Jumbo Hobo Guitaro
The Loft is a wonderland of spectacular sounding and playing musical instruments… a supreme sampling from the last 100 years that, as a group, define top-level, world-class craftsmanship and perfection.
We ALSO have a bunch of imperfect “character players”… those misfit sound-makers that yes, do make sounds, but sounds that need to be graded on their own bell-curved scale. Sounds that instead of being described by terms such as soaring and ethereal are closer to the neighborhood of slovenly and rinky-dink. These fun trinkets and gimcracks make sounds not tethered to key or scale, but rather fall in-between the cracks and often act as the rich wormy dirt that helps make the flowers grow.
One of the best examples of these offbeat treasures is this fantastic folk art thrift store score pictured below. This hobo-made (or almost-made) guitar looks far superior to how it sounds, sadly, but yeah, what a beaut! Someone somewhere at some point had a pretty ok idea of how guitars are supposed to look but not so much on how they should play or sound or feel, or really how they’re constructed at all.
But just look! The hilariously oversized jumbo body is slimming to even the most rotund player. The neck can only be described as "Louisville Slugger-esq". The action is "unique" and "unusable", the fret positions are "puzzling" and "worry-some". But, dang it… I’m so in love with this glorious wall hanger. A very faint hand-drawn “Big Time” logo adorns the headstock and that may be the one and only detail the maker got totally spot-on.
This Week In Wilco, Etc.
1994 / February 4: Uncle Tupelo plays at the New Daisy Theater in Memphis, TN. Joe Henry and The Bottle Rockets open.
2016 / February 5: Wilco performs at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, NY, with The Bill Frisell Trio opening. This show is released on Roadcase 54.
2021 / February 1: Jeff debuts “I Love My Country Stupid and Cruel” on The Tweedy Show #146.
Chit-Chat Check-In #22 + GEAR TALKIN’™️ #5