2011 - Hannover move, Dave Stewart, Eagles

Januar 2011 - Paloma Diaz del Aguila


2010 was a stressful, restless year for me. Fortunately, this should change right at the beginning of 2011. And that was called Paloma and it lasts until today. Smoking in front of a seafood restaurant in the Calle Alcala, we got into conversation. And since Paloma spoke sufficient English, I didn't have to speak my still sparse Spanish.

Of course, I immediately mentioned my guitar background and told about my writing. The latter immediately fell on fertile ground, because she (born in Madrilenia) had been running a bookstore for fourteen years, specialized in photography and film. But thanks to Amazon, that was now over. She was practically at the end in several respects: her beloved bookstore went down the drain, now a lousy job in a call center of the Orange Telephone Company, both parents recently passed away. But this woman had not lost her courage and was in good spirits. And she should improve her mood with a drink in a Galician restaurant. Well, and then it happened as it had to happen: crackling sympathy on both sides. But since I didn't have a respectable stamp collection to show for it, my guitar collection had to serve. And so it had already happened around us.

NAMM

Shortly after that back to the NAMM show. Duesenberg was now totally ascended in the electric guitar heaven. There was the new "Dragster" guitar, which we equipped with a multi-bender for Peter Strout. We got in contact with Dave Stewart, who we tailored a signature guitar with artwork by Martin Huch including special fretboard inlays. And then there were the Eagles with a big "Fullerton" guitar and a bass, where we put 3D transparent eagle wings on the bodies. Ingo had backstage access at an AC/DC concert through his roadie contacts and agreed with Angus Young to dedicate a special model to him, similar to the body shape of the guitar for Peter Strout. And Keith Urban also ordered a dragster with special features.

Mike - Crystal Cove

Der Graphiker Mike Ritto mit gutem Auge und Ohr für Schönes (Nathans bester Freund) hat uns nicht nur den Joshua-Tree-National-Park gezeigt, sondern auch noch einen schönen Flecken Erde südwestlich von Newport Beach. Die kalifornischen Strände erinnern an die andalusische Küste zwischen Cádiz und Tarifa, also dem Teil, der vom Atlantik besäumt wird. Breite Strände, Dünen, zwischendurch Felsen. Und da ist Crystal Cove. Kleine Holzhütten direkt am Strand und eine hölzerne Strandbar, wie ich sie sonst eher von spanischen Stränden kenne. Ein echtes Idyll, was leider alsbald einem hässlichen Bauboom zum Opfer fallen wird.


And you can discover chic German classic cars there. Also here are my (not so chic) Birkenstock sandals, which I (a little side invention) provided with decorative gaiters. The Birkenstocks are the best and most comfortable for the foot, but visually I always found them a bit dingy. And with these gaiters you can enjoy that feeling of foot comfort even in winter, when you put on a pair of black socks. Even in the rain you won't get wet feet!

Legends


Manno, one last meeting with Bill Lawrence. And on the booth also Dick Dale, the pioneer of surf music, who unfortunately also passed away a few years later.

Thick & thin

Here we first see Derek-St. Holmes, second guitarist in the band of Ted Nugent. But you also see a lot of weird characters on the Namm.

Oh God, there they go, the legends. This was Bill Lawrence's last year, and the Fender Factory building in Fullerton had to make way for a large parking garage. Only a vile sign remained!

Martin Huch               Abe Laboriel jr.                                                 Brad Whitford

Outside at one of the back entrances to Namm, all the huge cases are stacked, which are moved, emptied and refilled by Truman union workers. The Americans are well organized!



Austern im Kings Fish und Burgers mit Coca Cola am Strand


Move to the industrial area of Hannover

Yes what? Had we become industrial? Certainly not in this sense! But the domicile in Hannover's southern city was bursting at the seams. So Ingo looked for a new location - and found one. Meiomei, that was something completely different: 2000 square meters, a two-story front building, where you could accommodate a lot of offices on the upper floor.

Directly underneath, starting from a long corridor, there are many, many rooms for our guitar builders. The "rest" is a flat building with plenty of space for production, storage, shipping etc. In any case, a gigantic area at a rental price not much higher than the one for our Südstadt site.

Moving is always an horror, but you have to go through it. And the entire infrastructure was simply perfect. Ingo had found a source for all kinds of storage shelves in all sizes, a bunch of stuff that we could buy cheaply. Racks for the Göldo-Parts storage and high shelves for guitars, cases and all the stuff you carry around instead of disposing of it better.
A real adventure. But we went through it all, a hard painstaking job. First of all, pulling various partition walls out of plaster concrete. Then in Krausenstraße we dismantled everything, packed, labeled, hired a moving company, repositioned everything at its destination, unpacked everything etc.

The company had now assumed a comparatively huge dimension, I could hardly believe it. That was the first time I thought about giving Ingo a part of the company shares. This of course also because it was only through him that I was able to live in the brilliant Spain and to continue to contribute my technical-design part and my view of business matters for the benefit of our company. One is always perfectly connected via telephone and email. And Ingo simply had an ingenious view for new, different, more comprehensive dimensions.

Chef-offices

On the left Ingo's, on the right mine (although mostly orphaned) ...

First of all the workshop and the rooms of the guitar makers were made fit, everything much more functional than before. Then the offices were furnished. Fortunately, our new domicile already had the perfectly laid data lines from the heating company that had gone bankrupt there before. Now only the computers had to be connected to the net and everything worked perfectly after a few days.



Oh what nice people!

Here we see Bodu Suss, our Swiss Duesenberg distributor, a really dedicated motorcycle freak who supplies his small alpine country with lots of Duesenbergs. And the Englishman Chris Distin, who just started with us to service the Plek. Also a great guy, whose mother tongue benefits us in many things.


Dave Stewart

Martin Huch has designed this beautiful graphic for the Dave Stewart signature guitar. Dave, a real show business greatness. With Annie Lenox and the Eurythmics he wrote music history.


Dave Stewart: Missionary Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye9WhV7rzDM

Dave Stewart: Beast called Fame

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z3N9VC7aFs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Dave Stewart Jam Session - Hollywood and Vine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIsC_eFCkoc

The Eagles

Guitars and basses for the "Hotel-California-Boys": An exciting project! The Eagles were very enthusiastic about our idea to produce a special instrument series for them. Stars of such world fame could push all kinds of things at the big US companies and get paid a princely price for it. But these guys are simply musicians from the bottom up, without arrogance or even professional pride. They just loved our design.
So, what to do? The Eagles need an eagle, of course! Our large Fullerton body designs were a good idea to put something like that on. That's how we came up with the idea of having 3-D raised eagle wings made of transparent plastic. We glued them onto metallic-gold lacquered bodies and varnished them over again. A noble, discreet look, which in no way seemed overloaded.


Also a montage by Martin Huch. Still small changes to the Resobro ...


Duesign

Various design ideas, which were not realized in the same way (garage). For example the switch in the transparent pickguard inside the F-hole, all kinds of solid body designs and a cheeky violin bass with only one pickup.



Single Twins - First a bad surprise!

All previous attempts to make single coils "hum-free" proved to be useless at closer soundcheck. All sorts of companies had tried and praised this as the enlightenment. Two coils on top of each other, side by side, whatever. Even if the sound of these pseudo developments was very similar to a single coil, in the end the attack, the dynamics when striking the note was missing - loud and soft. So I had the idea to place two counter-pole vertical coils in one strat-pickup-housing, just like in a Precision-Bass-Pickup. That worked and it sounded great, just like a real single coil. And then the nasty surprise: When I pulled the G-string upwards towards the D-string, the sound went out. Shit! This had to be caused by the counter-pole magnetic field between the strings. The only solution: to position the coils at an angle so that the magnets are further apart. Of course, it doesn't fit into a single-coil housing anymore. But it is feasible for a Fender-like pickup in a mini humbucker housing and for a P-90 (larger dimensions in a humbucker housing). What should we call this? Idea: Single Twins! And so it was born, the P-90 as an authentic humbucker and the mini-single-twin as a "Fender-Sound"-replacement without hum.
That was a considerable technical and financial effort, because magnets in special dimensions had to be ordered, coil bobbins had to be lasered, and a nickel silver cap with new dimensions including a base plate for the mini version and various prototypes had to be produced with my small winding machine. But it worked. For an authentic sound nothing is too complex and nothing is too expensive!

D-Tron Humbuckers

And another new member of the Duesenberg pickup family: The D-Tron is an Alnico humbucker with medium output and a defined, clear and shimmering sound with excellent overtone reproduction. The D-Tron delivers the classic clean and crunch sounds that stand for Country, Rockabilly, Westcoast, Rock and everything in between. And for Peter Strout's guitar, very dusty fretboard inlays as well.


Angus Young

In terms of the fretboard we have added one more: We learned that the guys from AC/DC played dominoes before every gig. Angus Young in particular was said to be very enthusiastic about it. So what do you do to make a personalized guitar for this man? An inlay in the shape of a 12-note domino stone on the 12th fret!

With Malcolm, things soon went downhill. What a loss! But all that was a nice contact and in the end a nice, new guitar model was created.


And there is a nice video - the Stones with Angus and Malcolm as guests, with Malcolm playing Ronnie's Pearl TV!
https://youtu.be/7Noe6d-El6U

Los Dooros - Formentera

Yes, a nice weekend trip with my Dooros to my favorite island. Above the three of us in front of the cave where King Crimson and Pink Floyd sessions are said to have taken place in the 70s.Und dann ein triumphaler Auftritt auf der Plaza San Fernando.

Fortunately, the concert was recorded live by Uli Eisner, so there are some nice YouTube videos of it in best sound quality. (With the last song Ecki - the new owner of Formentera Guitars - showed himself from his best side)

Break On Through https://youtu.be/LoLVSthMpw4

Whiskey Bar / Backdoor Man https://youtu.be/jZEIUHIkt4c

Hello I Love You https://youtu.be/a5U3v5j9d0w

Soul Kitchenhttps://youtu.be/INbzBqjpmxk

Love Her Madly https://youtu.be/itlzkoSKPcw

Love Me Two Times https://youtu.be/SISlv9sz5lc

Who Do You Love https://youtu.be/c4Cht8Y3xvA

After Dark https://youtu.be/J7OgF8DrRhk

When The Music's Over - Gloria https://youtu.be/mNe9U1pvy1A

 

30179 Hannover, Lilienthalstr. 2

Beautiful housewarming party in the new company headquarters. In the middle Uwe Hassbecker, guitarist of the brilliant band Silly. On the far right Olaf Giebe, our patent attorney (and on top of that a brilliant guitarist).

There was also a beautiful tart ... And our showroom was shining.