I AM NAVARRO. TREMBLE, MORTALS, FOR I BRING YOU ROCK – ALBEIT NOW IN A MORE ACOUSTICY, THINKING MAN’S STYLE – AND LEATHER PANTS, AND… ERM… KITTENS. YES, I BRING KITTEN PILLOWS.

FEAR NAVARRO, MORTALS. FEAR HIM GOOD.

So it seems that Dave Navarro has worked with Epiphone to come up with a signature acoustic guitar.

And here it is. Decked out in scary black with a scary, ‘dead branches with crows’ pickguard and some scary hexagram inlays, this guitar will terrify any kitten you wish (except perhaps an evil kitten).

It’s a square shoulder, cutaway dread with a solid spruce top and solid mahogany back and sides. The neck is also mahogany while the fingerboard is frightening ebony. It’s got a bone nut which is always good (unless the bone comes from sacrificed virgin goats) and the scale-length along the compound-radiused board is 25.5″.

NAVARRO didn’t want to put his name on the guitar for fear that it may be incanted by unwitting guitarists which would invoke him at inconvenient times – during Dexter or something. Instead, he’s called the guitar Jane and the truss rod cover bears this moniker instead of his own, more dangerous one.

A Shadow NanoFlex pickup, teamed with an eSonic preamp makes deadly amplified noises that can be heard in the various dimensions where NAVARRO resides so keep it down after about nine thirty (ten at weekends).

More spine-chilling details at Epiphone. Check them out.

NAVARRO COMMANDS IT.

Continuing their trend of releasing guitars with slightly unusual numbers of strings, Taylor have introduced the Baritone 8-String.

With Taylor’s GS (Grand Symphony) body shape and a long scale length of 27 inches, the addition of two octave strings on the third and forth strings provides a smattering of upper-register sparkle without straying too far into all-out, 12-string jingle-jangle territory.

The Baritone 8-String has Taylor’s Expression system built in for amplification duties.  The body top is sitka spruce and the back and sides are solid, Indian rosewood.  A Venetian cutaway is standard.

Pearl diamond inlays sit in an ebony fretboard.  The neck is mahogany.  Ebony is also used for the bridge and, as you’d expect, the saddle is a proper bone one (and as you can see it’s shaped and compensated for the extra octave strings).

Taylor tell us that the suggested retail price will be US $3998.  More at Taylor.

If you’re a Taylor player based in the UK, it might be worth noting that Taylor Guitars are sending two of their top guitar technicians all the way from California to sunny Leicester in order to service guitars.

Taylor call it Re-Tech.

The event will take place during the Acoustic Avalon show on the 14th and 15th of November between 10AM and 5:30PM.  The show is based at the Leicester Racecourse Conference Centre.

Although this is a FREE service, it is very, very limited.  Only 50 guitars a day can be seen.  Therefore, if you want to attend, you need to register by contacting Martin at Sheehan’s musical instrument store in Leicester. You can email him at martin [at] sheehans.com or call him on 0116 2557492.

The Taylor Swift Taylor.  This stuff writes itself.

Whatever your feelings on Ms. Swift, you can’t deny that she’s frickin’ massive.  Ten million album sales and twenty million paid downloads add up to more than any other artist in country music history).

Taylor and Taylor (see, it just rolls off) have had a relationship for a while.  She’s got quite a collection, including one that’s so blinged out it’s been scientifically proven to be brighter than the sun.  This one however, is inspired by her own, first, Baby Taylor and is, if only a little, more understated.

The Taylor Swift Baby Taylor is a 3/4 scale dreadnought.  It has a solid Sikta top and a laminate sapele back and sides.  As you can see it has an elaborate rosette design (that features the word ‘love’ three times we’re told).  It also has Taylor (Swift’s) signature writ pretty big across the top.  Oh, and the name of her album under that.  It’s easy to be cynical sometimes.

In keeping with the compact, baby, dimensions, it has a slim neck that should make it perfect for the hands of, say, the average Taylor Swift fan.  So easy.

Still, whatever you may think of this guitar, we here at Guitarless say that anything that gets people picking up an actual guitar rather than plugging a plastic SG into a games console is a good thing.

Suggested retail is $398 (or local equivalents) and it comes with a gig bag.

OK, so this is an interesting one to follow on from yesterday’s Yamaha tour.  Today’s tour is to Taylor Guitars.

Just like you did in school, I want you to compare and contrast Taylor’s approach and what you see in their factory to what you saw in yesterday’s video from the Yamaha factory.  I think it’s interesting to see these two tours and the approaches outlined in each.

Now go and write an essay on what you’ve learned.  Or not, I don’t care.  What am I, your mother?

It’s the weekend and most of you have a little time on your hands.  You might, therefore, like to spend twenty minutes touring the Yamaha guitar factory.

I’ve a bundle of these tours bookmarked and I thought I’d share them with you as, if you’re interested in guitars (and why else would you be here), you’ll likely enjoy watching how the things get made.

This is one of my favourites.  Pay attention now…

Well, not really, but this is quite cool in a ‘basic guitar anatomy’ sort of way.

You can step through, at a (very) basic level, the making of a Martin Guitar (or pretty much any acoustic guitar really).  You get a wireframe diagram that is built up with extra bits as you move through each step in the process.  At every stage, there are some photos and some information about what’s happening and why.

It’s interesting for those of you who wonder how many pounds of pressure an average acoustic guitar bridge is under.  Go, have a look – rather weirdly, it’s on the New York Times site.

Here at Guitarless, we like parlour guitars.  We like them a lot.

And this one looks like a beaut.  This is the latest in Taylor’s 35th Anniversary series of special editions and it really does look special.  This is the XXXV Parlor

What Taylor have given us is a Sitka spruce top and a rosewood back and sides.  They tell us that the sides and back are Madagascar rosewood which is denser than Indian rosewood and can therefore be milled thinner.  The Sitka top is specially selected from a slow-growing stock which gives a wider grain and, correspondingly, a warmer tone.  The internal bracing and even the bridge are designed to enhance the movement of the top and, therefore, the tone.

Typically enough, it’s a 12-fret to the body and a traditional slotted headstock tops off the mahogany neck.  The fingerboard is ebony and is unadorned, but for the 35th anniversary inlay at the 12th fret.

The parlour has a scale length typical of the breed, clocking in at 24 7/8 inches.  Width on the lower bout is 14.1 inches and the body is 4.2 inches deep at its deepest point.  It comes pre-loaded with Taylor’s Expression system

The slope-shouldered design really suits this small-body guitar and Taylor have kept the embellishments tasteful:  ivoroid binding and a green abalone soundhole rosette.  A gloss finish serves to protect the instrument from flying beer and the like.

Not that you’d be so careless.  This is a limited run guitar and it’s not cheap.  Prices are expected to be in and around $5998.  Phew!  That’s a lot of cash.

But look at it.  Damn that’s pretty.

Get more info over at Taylor’s site.

~~~

By the way, I know I’ve alternated between the US and British spellings of parlour/parlor throughout.  Taylor say parlor, I say parlour.  There are more interesting things to be annoyed about.