Blueburst Spearfish

PHOTOS: Blueburst Spearfish™ 6-string guitar. Swamp Ash, precision machined aircraft aluminum, stainless steel, carbon fiber. Element™ component set in blue anodize, including the RICK TOONE™ patented tremolo system. Bare Knuckle Nolly Getgood signature PolyMath pickups with 10-way switching.

Blue Sky Spearfish

PHOTOS: Blue Sky Spearfish™ 6-string guitar. Alder, precision machined aircraft aluminum, stainless steel, carbon fiber. Element™ component set in black anodize, including the RICK TOONE™ patented tremolo system. Bare Knuckle Nolly Getgood signature PolyPAF pickups with 10-way switching.

First Impressions

PHOTO: Aidan gets acquainted with his new Birdseye Blonde ’67 guitar. Multi-year student of Chris Buono, it was a great learning experience to listen in on their lesson and jam here in the studio.

Having the chance to sit down with Rick and play this guitar was a tremendous experience. The craftsmanship speaks for itself: it’s wonderful to play, comfortable, beautiful to look at, and most importantly sounds excellent. The tremolo is incredibly smooth, and it’s amazing to pitch shift chords in tune. The tuning stability is also the best I’ve experienced on any tremolo. Being able to drop the low E and stay in tune is wild!

Thank you again for hosting us this past Saturday. Reflecting with Chris during my lesson tonight, it really was a joy to be surrounded by music in its rawest form, and getting to share in that experimentation was as eye opening as it was inspiring.

My biggest takeaway from playing and conversing between the three of us was the importance of respecting the music and composition versus “taking a solo”. Improvisation has form, and establishing lead sections (beginning, middle, end) is as exciting and engaging as supporting with rhythmic and/or ambient variations.

Black Wolf ’67

PHOTO: Black Wolf ’67 guitar. Relic nitro over Alder. Rosewood w/maple. Aircraft aluminum, black fiberglass.

I wanted to explore in a different direction with this build.

Black Wolf ’67 is the mirror of Birdseye Blonde ’67 — taking the same platform but radically flipping the electronics plus some subtle construction details. Lithe dark magic emerges from this forest, all glowing eyes and bright fangs in the gloaming.

Bare Knuckle alnico Nailbombs coil-split with superorganic woodiness into singles with punch and depth. Perfect gleam and ruthless clarity, there is no outrunning in this fairy tale. Slip between the trees…but full-on humbucking brings every soft creature in the valley to standstill.

PHOTOS: Bare Knuckle alnico Nailbomb calibrated set with 6-way switching. Simplified one volume + one tone. RICK TOONE™ patented tremolo system.

Birdseye Blonde ’67

PHOTOS: Polished stainless steel frets. Ultra rare ’67 guitar with my Advantage Neck Profile™ for ultimate comfort.

Playing through Tweedle this last month has been inspiring. The mids are just perfect, radio friendly. As you know, Tweed lows are infamously wild and wooly. But, as it turns out, those lows are tamed when matched with era-correct single coil pickups.

Leo was iterating his amps and guitars in parallel.

When you hear them together, the world comes into focus. Man, what tone.

PHOTO: Birdseye Blonde ’67 sounds as sweet as it looks. Light relic olympic white nitro over alder, combined with highly figured birdseye maple neck just invites touch. Seymour Duncan California ’50’s (rw/rp) set. Details like the anodized black RICK TOONE™ components bring the vibe. And of course, the awesome patented tremolo.