The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Q&A, discussion, and information for the labels covered by The Guitar Gallery (Specifically and exclusively guitars made by Matsumoku up to 1987)
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PostPosted: Sun 20 Jan 2013 06:56 PM 
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Power Chorder
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Anyone here have any info on who made my Avalon guitar? The tremelo is that same as on some Matsumoku Epiphone guitars like the 270 ET.

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PostPosted: Mon 21 Jan 2013 12:12 AM 
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Virtuoso
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Hummm... tough one...

TRC I've seen on Pyramid brand instruments....
Neck plate i' ve seen on early Kent instruments...

Not much help... sorry.

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PostPosted: Mon 21 Jan 2013 04:07 AM 
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Power Chorder
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Thanks Frenchy. Here are some closeup pictures

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PostPosted: Mon 21 Jan 2013 10:39 AM 
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http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=jQqK1CjE ... QqK1CjE9bA

This is the Avalon in action!


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PostPosted: Mon 21 Jan 2013 01:18 PM 
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Power Chorder
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willbo wrote:
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=jQqK1CjE9bA&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DjQqK1CjE9bA

This is the Avalon in action!


Thanks Wilbo! I used to have that album(the reissue) but I sold my record collection in 1984.I have heard the whole album since then. I always loved the cover of that album and thought the guitar looked cool. When I was collecting records that was one of the "Holy Grails"(only about 5 copies have been found). That's why I bought the guitar. It actually took awhile to find one. It needs a good setup before it is playable but everything is there and it all works. Here is a review of this guitar that appeared in the May 2009 issue of Guitar Player Magazine:

"SO MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT THE guitars played by our heroes. Whether we're talking about vintage Les Pauls, Stratocasters, Rickenbackers, or Gretsches, you can literally find entire books devoted to their history. Not much has been written, however, about the mighty 1968 Avalon AV-T2, made famous by the Shaggs.

The Shaggs,a “band,” made up of the Wiggins sisters from New Hampshire, recorded an album back in the summer of ’69. That record, Philosophy of the World would have (should have?) stayed totally under the radar if not for the fact that Frank Zappa once declared in a Playboy interview, “The Shaggs are better than the Beatles.” Hmmm. One thing is for sure: The incredibly strange, atonal, arrhythmic tunes on Philosophy are completely devoid of cliché. If your interest is piqued (and how could it not be?), have fun researching this bizarre group that appears on the favorite albums lists of guitarists as diverse as Kurt Cobain and Ronnie Montrose.

Okay, on to the guitar. At first glance, it’s a cheapie, made-in-Japan, ’60’s solidbody, probably produced by Kawai, Teisco, or maybe Tele-Star. It has two single-coil pickups, a 3-way selector switch (conveniently located in the strum path on the pickguard), two volume and two tone knobs, and a surfacemount whammy. Even though it didn’t catch on—which is probably why there is so little information available about this guitar company— this model was built to be more than an entrylevel student guitar. The headstock has a beautiful mother of pearl inlay logo. The pickguard and back plate are made from high-gloss chrome plated steel, as are the pickup rings, bridge plate, tuners, Strat-style output jack, and the ingenious towel-rack string guide on the headstock. The AV-T2 is finished in a righteous tobaccoburst on a figured flame maple top. The bridge sports six individual rollers and the neck plate has five set screws. Not exactly a kid’s guitar!

Here’s what you don’t see at first glance: This guitar actually plays quite nicely. It has a skinny, multi-laminated “propellerwood” neck with jumbo frets, super-low action, and a tremolo that’s very user-friendly and smooth. Plugged into the clean channel of my old Boogie, the Avalon gives good surf, partly due to the smoothness of the trem system, but also thanks to the tone of the single-coils, which— although not particularly unique—are quite musical, falling somewhere between a Tele and a Jaguar. With distortion, you can get a tone reminiscent of Jimmy Page’s Silvertone work with Led Zeppelin.

With all of the lore surrounding the Shaggs on the 40th anniversary of the release of their first album, this weird guitar isn’t easy to find—and isn’t cheap—but well worth the hunt, although any of us would be hardpressed to duplicate the magic of the legendary Dot Wiggins."

Now that I had a chance to look at the gallery here,I see that this same tremelo is on some of the Aria and Epiphone models made by Matsumoku in the late 60s or early 70s.

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PostPosted: Wed 13 Feb 2013 06:23 PM 
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Virtuoso
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Yes, bridge looks like the one on Aria 1802T, 1803T, 1832T, 1982T models.
http://www.matsumoku.org/models/aria/solid/str/str.html


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