The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

So if I want to stroll down to my record store (ok, the proverbial online one with vast archives) and listen to someone ripping it up on an Aria or Electra or something, what recordings would I listen to?

Elvin Bishop, Trevor Rabin, etc, right? But did they really play those guitars on recordings, or was that just a promotional relationship? Are Trevor's screaming leads on 90125 coming from a Matsumoku guitar?

When I start thinking that way, those chicken-plunks on "Owner of a Lonely Heart" sound an awful lot like an Electra with the phase reverse pulled...

Nope, 90125 was pre Rabin's Westone endorsement. The electrics on that one are supposedly his oddly painted '62 Strat which he changed the pickups in several times and supposedly was using Dimarzios at the time, a '61 SG/Les Paul, and a Gibson Barney Kessel. There might be some Westone on Big Generator, but its hard to know for sure.

Some of the guitar on the first Police album Outlandos D'amour might be an Aria Pro II PE 1000(?) since one is pictured in the original album inner sleeve artwork and Andy Summers can be seen playing it on "Next To You" on the Police's appearance on British music program The Old Grey Whistle Test. I've also seen footage of Summers using a Washburn Wing series guitar, not sure of the specific model, with the band miming to "Its Alright For You" off some other British tv show, altho' I have no idea if that was actually a guitar he used at all.

Mike Oldfield owns or owned an Aria Pro II SB1000 bass, reportedly an '82. Its possible this bass was heard on his Five Miles Out, Crises, or Discovery albums, altho' there's a guitar shot inside Discovery and the only bass visible looks like its a Roland G88 for use with the Roland GR33B bass guitar synth.

Jack Bruce played an SB1000 for a bit in the early '80s so presumably it turned up on some of the stuff he did then.

Probably the best known SB1000 user was John Taylor of Duran Duran, and it seems to have been his main bass between say the Rio album and '85 or '86. Don't know if he played one on their debut album, as the video for "Planet Earth" off that one shows him playing a Rickenbacker 4001.

Japanese jazz guitarist Kazumi Watanabe was an Aria endorser for a while at the end of the '70s-beginning of the '80s, and I suspect he may have played a role in the design of the original Rev Sound guitars. He played an Aria fretless on a cut on his album Kylyn, and played a custom Aria guitar-bass doubleneck on a couple of cuts on his Dogatana album. I wouldn't be surprised if he played Aria instruments on his Kylyn Live and To Chi Ka albums from that period.

Watanabe toured the world with Japanese technopop group Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1979, and used at least two RS850 model Rev Sounds, one with stock pickups, one with humbuckers. A lot of gigs for this were recorded and videotaped, and have turned up on video and disc. The easiest of these to find would probably be the double live album Fakerholic, which Restless Records in the US released in the early '90s, altho' its now out of print. Interestingly some of this material was originally released in 1980 as the live album Public Pressure. However between the end of the tour and the album release Watanabe apparently had some sort of falling out with Alfa, YMO's Japanese record label, so his guitar parts were edited out and replaced by synth solos recorded in a studio by YMO's Ryuichi Sakamoto.

I remember reading an article that indicated that Tony Carey had an endorsement deal with Vantage, and used some of their instruments on Planet P Project's Pink World album, and one assumes the stuff he released under his own name at the same time.

Just remembered another '80s SB1000 fan, namely Rudy Sarzo of Quiet Riot/Whitesnake fame.

Here's a few more from the Washburn list:

Howard Leese (Heart) - Washburn A-20
Nancy Wilson (Heart) - Wasburn Eagle
Carlos Cavazo (Quiet Riot) - Washburn A-20
Mick Box (Uriah Heep) - Washburn Falcon
Joe Fogerty - Washburn Falcon
Benny Andersson (Abba) - Washburn Eagle
Manny Charlton (Nazareth) - Washburn Falcon

Mick Box has endorsed and played pretty much every guitar in existance. On "Head First" from 1983 he is shown holding a strat on the cover while the back notes says he is playing Aria guitars. I think he's the guy in the middle picture here.

I don't know if Manny Charlton was ever an endorsee but I have a video tape somewhere from around 1985 where he is playing a Washburn Falcon.

Interresting, Nancy Wilson is pictured with BC Rich Strats on all the 80's photos I've seen from her.

Anyway, there's also the funny advertisment with Slash... basically it says something like: "I only play Gibsom Les Pauls and Marshall amps"... so far so good, but on the picture he's shown with a Guild double-neck.

Richard Tandy of ELO played an Electra X-320 on "New World Record," although I couldn't point out which tracks.

On a side note: I listened to so much ELO this weekend that my girlfriend threatened to cry. Now *that's* music!

Matthew

Just thought of another potential one, the Buggles' Age of Plastic, as it sure looks like Trevor Horn is playing an early model SB1000 in the "Video Killed the Radio Star" video. He played bass on "Run Through the Light" on Yes' Drama album, so perhaps thats the same instrument, or another Aria.

John Goodsall of Brand X played a Washburn Falcon circa 1980, but I have no idea if it ended up on any of their recordings, which I'm not familiar with.

Neil Schon of Journey used Arias in the early '80s, and appeared in some of their Japanese literature. Whether he used them in the studio is another question.

Dave Brock of Hawkwind is a Westone player. (Hawkwind are called the 'inventors of Space Rock')

here he is with his custom Westone Paduak:

this was a brown guitar that had a hawkwind-inspired mural painted on it:


According to premier Hawkwind aficionado Steve Youles, "he started using the Paduak in 1982, switched to the Spectrum in 1985-86, and has been using that ever since." His favorite guitar since the 80's appears to be a black H-S-H Spectrum LX also with custom paint. A man after my own heart! His fan site seems slightly puzzled why he would prefer what is now an inexpensive guitar, but apparently he took them up when they were new and even did some endorsements for Westone.

More Hawkwind info at Steve's fan site:
http://www.starfarer.net/gtrstuff.html
Many thanks to Steve for the info and permission to use the photos.

Hawkwind had a sponsorship deal with Westone in 1981/2, Westones are used extensively on the albums Sonic Attack, Church of Hawkwind, and Choose Your Masques. On the 82 tour (Recorded/release as 'collectors series vol 2) Brock had either a Paduak or Thunder I (It was a long time ago), Harvey Bainbridge had a Thunder I bass and Huw Lloyd Langton used a Les Paul, except for the track 'Arrival in Utopia' where he used a Concord I

Yes, the best known SB's user was John Taylor; its first bass was an SB600 in oak/natural finish that he used on many recordings for the first Duran Duran's album in 1981; in some videos of that age You can see John Taylor playing also a red Rickenbacker 4001 (Planet Earth) or a black fender precision bass (My own way) but the SB600 was the main bass he used in those years. After He changed the SB600 with the SB1000; with two SB1000 basses (in paduak red and oak finish) he recorded all the tracks for Rio album in 1982 and after he used another SB1000 in black finish (but he owned three or four SB1000s black) for "Seven and the ragged tiger" album and for the "Sing blue silver" world tour in 1983/4; after he played a SBEliteII in pearl white finish and a SBEliteI in black; He left AriaProII basses in 1987 (after a promotion of the RSB deluxe, a bass never used by him) when He preferred definitively the Kubicki ex factor bass.
In 2003 John Taylor played again a new SB1000 (SB1000JT signature bass) but this bass is not a Matsumoku product.

I can rememebr also Cliff Burton (SB1000 in custom total black finish and SB-R60 Black and Gold I) and Neil Murray.

Cheers