New Orleans, LA
I am a bassist, guitar tech, and founder of Strange Guitarworks. When not working on guitars, I create experimental music under the moniker of UFO Death Cult, utilizing microtonal instruments of my own design. "Intonation is a social construct."
Mar 07 2017
The most requested document from the National Archives isn’t the Bill of Rights, nor even the Constitution – it’s this photo: Elvis meets Nixon. Yeah, it really happened. A bizarre moment in American history, to be sure – and one that inspired a madcap project here in our shop. Some background: one of our regular …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/elvis-meets-nixon/
Jan 28 2017
I have an oft-repeated mantra at the shop: “Intonation is a social construct”. Over the last several hundred years, western music has largely standardized into an equal tempered system, dividing the octave into twelve notes with a ratio equal to the 12th root of 2 (12√2 = 2 1⁄12 ≈ 1.059463)(12 tone equal temperament is also known as …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/benjamins-fender-hello-kitty-microtonal-strat-of-doom/
Aug 10 2016
We are proud to announce that we are now an official dealer for Jim Dunlop strings! We restring a LOT of guitars, and we’ve found Dunlop strings to be among our favorites. They’re built really well, are extremely consistent, are generously long (handy for long scale & hollow body instruments), made in America, and the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/strange-guitarworks-welcomes-dunlop-strings/
Mar 28 2016
Have you ever wondered how to relic a guitar? Well, wonder no more – we can teach you how to relic a guitar in one easy step, with no tools nor experience necessary! Here’s the secret no other guitar tech is willing to tell you: in order to give your guitar that amazing, broken in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/how-to-relic-a-guitar-in-one-easy-step/
Mar 09 2016
We generally consider ourselves rather fearless when it comes to working on guitars. Over the years, we’ve done some pretty crazy things at the request of some of our more experimental clients. Most of these things don’t really scare us, but occasionally a little pinch of fear is important: there’s no easier way to completely ruin a guitar …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/routing-for-a-p-pickup/
Jan 22 2016
Fixing broken headstocks are a regular part of life in a guitar repair shop. Most times people bring their guitars to us, thinking that a broken headstock means the death of their beloved guitar. The thing is, most headstock breaks aren’t nearly as bad as people tend to think, and we can resuscitate their instrument with relative …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/repairing-a-broken-headstock-with-an-overlay/
Jan 08 2016
Oh man, I have been looking forward to this day for over three years. Today is the day that my dear friend Aaron Younce joins me at Strange Guitarworks. (This is the most rockin’ picture of him I have. First impressions are important.) I first met Aaron in San Francisco, and we worked side by …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/introducing-aaron-younce/
Jan 06 2016
Here’s something you don’t see every day: The story is that a former cellist started playing guitar, and it just felt more natural to play the guitar vertically. Someone helpfully installed a cello endpin, but unfortunately didn’t do it correctly, and the pin was very unstable and wobbled all over the place. Now, I don’t …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/cello-guitar-end-pin-fix/
Dec 04 2015
Recently, a client of mine named Bruce went to see ZZ Top in New Orleans. Being huge ZZ Top fan, he snagged a VIP pass, which amongst other things gained him an audience with Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard, and Dusty Hill. How cool is that?! He had heard that ZZ Top has a policy of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/protecting-a-signature-on-a-guitar/
Nov 16 2015
I really like the science, math, and theory behind guitar work. I feel that it’s important to understand what’s happening with a guitar on a fundamental level, and this helps me analyze and fix complex problems. However, there are some jobs that require more art than science, and making a bone saddle is one of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/making-a-bone-saddle/
