2011 - Hannover move, Dave Stewart, Eagles

Januar 2011 - Paloma Diaz del Aguila

After this troubled year of 2010, it was my good fortune to meet Paloma at the beginning of the year, on the sidewalk in front of a seafood restaurant in Calle Alcala, both of us outside smoking. That's how you get into conversation. And Paloma spoke enough English so that I didn't have to try my still sparse Spanish.  We are still together today. 

I of course immediately bragged about my guitar background and my writing, which immediately fell on receptive ears, as she was a Madrid native who  had run a bookshop for fourteen years, specializing in photography and film.  Not any longer these days, with the bookstore prospects diminished everywhere, especially because of Amazon. A bad situation and at that moment she was practically at her wit’s end, with both parents recently deceased.  She was working in an Orange Telephone Company call center but this woman had not lost her good courage and maintained enough strength to make it through life. Well, there was spontaneous harmony and when I offered her another drink in this Galician restaurant "Terra Celta" and then afterwards to have a look at my respectable guitar collection, it was already a done deal for us.

NAMM

Shortly afterwards I had to go back to the NAMM show. We were now totally in electric guitar zone.  We had the new "Dragster" guitar, which we equipped with the Multi-Bender for Peter Stroud. We got in contact with Dave Stewart, for whom we tailored a signature guitar with Martin Huch artwork and special fretboard inlays.  Then it was the turn of the Eagles with a big "Fullerton" guitar and a bass, on which 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 with a body shape similar to the Peter Stroud guitar.  Keith Urban also ordered a Dragster with special features.

Mike - Crystal Cove

Mike Ritto is Nathan's best friend. Mike is the same age as me and is a graphic designer and he has a good eye and ears for beautiful things. Not only did he show us the Joshua Tree National Park, but he also had a nice place southwest of Newport Beach in Petto. The Californian beaches remind me of the Andalusian coast between Cádiz and Tarifa, the part that is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. Wide beaches, dunes, rocks in between. And then there is Crystal Cove. Small wooden huts directly on the beach and a wooden beach bar, as I usually know it from Spanish beaches. Anyway, a real idyllic spot, which hopefully will not soon fall victim to development.
There are cool German classic cars there. And here are my Birkenstock sandals, which I (a small invention) outfitted with decorative gaiters. The Birkenstocks are the best and most comfortable for the foot, but visually I always found them a bit dingy. With my gaiters, you can enjoy that comfortable feeling even in winter, if you put on a pair of black socks. Even in the rain you won't get wet feet!

Legends

Man, one last meeting with Bill Lawrence. And in 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 Ted Nest Band. But you also see a lot of weird characters at the show.

Oh God, that's where the legends go. This was Bill Lawrence's last year, and the Fender factory building in Fullerton had to make way for a big parking garage. Only a shabby and lame  sign remained!

Martin Huch                   Abe Laboriel jr.                                                 Brad Whitford

Martin Huch, Abe Laboriel Jr. Brad Whitford Outside at one of the back entrances of the NAMM, all the huge cases are stacked, moved, emptied and refilled by the workers of the Truman union. The Americans are well organized!

Oysters at Kings Fish and Burgers with Coca Cola at the beach ...

Move to the industrial area of Hannover

Yes what? Had we become industrial? Certainly not in this sense! But the old place in Hannover's southern district was bursting at the seams. So Ingo looked for a new location and found it. My oh my, that was something completely different. 2000 square meters, a two story building where you could accommodate a lot of offices on the upper floor.

Directly below, from a long corridor, many, many rooms for our guitar assemblers, and everything else.  A low building with all the necessary space for production, storage, shipping, etc. In any case, a gigantic area at a rental price not much higher than the one for our former site.

Moving is always a drag, but you have to go through with it. 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. Shelves for the Göldo-Parts-storage and high shelves for guitars, cases and all the stuff you accumulate.
A real adventure. We did it all, a hard painstaking job. First of all, pulling and replacing various partition walls out of plaster. Then in Krausenstraße we dismantled everything, packed, labeled, contracted a moving company, repositioned everything at the destination, unpacked everything etc.When I come to Hanover today, I somehow no longer have the feeling that this is all mine. It's like coming into a foreign environment. I'm no petty huckster, but I could hardly grasp these dimensions. That's when I first thought about giving Ingo a part of the company shares. Of course, this was also because Ingo allowed me to live in brilliant Spain and to continue to contribute my technical and design skills and my view of business matters to the benefit of our company. One is always perfectly connected via telephone, internet and emails. And Ingo simply had a brilliant view for new, different and more comprehensive dimensions.

Chief Offices

On the left Ingo's office, on the right my ...
First of all the workshop and the rooms of the guitar makers were outfitted with everything much more functionally than before. The offices were furnished. Fortunately, our new place already had perfectly laid data lines left over from the heating company that had been there before. All computers were connected to the net and everything worked after a few days.

Oh what nice people!

Dave Stewart

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! We were already in touch and the Eagles were very enthusiastic about our idea to produce a special instrument series for them. Stars of such world fame could get the big US companies to do anything and get paid a princely price for it. But these guys are simply top shelf musicians, without arrogance, and they simply loved our design.
So, what to do? For the Eagles, we need the eagle! Our large Fullerton designs were a good way to bring something like that up. That's how we came up with the idea of having 3D raised eagle wings made of transparent plastic. We glued them onto the gold lacquered bodies and varnished them over again. A noble, discreet look, which in no way seemed overloaded.

Also an assembly by Martin Huch. Some small changes to the Resobro ...

Duesign

Various design ideas, which were not realized in the same way.  Off to the 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.

D-Tron Humbuckers

Yet another new member in the Duesenberg pickup family. The Duesenberg 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, West Coast, Rock and everything in between.  Also very cool fretboard inlays for the guitar of Peter Stroud.

Angus Young

In terms of the fretboard we have added another design: We found out that the guys from AC/DC played dominoes before every gig, with especially Angus Young 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-stud domino stone on the 12th fret!

Los Dooros - Formentera

Yes, a nice weekend trip with my band Los 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. And then a triumphal performance at the Plaza San Fernando.

Luckily 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 Formentera Guitars-owner showed us 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

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

A nice cake was served and our showroom was sparkling!