American Heritage Brands- Timeless Style and Function in Yer Face!

We don't make a lot of things in this country anymore. Big corporations discovered long ago that it was cheaper to move operations to countries like Korea and China, where workers are paid peanuts(sometimes literally, I'd imagine)and working conditions are not supportive of healthy human life. The fact that this takes jobs away from U.S. citizens, exploits workers from other lands, hurts the U.S. economy in the long run, and reduces the quality of their product does not ever seem to have phased these people, when there was more money to be made. More, more, more. More to the point of gluttony, more to the point of over saturation. That is how most modern business men have interpreted the American Dream.

But it wasn't always that way, was it? America, this great rugged land of ours, was once a place of innovation, and quality, and pride. Pull up a chair, crack open a beer and let me tell you about some cool-ass stuff you can still get made here in North America that isn't (always) mass produced cookie cutter crap.

SCHOTT LEATHERS, NYC
Irving Schott was the son of Russian immigrants. In the early 1900's, he started working in pattern making for various clothing manufacturers in NYC. In 1913, he and his brother Jack decided to open their own factory and leather company in a run down basement in the slum that was then Manhattan's lower east side. Schott Bros first product was a sheepskin lined raincoat, which they sold by literally going door to door. They started attaching their fancy new "Perfecto"label to their finest coats. The label itself was inspired by the logo on boxes of Irving's favorite cigars.
Irving and Jack were not bikers or car racers, in fact Irving never even learned to drive. Motorcycles were brand new technology in the early 1900's, but the name Schott would become forever tied to images of bikers, punk rockers, outlaws, rockabillies, and daredevils. Irving had a friend, who was part of the Beck family, who had become one of the nation's largest distributors of Harley Davidson products.At the time, since the motorcycle was a new invention, there was no clothing made for riding specifically. At Beck's behest, Irving and Jack began to make rough, thick leather jackets for cyclists, with a zipper (zippers were also brand new tech at the time) on one side of the jacket, rather than down the middle, to make it easier for riders to unzip the jacket with one hand while steering with the other. Irving was the first person to put a zipper on a commercially available piece of clothing.
In 1928, the garment that we now universally recognize as the motorcycle jacket was officially born. The Schott Perfecto. It cost $5.50 then, and will now run you around $600.
Over the years, the Perfecto has become an icon. Marlon Brando, James Dean, Sid Vicious, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Bruce Springsteen, the Stray Cats, the Ramones...the list of icons who have famously donned a Schott Perfecto is long and star studded. The list of companies who copy the Perfecto is five times as long as that. I've had many of the copies, and now that I own the real thing (I have a Perfecto that was produced between 1968 and 1970, and I found it in a vintage store for a very reasonable price. And you can, too!) I can tell you that there is nothing like a real Schott. Save up for one, it is worth it.
MOST (but not all) Schott leather jackets are still made in America (and the somewhat shockingly high price reflects that), they are still made from hand cut pieces of leather, and the machines used to put them together are run by human beings. They are the same machines from the old Schott factory, dating back to the turn of the (19th-20th) century. Yes, they are beyond the reach of most people financially. As I said though, you can find gorgeously broken in used ones on eBay and in thrift stores. Sometimes these can be had for around $200.My Schott Perfecto is magical. I found it by accident, it's around the same age as I am, it fits perfectly, and I got it for under $250. Get a Schott, I'm telling you. Just get one.

At Right: Here's the author and his beloved late '60s/early '70s Perfecto. I don't ride bikes, but I do fall down a lot.

LEVIS JEANS, SAN FRANCISO- Still an Icon
In the early 1990's, when the Clash's "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" appeared in a UK TV advert for Levi's jeans, a lot of old punks bristled at the inclusion of a tune by one of the iconic anti-establishment punk bands in a commercial selling blue jeans. This was kind of silly, of course, because the Clash were signed to one of the biggest corporations in the world (CBS/Sony) and had always ridden the line between selling out and rebelling, like all "rebel" bands do once they get big. Mick Jones, the Clash's guitarist and one of my fave people ever, simply had this to say about the furor: "Everybody's got a pair of Levi's. They're alright."
Alright, indeed.
Levi Strauss invented the bluejean in the late 1800s. Again, like the Schott company, it was a family affair, run by Levi and his two brothers, all Bavarian immigrants. Along with Jacob Davis, they introduced the Levis bluejean, which would become known (after several design mutations) as the 501, in 1890. As most people know this story, I'm not gonna waste time by repeating more detail. Instead here is a fantastic video about Levi's history and a very pleasant-seeming woman who has the coolest job in the world.



Levi's, of course, does not produce the bulk of it's product in the USA anymore, to keep costs down. You can buy some very expensive Historic Collection garments (the 1954 501 jean, etc) which painstakingly replicate the historic designs of the past that are made in the USA. These cost two to three times what you would pay for a foreign made pair of Levi's. However, my suggestion is that you do as I do: seek out the garments made in Levi's factory in Mexico. It's still North America, from what I can tell workers are treated fairly, and the product is always of far greater quality than the ones produced elsewhere. Just look inside the jeans for an origin tag, which should say "Made In Mexico", or "Product Of Mexico". Like Fender Guitars' Mexican operation, Levi's Mexico produces higher quality product at a very reasonable price.

THOROGOOD BOOTS, MILWAUKEE- Tough, Stylish, Reasonably Priced, and made in the USA.

Thorogood boots have been made in Wisconsin since 1918 by the Weinbrenner company, which was started in the late 1800's by Albert Weinbrenner, the son of a German immigrant who had a shoe repair business in Milwaukee. During WW2, the factory, by then very successful, dedicated 100% of it's production to the military effort. If you see an old pic of US soldiers in the 40s, chances are they are wearing Thorogood boots. Like the Schott Perfecto and the Levi's 501XX, the basic designs of the boots have changed very little over the years. They are still made in America, they are not as expensive as their biggest (and trendiest) competitor (Red Wing), and the quality is very, very high. These are tough, cool looking, working class boots. Wear them to work, wear them to school, wear them to the punk show, just wear them. Thorogood does make more modern designs, but for my money it's the American Heritage Series that does the trick.

Where a pair of Red Wings will cost you $200.-$300, a very similar pair of Thorogoods will cost you around $150, maybe less if you luck out on eBay. The quality is undeniably the same, but Red Wing has become a trendy name in hipster fashion, where Thorogood is still known mostly to people who need work boots, and people who really like work boots, like me and you, buddy! Comparing with the great guitar companies, if Red Wing is Gibson, and Wolverine is Fender, then Thorogood is probably G&L. If that helps you.
Sadly, I do not own a pair of these beauties yet, but they are most definitely on the ol' Xmas list. Here's a pic of some douchebag who has the boots I want.

GIBSON GUITARS, KALAMAZOO- An Icon Gone Horribly Wrong

The story of Gibson is very similar to the story of Schott, Thorogood, and Levi's. Immigrant comes to America. Forms company that boasts a combination of high quality craftsmanship and innovation. Product becomes wildly popular and changes first American culture, then the world. The difference is, today in 2014/2015, I cannot recommend that you buy a Gibson. In fact, with a few exceptions, I would not advise you to buy a Gibson made after 2005.
Orville Gibson began selling instruments out of his small workshop in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1894. Word got around about the quality of the instruments, especially in the musical hotbeds of Detroit and Chicago, which were both fairly close by. Orville died in 1918, but the company grew and grew. In 1944 it was sold to Chicago Musical Instruments. Gibson was responsible for the first hollow body electric guitar, popularized by Jazz guitar great Charlie Christian. The innovations kept coming, with the birth of the Les Paul line of guitars in the early 1950s, then as the 1950s progressed into the 1960s, the ES-335, the Flying V, the Explorer, the Firebird, the SG and more exploded out of Gibson's Kalamazoo factory and into the hands of famous and working class musicians alike, who used these rock solid slabs of mahogany to change pop culture, and the world.

Between 1974 and 1984, production was slowly moved from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Nashville, Tennessee. Some people will tell you that this was the beginning of the end, and I agree. However, everyone seems to draw the line at a different place, and I think that the company still continued to make amazing guitars up until very recently.
Recent years have seen Gibson make some very public, and very stupid mistakes. From suing every small guitar company (and some large ones, too) whose guitars had even a slight resemblance to 60 year old Gibson designs, to being raided by the feds for using illegal and endangered woods, to raising prices to absurd levels, to letting quality drop to an unprecedented low, Gibson has been pissing on it's legend for years now. The most recent development is their policies regarding their 2015 line of products. There is an overall price hike, again (whereas Fender's prices have held steady for several years now), and they've announced that ALL Gibson guitars from 2015 onwards will be fitted with the company's latest unnecessary and ridiculous "innovation", the "Robot Tuner" system. This is a strange, awkward looking box mounted to the back of the headstock that tunes the guitar for you, so you don't have to. This piece of crap, which has inspired very little besides derision since it's introduction a couple of years ago, will now be on every guitar Gibson makes, whether you want it or not. In fact, if you don't want it, you'll have to take it to a tech to get it removed, like a mole on your ass. Gibson's 2014 is full of charmless, ugly, and overpriced guitars, and it's 2015 line, while showing a slight return to more traditional designs, is ruined by the "Robot Tuner" fiasco. If the company's decidedly non-rock'n'roll CEOs and owners would recognize that musicians WANT the elegance of Gibson's traditional designs, and stop trying to re-invent the wheel with absurd gizmos and dubiously "fresh" re-designs, I think they'd win our trust back after a couple of years. They'd also need to lower prices, but hey,one step at a time, man.
A lot of people have pointed to 2005 as a loose point in time where quality went to shit, and some would say it was much earlier than that. I can only tell you that I have two Gibsons that I dearly love, pictured below. On the right is my 2003 Melody Maker Junior, also sometimes referred to as the Melody Maker P-90. It's a Melody Maker body and neck with Les Paul Junior pickup and electronics. It's got a thick, chunky "baseball bat" 1950's style neck that feels great. I added a Bigsby to it a few years back, and it is just a fabulous guitar. It was made in Nashville, Tennessee and oozes mojo. A lot of people hated the "satin" or "faded" finishes that Gibson introduced as a cost-cutting method in the late '90s/early 2000s, but I love the way it looks and feels on this guitar. On the left, I have an "SG Junior 60's" model from 2012. While most recent Gibsons I've played have been shoddy to various degrees, I really lucked out with this one. It's design is a combo of a few different 60's era SG designs. It's got a larger late 60s headstock, but the body, pick guard and controls are more similar to the early 1960's models. The volume and tone controls are placed in a straight row, more like an LP Junior than the usual 60's SG control placement. It's got a glossy finish, very nice visible cherry mahogany grain, and a fairly substantial neck. It's a good guitar. To get a good Gibson these days, I'd scour eBay, used guitar stores and pawn shops. That's what I did.

So there you have it...some great American products. Some that are still great, some that have fallen from very lofty heights. All worth your time, and all great inspiration to get you dreamin' about this country's glory days.

Flat Top Cruiser: The Legacy of the Gibson Les Paul Junior

Tailfins, hair grease, B-Movie Sci-Fi, Kerouac, Elvis, James Dean. I love the 1950s. It's my favorite era of American history, and one that produced an absolute overload of groundbreaking movies, music, literature, fashion, ideology, design and style.

In the world of guitars, the 1950s era still looms largest. The innovations that blasted onto the still new and untested electric guitar field in that decade are still the biggest leaps forward made in the guitar business. The Fender Telecaster, Stratocaster and Precision (the first electric bass guitar) were all invented in the 1950s and are still made, virtually unchanged in design, to this very day, 60 years later. Ditto for Kalamazoo, Michigan's Gibson Guitars,who had been in the guitar business since the 1800s. Gibson is world famous in perpetuity for Gibson Les Paul, SG, ES-175, ES-295, The Byrdland,and my absolute favorite guitar of all time, the glorious Gibson Les Paul Junior line of guitars, which includes all variations of the Melody Maker, Les Paul Special, and Les Paul Junior.



The original single cutaway Junior was developed when Gibson saw the need to compete in the lower end electric guitar market, as Fender's Telecaster as well as several other guitars made by upstart companies were selling huge numbers in the wake of the first appearance of rock and roll music on the mainstream national scene in 1954. Gibson knew that in order to compete in this market they needed an affordable but high quality instrument that would appeal to young rock and rollers and student guitarists. They looked to basically develop their own version of the Fender Esquire (the single pick up version of the Telecaster) but price it even lower.

So the LP Junior was born. A slab of mahogany for the body, another for the neck, a rosewood fretboard, a single P-90 pick up, and a simple, brutal bar of metal for the bridge. It was initially finished in two colors. One, introduced in 1954, was a gorgeous tobacco sunburst, like Leo Fender's first Stratocasters. The other, which appeared the following year, was a limed mahogany, called "TV Yellow" by Gibson's marketing wizards. Some say that this finish was called "TV" because it was meant to "look good on television". The real reason was the Fender Telecaster. The buttery yellow color, which ranged on different guitars from a dark mustard tint to a full on screaming banana yellow, was meant to compete with Leo Fender's early butterscotch Teles.

The Junior was similar in shape to Gibson's popular Les Paul series of guitars, but without the extra frills, carved cap and aesthetic pleasantries that made the LP a more expensive guitar. There was no drop in quality here. This was a well made, solid as a rock and virtually indestructible guitar with a bright, full throat-ed sound that was surprisingly versatile for only having the one pickup, one volume, and one tone in it's electronic circuit.

The guitar was almost immediately Gibsons' biggest selling electric. Students, young kids, and even old pros gravitated to this guitars' combination of low price point and high quality. The guitar sold for $99.00 dollars in 1954, as opposed to the Les Paul Standard which went for just over $200. Funnily enough, if you'd like to buy a vintage, original LP Junior from 1954 in good condition, you should be prepared to shell out upwards of $5,000.



Four years later, Gibson decided to up the ante with it's double cutaway version of the LP Junior, which for a time replaced the classic single cut. These are highly sought after guitars, mostly because of the punk rock guitarists who began buying them in pawnshops and used guitar stores in droves in the late 70s, in emulation of the NY Dolls Johnny Thunders, who famously played one.



In 1955, Gibson also introduced the LP Special, a two pickup version of the Junior which sold for slightly more, and was meant to be an upgrade, or a gateway guitar to a more upscale LP Standard or Custom. This too was a popular and fantastic guitar, available in single cut in 1955 and double cutaway by 1958. Original LP Specials, depending on condition, can fetch as high as $30,000. on the collector's market now.



In 1959, diminishing guitar sales prompted Gibson to introduce an even more affordable, even more stripped down, even more Fender-sounding instrument: The glorious Melody Maker. This guitar had an even thinner mahogany body, a slimmer headstock, and an option of one or two very Stratocaster-like pickups. A double cutaway version was introduced a bit later.




In 1961, the Junior line was revitalized with a new shape, similar to Gibson's newest offering, the SG, (or "Special Guitar", not to be confused with the Les Paul Special, an entirely different beast). This shape actually replaced the original LP Junior shapes, as the SG replaced the Les Paul. By the 1970s, interest in vintage Gibsons prompted the company to begin to re-issue all of the various shapes. At present all of these variations are being produced by the Gibson Company. At the time though, Gibson was very concerned with staying fresh and changing their guitar line completely every few years. New designs were not added to old ones, they were introduced to completely replace them.



Gibson's re-issue series were not, initially, period-correct replicas. They were new versions of the old guitars, with modern conveniences such as Grover tuners and Tune-o-Matic bridges. They were also offered in finishes not on offer for specific models back in the 50s and 60s. These early re-issues are also prized collector's items in the present day and are highly sought after at price points just a bit below the originals. Some purists bemoaned the modern "upgrades", but aesthetically these re-issues were a welcome blast from the past and at least a partial return to what used to be known as "Gibson Quality".

They also saved Gibson from losing sales of new guitars, as it was clear that most players would rather buy the old designs. By creating new versions of the classics sold at a cheaper price than the highly sought after, collectable originals, Gibson was able to capitalize on the reputation of their older guitars (see '75 LP Special advert below). Later, Gibson's Epiphone line started producing even more affordable versions of these guitars with the Epiphone headstock in place of the Gibson "open" book shape. These were produced in China and varied greatly in quality from guitar to guitar.



My own love of LP Juniors started with my early worship of Mr. Johnny Thunders. The tragic NY Dolls/Heartbreakers guitarist rarely played anything but a '58 double cut TV Junior and I wanted one badly. This really started my obsession. The first one I got was a black Epiphone singlecut Junior, with a bolt on neck and P-90. this was around 1998, and I played this guitar on most of my band's (Dimestore Haloes) releases and live shows in this era. It was not a bad little guitar. I wasn't psyched with the Epiphone headstock and bolt on neck, but it sounded great and held up well on stage and in studio. Below is a pic of me holding the guitar onstage with the Dimestore Haloes in 1999.



I bought a double cutaway TV Yellow Epiphone Junior around a year later as a backup guitar, and this guitar looked amazing, but the neck was a piece of crap, the pickup sounded thin and weird and I soon traded it in on what was to be my favorite all time guitar (see pic below). It was a 2001 single cutaway, sunburst LP Junior, a 1955 re-issue. This guitar was just disgusting, it was so great. The finest guitar I have ever owned. I played it onstage and in the studio during the recording of the Haloes' last album, "The Ghosts of Saturday Night", and it was the only guitar on my 2005 solo disc, "Amazing Graceless", despite the fact that I'm holding a Grestch on the cover and an LP Special DC on the inside panel.



In 2004 I bought the aforementioned 2002 TV Yellow DC LP Special. It was a great guitar, but had a much mellower sound than my '55 reissue Junior. Much less biting and throaty and much more fat and warm.

Because I am an idiot, I sold both of these guitars in 2006. Traded them in on a 2005 Gibson SG with classic brown leather case. This was a nice guitar, but a bad decision. It wasn't long before I needed the money and sold that, too. I had a 1954 Reissue Fender Strat in daphne blue at that time, and a couple of Gretsch Electromatics. Which I also sold eventually. I've owned well over 50 guitars in the last ten years. None of them has been as perfect for me as that '55 reissue LP Junior.

I've also owned several LP Junior copies. One by Dillion, which was a great copy of a late 50s cherry double cutaway Junior. I put a Bigsby on that and it was even cooler. See an earlier blog here for pics of that guitar and a rundown on that process. I ended up selling that guitar to Tim from the Hormones, who has the same guitar acquiring/selling disease that I have. He, of course, sold it. It was a great little axe.

I also had a Melody Maker/ Junior combo copy by Agile, who import pretty good quality chinese guitars. It was a good little axe and they actually still used my review of it on their website until recently. I've also had a re-issue 1959 Melody Maker, in worn white. Also a groovy guitar, and also one that I should have held on to. I have also owned an Epiphone Custom Shop TV Yellow '55 Junior re-issue, and an Epiphone Custom Shop LP Special re-issue. Both really, really great slabs o' wood. Of course, I sold them eventually. I also seem to recall a Xaviere Lp Junior singlecut copy in cherry sunburst that I had for about three days before I traded it in. It, unfortunately, was a fresh piece of elephant dung.

Speaking of holding on to things, I'm keeping this one (pic below). It is a rare bird of sorts, a real sleeper, and a guitar that is pretty much perfect for my needs.

In 2003, Gibson re-issued the Melody Maker, but with a difference. They took the Melody Maker's super thin slab body and thinner headstock, and coupled it with a hot p-90 Les Paul Junior pickup, thick, chunky 50s style neck, TV finish and newer LP style tune-o-matic bridge. This became the Les Paul Melody Maker Junior, an amazing hybrid that was sold from 2003-2006. They went for about $500. in 2003, and used ones are still fetching that price now, nine years later. I managed to score mine on eBay for around $475. It sounds and feels amazing.



Many players don't like the "worn" or "satin" finishes that Gibson produces these days, but I actually do. Every guitar that I've had with this finish was louder, brighter and felt better under my hands than sticky, thick nitro finish jobs.

Gibson began using this finish for a couple of reasons. One, it is cheaper to produce than their traditional thick, glossy finish jobs, and can bring the price point of a great guitar down enough so that a regular joe like me can afford it. Number two, it resembles the worn away, time-thinned, broken in finish of a real vintage, 60 year old guitar. Not exactly, but close. Purists will tell you that this is blasphemy, but I'm not a purist. And the way this satin finish allows the wood to breathe and brings out the tone of the instrument is so awesome that I can't argue with it. In fact, Gibby now uses this finish on all of their mid-price Melody makers, LP Juniors, LP Specials, SGs, etc. And while it's said that the satin finish doesn't last as long or wear as well, you'll be able to afford to re-finish it down the line if needed.

Thanks for reading my very personal and subjective account of the legacy of the LP Junior. These are beautiful and sonically superior guitars, and every guitar geek should own at least one. Collect them, drool over them, admire them, buy them, sell them, but most of all, PLAY 'em.