The guitars' looks, feel, tones, and stories compliment a musician, band, or guitar/art collection.
The Guitar Hunter chronicles his journeys here. Check back often.
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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.
Source: TonyCochranGuitars.com
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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.
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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.
Source: facebook.com
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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
Source: facebook.com
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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.
Source: facebook.com
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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.
Source: facebook.com
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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.
Source: facebook.com
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Guitar’s G string is its most dangerous part:-)
Part 4 of 4 - Agnes loses her guitar:-(
Source: facebook.com
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I know Jimi Hendrix played the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock. Agnes only knew it was some patriotic guitar song. (Part 3 of 4)
Source: facebook.com
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Shades & a bandanna always add attitude to guitar playing.
Part 2 of 4 finds Agnes running her scales:-)
Source: facebook.com
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