I went to a guitar shop about 20 minutes drive from my place, to get my Taylor acoustic and my redwood Tele build set up... the strings were flying high above the fretboard. I came back today to pick them up. The guy said "I don't recognize this brand, it says 'Earthkcaster'."
Here are pics of the guitar I'm talking about:
I said, "Yeah I made the name. My name is Casey, so 'KC' like my name, in 'EarthKCaster'." Then I told him it was redwood burl top, mahogany body, flame koa neck.
He says, "Yes, and the tuners they are German. Schaller, yes?"
"That's right," I replied. "Schaller locking tuners." He then showed me a website where a '58 Les Paul was just sold. I said, "Is that a '61 Les Paul? Oh, a '58. Nice."
Then his eyes lit up.
I meant to just pick up my guitars, then head back to work. Instead, the guy said "Let me show you this..." And he takes me to a window display guitar. It was an ebony Les Paul I noticed in the window as I walked in. He said, "This is now sold, but it is a 1985 vintage Les Paul. With special pickups."I was like "wow, this is nice. Really good condition for its age!"
He said "Yes."
Then, he says "Have you ever seen a 'schaffel guitar'?"
I was like, "Schaffel? What's that?"He then pulls out a shovel guitar, a three string electric slide guitar. I went, "oh, a SHOVEL guitar. yes, I saw one like this on YouTube!"....
I plucked the stings. "It's in tune, too!" He says, "Yes."Then he goes, "This shop has been here for 105 years. But look, there is this guitar. It is the oldest one I have in the store."
He opens a case, and shows me a hand-made Les Paul style guitar. Looks like an iced tea finish. From 1978. It was about one inch thinner than a stock Les Paul. The top of the body had a more pronounced 'arch' then usual, obviously hand-shaved to personal specifications. A pure mahogany body. The pickup selector switch was a three-way selector switch like you'd find on a Fender Jaguar. I said "wow, it is lighter than a real Les Paul. Thinner, too." He says "Yes it is. Now, look at this."
He takes me over to the other side of the store. He shows me an old black box. I said, "Is that a vintage EchoPlex?"He says, "Yes."
I go, "1972?"
"Something like that, yes."
I then said, "You could play Pink Floyd on that! 'Careful with that Axe, Eugene!'"
He says, "This is new. It is new old stock. You can play 'Dark Side of the Moon'!" Then he shows me a Vox overdrive pedal with "four tubes inside". Then, he sends me to his rack of Ibanez TS9 pedals... which I saw the moment I walked in the first time. He has three gold-plated TS9 pedals. Another four or five vintage TS9s.
I mentioned that I have a TS-808 vintage, that I use as a "clean tone" and then stack another pedal after that as a boost for more grit. I think he got the gist of what I was saying.
I think this dude gets customers that doesn't know a lot about guitar stuff. So, once he found out that I made my own guitar, and my own decal, and talked about its construction, he was overjoyed to share the things the shop had in ways the he couldn't do with other regular customers. It was charming.
