WHAT'S UP WITH BLUEBERRY GUITARS?

[jingle_jangle]

Actually, the headstock shot is of the Matsuda. Bashkin's work is simpler in affect.

[manta]

Yea,

But the one Blurberry with the Vatican guard is classic!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Blueberry-Acoustic- ... 1c03275f97

Hey, what's $38.50? Ooops, that's $3850.... Yikes.

T

[henry5]

The Matsuda and the Bashkin are gorgeous. The Blueberrys? Er, rather less so.....floor tiles really are the only things that come to mind, and bad floor tiles at that!

[eric_b]

My friend Kevin Ryan makes some pretty dandy acoustics as well..

http://www.ryanguitars.com/home/home1.htm

[jingle_jangle]

Kevin is a master...I should have featured him as well. He is well-known for his innovative approach and creative mind, and his quality is absolutely second to none!

[electrofaro]

They are made in Bali, according to Blueberry:

(...)Bali is home to the most gifted woodcarving artists in the world, whose traditions go back for thousands of years.(...)

Utter propaganda to sell those guitars - it only says something about past times, really. One of my aunt's family's from the area and they all agree the wood carving standard's gone down a lot. There's no need to be really good at what you do as long as that what you make will sell in big enough quantities to have a decent living - it's the same everywhere, real handwork here in Holland's been almost gone for a century now - it's really not just former colonies, they're just following what we've started in our own countries! Which is a shame!

These Blueberry guitars are plain ugly - I wouldn't want to be spotted with one

[robbo63]

The Matsuda and the Bashkin are gorgeous. The Blueberrys? Er, rather less so.....floor tiles really are the only things that come to mind, and bad floor tiles at that!

Not only that, some of them are missing their tiles in spots and showing the troweled mastic!

[wayang]

...it's the same everywhere, real handwork here in Holland's been almost gone for a century now...

I agree, Werner...it is the same everywhere. When young artists discover they'll be paid more for doing less, it's the death of practice, study and all the other things that go into producing excellent work...

Now that there's a new generation of designers who 'learned' strictly on computers, I've encountered the phenomenon of young people who don't know what the pointy end of the pencil's for. I have met some very accomplished young folks here in the US who can really draw and paint, but they're all grafitti artists...

[jps]

I am trying to keep the traditional b&w printing process alive!

[schoolside]

Taylor have taken the production of acoustic guitars to a level of sameness and predictability that rivals a Big Mac, and (at least to me), the metaphor extends to the sound as well. You always know what you're going to get: very good build quality when cost to acquire is considered, a high and very consistent level of finish, and a certain dryness of tone. Taylor is the ultimate mass-producer of flat-top acoustics, and their scientific approach to every component and operation in designing and building a guitar is reflected in nothing else if not the sameness of the experience.

Big Mac! I've moved on.. to the new Angus Third Pounder. I can only eat 1/2 at a sitting. It's a burger made with the consistency of a Taylor only MUCH juicer, you MUST wash your hands before and after eating this one. I have a few Taylors and they are as you say "good for the money". Bob Taylor is a person I admire very much for his perseverance, innovation and accomplishments. He has achieved more than 99.9% of the human population and done it in a morally responsible way. (Except for the shamelessly gaudy guitars he made for Taylor Swift). His legacy as a guitar builder will live on for a long, long time.

I'd like to share an inspirational painting I had done for my "office" that demonstrates my dedication to the golden arches.

[electrofaro]

I agree, Werner...it is the same everywhere. When young artists discover they'll be paid more for doing less, it's the death of practice, study and all the other things that go into producing excellent work...

But... we shouldn't overlook the dedicated hobbyists - there's some good knowledge and capability among them! They keep the knowledge alive.

Are these Blueberrys available on Bali itself? Otherwise I'll ask my sister and brother-in-law who're heading down there to bring one back for halloween

[jingle_jangle]

Bob Taylor is a person I admire very much for his perseverance, innovation and accomplishments. His legacy as a guitar builder will live on for a long, long time.

That would be, "guitar manufacturer", Dwight....and my observation is that there are a lot of fine points of distinction here; however, the major one is between craft and manufacturing, which parallels the distinction between crafted object and commodity. (McDonald's has made a hamburger a commodity...I highly recommend "The Omnivore's Dilemma" for enlightening reading on the state of eating in the USA today.)

A less obvious one was the original point I was trying to make in this thread: that you can't take a mediocre craft item and, by manufacturing a point of difference, re-invent it into a commodity masquerading as collectible high craft.

"Handmade" is no guarantee of any sort of superiority over machine-made. However, there is at least an opportunity to inject passion and "soul" into the process when it's controlled by one person or a very small group of people.

[jingle_jangle]

we shouldn't overlook the dedicated hobbyists - there's some good knowledge and capability among them! They keep the knowledge alive.

This is the meaning of "amateur"--someone who does something for love. Amateurs of great talent and devotion (there's the rub!) are often on the cutting edge of craft...they, by definition have no one to please but themselves.

[schoolside]

Mr. Jangle, Does that mean you don't like my inspirational and ironic water color of McDonald's?
I do understand the difference between handcrafted excellence (we have a "fancy people" acoustic guitar store in my town) and a commodity. It's just that I come from a small farming village and live a very simple life with money to by commodity guitars and little else. That's how I ended up on the RRF.

[jingle_jangle]

Huh? With no irony in my heart whatsoever, I think your water color is charming, Dwight!

One of the most fascinating things about Rickenbackers, and I'm sure one which attracts us whether we are conscious of it or not, is the way Ricks (despite their "popular" pricing) can feel craft-built, and never like commodity products, and besides a good deal of buy-America spirit, I suspect that another reason that John Hall states that RIC will never build instruments offshore, is to avoid that "commodity" label and feel.

My very first guitar, when I got back into music in very late '04, was an Agile Chinese-made jazzbox. Aside from some cheap decisions in material and component selection (for the pickguard and tuners, and of course the invisible ****** pots and switches), the fit and finish was nothing short of astonishing for $240.00. I was happy for about two weeks until I began to understand the sonic shortcomings of the poor electronics. I really wanted a Gretsch, but the one that caught my eye (a Korean-made model) was (gasp!) $550.00. But it had better quality and sound, so I sold the Agile and broke even, and moved up to the Gretsch. A small windfall persuaded me to spend a bit over a grand for my first Rick 12er. A week later, I spent almost two Gs for my second new Rick. By then, I was out of commodity instruments and headed for rarer altitudes.

Oh, sorry, my point? What I thought was expensive at first (two grand for a guitar?) merely served to underscore my unfamiliarity with the whole culture, as I'd been out of it for decades. But my professional background for all that time was in design, manufacturing, and of course costing manufactured goods, both in the USA and in China. And my personal background was in handbuilding unique items to a very high standard. So it didn't take long before all these interests and experiences lined up into a perfect situation of being able to understand exactly what Rickenbackers were all about that made them such unique objects of untility and desire, going far beyond actual worth in dollars and cents.

These days, even a Fender Custom Factory Shop guitar or bass is a commodity item, marketing hype to the contrary.

But Rickenbackers? Unique, not for everybody, but filled with history, and having a lot of heart and lots of mystique, they're for me, that's for sure.