15 January 2007

30 Pounds of Maple?!

After watching the Mahavishnu video, I started surfing around for John McLaughlin stuff (see his wacky website). I found this description of one of his famous doubleneck guitars, the "Double Rainbow". Thirty frakkin' pounds. In general, the 1970s were an experimental period for guitar design, and the preference was for density (it was believed that hunks of brass improved sustain) and wacky electronics. Stanley Clarke and Jerry Garcia also had hi- and/or sci-fi instruments in that era, for example.

Weirdly, it's hard to find pictures of the Double Rainbow (or maybe my Google-fu is weak this night), but there is this one:



John McLaughlin and his strangely heavy hyperlute

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