Two vintage 335s (one in Pelham Blue)

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

There's a new podcast called Just Guitars, hosted by Rod Whittenberg (an Emmy winning documentary producer, filmmaker, musician, composer, and all around great guy) and Tim Huenke (luthier, guitar restoration specialist, owner of Superior Guitars, and all around great guy #2). Each episode focuses on an iconic guitar, talking about its history, development, role in music, famous players, etc. After introducing the model in question, they play classic audio and video clips of it in use by those who made it famous. Then they discuss it with a guest artist or other influential guitar figure. There's a live audience as well as a live stream audience. It recently made its debut on YouTube and Facebook and will be on all the usual podcast platforms soon.

I was thrilled to be asked to be their guest on the first episode. Tim brought an original '64 Pelham Blue 345 with Bigsby (now owned by the original owner's son - Tim maintains it) and a '69 335 that Tim recently restored and uses as his shop guitar. He also brought the ratty tweed Deluxe that I posted about a few weeks ago. So I got to play with the real deal - a '69 335 and a tweed Deluxe like Carlton's original rig. I learned a lot, had a blast, and really appreciated being able to play these icons. It was especially cool for me because my first "good" guitar was a well used early (58 or 59 - we didn't pay much attention to model years back then) 345 TD-SV that I got when I started high school.

The owner of the blue 345 was in the audience and remembers when his father bought it. His dad (a player) walked by a local music store, saw it hanging in the window with a "Sale" sign on it, and fell in love with it at first sight. It was the jewel in his collection, and his son has honored it with love, respect, and great care since his dad passed away.





It's rather long for a podcast - it's a fun 2+ hours, but it may be best enjoyed a piece at a time. The first one was a little loose, but there were very few issues and I think it's going to be a fun show. Rod's production company (MelodyVision) did a wonderful job from staging and design to capture to editing to final product. The stage lights at that club were so bright that I really did need the shades. You can see that the spots were all on me, with Rod and Tim wisely sitting well below the beams. Unfortunately, they wanted me on that stool - and the show must go on. Here it is for those who want to watch:

[Woodstove]

What a hoot!!Congrats on a wonderful experience, never. Look forward to checking it out. That’ll be when I stop playing a 1960 330 T refurbished and re-visioned to a 3 lollar P90 beast with bigsby. Ill post a ngd when….I put it down.

[Gitterbug]

Too long for a full late-night listening, so I went through several samples which may or may not be fully representative. Lotsa talk vs. playing. A real deep-dive into an iconic guitar's history. And, as we know, Never knows... Quite a lot of variation in volume, with the host louder than the other two, and Chuck Berry almost ear-piercing.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Too long for a full late-night listening, so I went through several samples which may or may not be fully representative. Lotsa talk vs. playing. A real deep-dive into an iconic guitar's history. And, as we know, Never knows... Quite a lot of variation in volume, with the host louder than the other two, and Chuck Berry almost ear-piercing.

Yep. The focus was on talk, not playing. I was asked to demonstrate the few things you saw there, but guitar talk was the main event.

This is recorded live in a local club once a month, and the audio feeds are from the house board. There was running conflict the entire night between the club's sound guy and the crew from MelodyVision. The MV crew really seemed to know what they were doing, which is not surprising since they're an experienced, award winning organization that's produced a huge library of excellent work. I think the camera work is outstanding, especially given the limited sight lines and difficult lighting. The cameras were on booms in the middle of the audience. There's a huge ceiling mounted lighting array just above the front row of audience seating, and there are huge floor to ceiling QSC speaker towers at both sides of the stage sitting on 18" bass bins. So the aperture for video capture was not ideal.

I believe the entire AV stream was run through the house system because this went out as a paid livestream. So both audio and video came through it as the final common pathway, and I'm 99% sure that this was the source for the recording. At about 1:05, the video goes black for a brief time, and there's a longer period during which the right audio channel is gone. As you observed, Tim's mic was too low in the board mix. We couldn't hear him well even through the house system. My mic was between the other two in volume. We used two amps for the guitars to avoid having to plug and unplug them. The blue 345 was run through the clean channel of a tweed Blues Deluxe with a garden variety dynamic mic hanging from the handle, and the brown 335 ran into the '54 5D3 Deluxe with a Sennheiser e609 hanging in front. I don't think the levels were matched well since you can barely hear the blue one, especially when I played Chet's "Trambone".

As you'd expect, the production crew fault the house system and AV guy and vice versa. But I'm sure Rod and Tim will have sorted this all out for the next one. They're doing the Telecaster tonight with Tommy Conwell as the guest. Tommy's a Philly legend. His band (the Young Rumblers) had some decent hits back in the '80s and '90s, and his current band (The House Rockers) is vry popular around these parts. He's not a jazz guy, but he knows his way around a Tele: