the new CD. Tony Cochran Guitars loves working with Rick and has always been a great fan of his music. We know Songs For The End Of The World is a great hit! Grab them fast!!!
More pictures of Rick and details / pics for each of the guitars can be found on www.TonyCochranGuitars.com site at the following links:

Separatorcaster: http://www.tonycochranguitars.com/separatorcaster.html
Coppercaster: http://www.tonycochranguitars.com/coppercaster.html
Alumicaster: http://www.tonycochranguitars.com/alumicaster.html

Video of Rick Springfiled playing Tony Cochran Guitars at:

http://www.tonycochranguitars.com/videos.html

MOD-U-LINE Relic...

Sat, 29 Sep 2012 16:02:22 -0400

MOD-U-LINE Relic guitar

I don’t think this electric guitar is harmful to living creatures. The Russian, Ivan S., constructed it to look similar to American guitars, but only had grainy B & W photos for reference. He inadvertently used parts and metal pirated from electronic equipment from the Chernobyl power plant after the meltdown in 1986. Playing it, he developed odd blisters on his fingers and a nagging cough. It was sold soon after his death by his Mother who was raising cash for a trip to Poland to scatter her Mother’s ashes. The guitar’s history between then and 2004 is unexplained. I bought the guitar in the parking lot at the 2004 NAMM show from some guy selling stuff out of his Windstar. I don’t think it’s still radioactive or anything. I put in a new bridge and pickups when the old ones crumbled.

Details & Pics at www.facebook.com/TonyCochranGuitars

Shondracaster Electric Guitar Here’s an odd electric...

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 17:56:18 -0400

Shondracaster Electric Guitar

Here’s an odd electric guitar. The Spiritualist Heron Trippe built 3 Shondra platters in 1961. He named them after his wife, Shondra. They were designed to channel never before heard music into the physical world. No one was sure if he was scamming or sincere, but he claimed to have met with varying degrees of success. The one fastened to an accordian was destroyed in a bench fire at his workshop. Another is in a museum in Prague, screwed to a microphone. No one knows how it got there. This is the 3rd, attached to an electric guitar fashioned by Trippe in an effort to pick up “freak ghost chords”. Trippe died in 1963 and left no instructions on how to use it. Anyone for freak ghost chords?

Details and pics at

http://www.facebook.com/TonyCochranGuitars

Tony Cochran Guitars created the Kamikazecaster guitar,...

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 15:30:53 -0400

Tony Cochran Guitars created the Kamikazecaster guitar, commissioned by Dracula’s Cabaret in Gold Coast Australia for Dave Kume, aka Kamikaze D, lead guitarist. Dracula’s Cabaret is Australia’s longest running and most successful dinner theater … or circus! The new show, Transfusion, “features fast paced vampire variety that combines acerbic comedy, wicked burlesque, bizarre human circus and off the dial madness.” Check out the video of the wild guitar solo on the Kamikazecaster by Kamikaze D … even in an aerial act!

VIDEO at www.facebook.com/TonyCochranGuitars

Boston Model L guitar This guitar was the centerpiece of Sid...

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 15:10:30 -0400

Boston Model L guitar

This guitar was the centerpiece of Sid Howell’s traveling circus side show, The Dark Maze. People would pay a quarter to get a chance to find the exit, thereby getting their money back. Adding to the confusion of twisted halls, dead end passages, and claustrophobic ceiling heights was an interesting noise. Larry Boston would play an almost ceaseless din of wails, screeches, and moan-like arpeggios on a guitar he modified for these performances. He named the guitar after himself. The neck plate was purloined from an old cigarette machine. Some say an old tape of one of these impromptu concerts inspired Eddie Van Halen’s Eruption back in the ’80s. I doubt it.

This bass guitar was found in the wreckage of a Greyhound bus...

Tue, 29 May 2012 16:16:59 -0400

This bass guitar was found in the wreckage of a Greyhound bus that ran off the road in 1951. There were only 6 people on the bus … the driver, 2 very deaf women from Huntsville, Alabama, a senator from Maine with his mistress, and a 12 year old off to visit his Grandmother in Tulsa. None checked in a guitar as luggage. There was a hand written note inside the case, on a thin sheet of rice paper. It said, “IT’S NOT MINE”… . Weird.

http://youtu.be/9OghBfVvHLk Yes Tony Cochran Guitars are...

Thu, 10 May 2012 12:45:50 -0400

http://youtu.be/9OghBfVvHLk

Yes Tony Cochran Guitars are awesomely playable! Here’s the Pepperjackcaster with the hammer down in France.

Pried from the cold, gray fingers of Jack “Wild Cat” Thompson. He was found dead and naked at the seedy motel just North of Bakersfield, California in 1958. Master of the dirty Honkey Tonk, he spent his life chasing cheap women and drinking cheaper wine. Rumor has it, the device at the bottom was what he called a “Seductorator”. He said it loosened women’s inhibitions: wouldn’t say where he got it.

Jess Endicott bought this guitar, sight unseen, in a crate at...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:18:56 -0400

Jess Endicott bought this guitar, sight unseen, in a crate at Booth’s Pawn Shop on East Fifth Street in Aurora Heights, Texas. Supposedly it had belonged to Zharahz, a prophet for the Apocolyptic cult known as God’s Chimes. They preached that man was bound by time only because they could not hear the sound of God. They attempted to recreate this tone at their weekly get togethers called “unstickings”. According to a note in the crate, Zharahz had fitted his electric guitar with a device that would unstick him in time, but only to the future, not back. They never head from him again.

Guitar’s G string is its most dangerous part:-)Part 4 of 4...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:49:57 -0400

Guitar’s G string is its most dangerous part:-)
Part 4 of 4 - Agnes loses her guitar:-(

I know Jimi Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner at...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:36:17 -0400

I know Jimi Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock. Agnes only knew it was some patriotic guitar song. (Part 3 of 4)

Shades & a bandanna always add attitude to guitar...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:28:30 -0400

Shades & a bandanna always add attitude to guitar playing.
Part 2 of 4 finds Agnes running her scales:-)

This week I decided to combine my 2 creations, Agnes (my...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:14:43 -0400

This week I decided to combine my 2 creations, Agnes (my syndicated comic strip) and reimagined guitars. Part 1 of 4, Agnes finds a guitar in the dumpster. Sometimes I do too:-)