The Complete Telecaster

GIRL BRAND GUITARS - Artistic Girls!
(Exclusive Interview by Arrowland Project : 2000/09/)

　

Have you already checked out the HOTTEST Girls?
If not, please visit GIRLBRAND GUITARS.
Also, check out the TONEQUEST's September 2000/Vol1 No.11 issue.
Those "Extraordinary" Girls are a creation of Chris Larsen, an artist in
Tucson, AZ. I wouldn't have featured him in this site if he were making 
those so-called "yet another one of them" type of guitars.

Luckily enough, I had an opportunity to interview him recently.

So let's share that great experience!

　

　 You were an artist in other media.
Chris I am a painter in watercolor (called aquarelle in much of the rest
of the world) and spent most of the twenty years after graduating
from the University of Arizona art school painting large watercolors of water
flowing in irrigation ditches through the desert here in southern
Arizona. Since the market for paintings of irrigation ditches is
not very large, I also taught painting classes to make ends meet.
I still teach painting at the Tucson Museum of Art School. To artists
most activities can be experienced as an opportunity for creative 
expression. House building, cooking, drawing and guitar building can be 
chances to use materials in new, interesting and hopefully, exciting ways. 
Since I've always loved guitars and building things I suppose it was 
inevitable that I would sooner or later start building guitars.
　 What is the concept of your guitar building?
Chris I sometimes try to explain the difference between the "Ordinary Extraordinary"
and the "Extraordinary Ordinary". What could be more amazing than encountering
a actual fire-breathing 150 ft. tall monster walking down one's street kicking
cars aside like toys? Yet what is more familiar and comfortable than watching
a Kaiju movie? This is the extraordinary made ordinary. The monster needs to
be regularly recreated to have the ability to excite or terrify us. On the
other
hand, what is more common than an egg? Yet an egg by Faberge' continues to
fascinate because it is an "extraordinary" egg. What is more common (in
popular
music) than the Telecaster? Are there still some exciting things to do with
this
familiar form? Making the top of a Tele out of clear plastic and putting
"replica
sushi" inside is not precisely the same as Cristo covering the paths in a park
with gold lame' material or Hokusi (?) dipping the feet of a rooster in red
paint and running it across a piece of white paper to evoke fall leaves or
Duchamp hanging a urinal in a gallery show, but these things are similar in
so far as they encourage us to look again at forms we take for granted and
perhaps "re-see" them.
　 What is special about your guitars?
Chris Because I decided early on to make this series of guitars with an aluminum rim
(frame) supporting top and back plates, a large number of top materials became
available to me that would ordinarily be very difficult or impossible to use
on a typical solid guitar body. Having such an array of potential tops (steel,
copper, galvanized, flooring, street signs, plastic laminates, etc.) has meant
that I can keep producing one-off guitars and remain interested and excited by
the process. Still, since every guitar is basically experimental, wierd stuff
can happen. When I obtained a machine for printing into plastic I started
modifying the pickup selector switch plate from the familiar Rhythm/Treble
choice to polarities of my own choosing. I can't remember them all, but
Man/Woman, Love/Hate, Heaven/Hell, Birth/Death and True/False pop into my
head as examples. Every guitar gets it's own, even if it is part of a limited
series like the RodeoGirls.
　 Pickups and electronics?
Chris Dave Schecter (who founded Schecter Guitar Research but left that 
company over disagreements on the direction it was going) regularly 
comes up with new designs for cars, electronics, Hi-Fi and guitars. 
He designed the pickup system that I build and use in my guitars. 
Each pickup has it's own dedicated transformer with
taps to vary the output and tone. This yields about 15 separate tones from
just the switches. Most of these are not typical Tele tones for which I am
glad. Players hoping to find a guitar that looks, sounds and plays like a Fender
Tele are graciously requested not to contact me or my dealers as they will 
only be disappointed. I explained that to Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick when he
called to ask me to build one for him and he replied that he uses a different 
guitar for each song and so is grateful for different tones. That's my kind of player.
　 I've heard Elvis Costello and Henry Kaiser own your guitars.
Do you give your guitars, or reduce your prices for famous players?
Chris All musicians playing my guitars paid the full going price at the time.
The guitars cost me so much to make that I often have had to wait for
one to sell before I could finish the next. I did, however, once give a
guitar to Launch magazine for promotional purposes but that's not something
I ever plan to do again.
　 Some people might consider your guitars as collector's items.
Chris Since I come to this field of endeavor from the field of "Fine Arts",
the idea of being collected seems pretty natural to me. Most guitar
players if they stay at it long enough end up collecting a few guitars,
collectors just do it in a larger, more passionate way.
　 Why you chose "GIRL" as the brand name ?
Chris One day when I was building the first prototypes of these guitars, and was
thinking about words and names that might be put on a headstock, the word
"girl" popped into my head. I realized that there probably aren't too many other
four letter words in the language that are as freighted with different images
and overtones. Girls, after all, are the subject (directly or indirectly) of at least 
80% of all Rock and Roll. Teenage angst, cars and substance abuse taking up most
of the rest. Besides, guitar playing (at it's best) is often a sensual activity and the
guitar itself is generally regarded (like ships) as female. Also, I needed a name
and didn't think it would ever matter to anyone anyway.
　 Currently, what are your future plans?
Chris Demand for my guitars seems to be increasing at an uncomfortable rate
and soon I will have to decide whether to try to produce more guitars
or reduce demand by raising prices and acting more unfriendly than I already
do.



It's really cool that each of the Girls is unique, only one like it in the world !
In addition to the great value of Chris's art works, those Girls even have
"pedigree" since Shecter is doing what he really wanted to do on these guitars.

Now, who didn't get a GAS attack ?





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