Sustainable Rock?

Well, that may be going a bit far, but if I wind up buying another electric guitar ever (and I probably won't -- my uncle George built mine and it's perfect), it'll be from these guys. It's a custom guitar shop in Berkeley, but there's a twist to it -- most of their parts are used. When factories get shut down or when a company unloads a bunch of seconds or surplus parts, they buy them up and build unique Frankenstein guitars out of them. There are plenty of Strat and Les Paul clones, and there's a whole bunch of other stuff, too.

What really caught my idea was the shop owner's musings on their aesthetic tastes as well as some quirky, quasi-political observations that permeate his web site. He implores customers to buy a shiny new guitar from the big retailers if that's what they want -- and he does it somewhat disdainfully. He goes on to say that if they want something that looks like it's been played, is completely functional, reasonably priced, and one of a kind, to look at his stuff. He goes on to talk about how his shop offers an alternative to buying a guitar made in Asia or Mexico, and how they're built at home. He blends a bit of a blue-collar loyalty to American products with a bit of a hippie, anti-consumerist ethos, which is a curious place for a custom shop owner to come from.

Anyway, check the site out. It's funny, even if you don't play guitar. And if you do, he's got Strats for under 200 that aren't Squiers and -- get this -- Les Pauls in the neighborhood of 400.