Beautiful maple

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

WOW!

[TerryLL]

A matched set of curly rock maple weaving shuttles.


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[cathouse willy]

Indian ebony


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indian-ebony2.jpg

[cathouse willy]

sapele

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spalted maple

spalted maple.jpg

[Hugh MacD]

Love the color on that Sapele!

[Toxophilite]

The Germans made many beautiful guitars in the 50s and 60s, often with lovely figured woods. The back and sides of my 58 Hoyer Special. All solid all carved, Massive archtop. Arrived in a couple pieces and now it's a fine player. Great flame.

[Gary Davis]

That's very nice. Good deal.

[cathouse willy]

spalted maple


spalted-maple1.jpg

[cathouse willy]

English walnut

english walnut.jpg

[cathouse willy]

maple burl

maple-burl.jpg

[Dinghy Pipedreams]

Wow! I never realized how many musical instrument builders were on this forum!
I built 3 bluegrass banjo necks and inlayed them and had a small shop/biz in the '70s.
I have a custom 6 String Bass made by a luthier in CA that has a Eucalyptus back and a Macassar Ebony top/face (solid body). It was custom made for me because I designed a 30" short scale instrument that would have a good low B string sound but didn't have a shop anymore.

Todd, you look like you might have been an active gigging musician at some point? If so,what style/genre did you favor?

[cathouse willy]

Zebra wood


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[cathouse willy]

Padauk pick guard

padauk.jpg

[cathouse willy]

Maple burl

maple-burl1.jpg

[cathouse willy]

torrified maple burl.


torrified-maple-burl1.jpg

[Todd Bradshaw]

Todd, you look like you might have been an active gigging musician at some point? If so,what style/genre did you favor?

Well, it started as what was being called "contemporary folk music". Basically, more like acoustic pop original music than traditional folk music - coffee house stuff. This fall was the 50th anniversary of the release of our Elektra album, which was sort of a folk opera-like thing, where the songs were all connected. We wandered around playing it in two long halves for a couple of years in college auditoriums. After retiring it, we graduated to regular original songs and eventually included electric guitars and drums and had some personnel changes. We did a reunion concert in 2008, and a live radio show in Chicago and released some CDs from old recordings. This was followed by a new CD with no face-to-face meetings, basically done by emailing tracks back and forth.

Among others, I'm still playing my custom, stereo-wired, fretless, walnut Les Paul bass with the same strings it wore back in the mid 1970s. If it ain't broke.....

TB-bass.jpg

The band's official website (with a lot of sound sample clips) is here and there are quite a few tunes on YouTube.

https://theshipmusic.com/

[Dinghy Pipedreams]

Wow! Thanks, Todd. I'll reply sooner with more detail but we had somewhat similar folk/Americana/nautical musical careers. (My wife and I were a duo/band for 20 years, playing Festivals (and coffee houses, etc.), also with a brief "brush with achieving a little fame". Retired as an act for 20 years now but still do studio work. I'll read and listen through your post/links and get back to you.
Cheers! DP (Jim)

[Dinghy Pipedreams]

Hi Todd, (sorry everyone else, this is a bit long but there are a couple of boat-y links included ;-).

I greatly enjoyed reading and listening through your history with the group.
My wife and I had a duo and sometimes full band side career for 20 years in the Pacific N.W.
We played originals for the most part, a lot of nautical material inspired by Gordon Bok, Stan Rogers, etc. and more singer songwriter material inspired by Mary McCaslin and others.

We opened for Mary and recorded with her, also Cindy Kallet, Tom May, Leon Rosselson, etc. We produced concerts in our home town at a Railroad Depot museum and put up nationally touring folk acts between their Portland Or., Seattle and Vancouver B.C. gigs. Lots of great memories...

My dad was from Gloucester, Mass and worked on the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_L._Thebaud as a kid, untangling nets for movie money. I wrote "Howard Blackburn's Day" for my father who knew Howard as a kid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Blackburn

We also did some Celtic material which got a review in "Sing Out Magazine" ("Lady Keith's Lament) and some airplay in Europe stuffed between Boys of the Lough and others. Also some good reviews in "Dirty Linen Magazine" if you're familiar (now gone), the title referring to "musical gossip".

We played the Seattle Folklife Festival for 5 straight years and several other regional festivals for the same.
Olympia Wa waterfront fest. with tug boat races, etc.

Our largest audience was 1,000 people and two 500 seat theaters. We also came within a hair's breadth of "fame" by being invited to play at the Vancouver B.C. Folk Fest. but after running that fest. for years, the director received another gig in Toronto and that was that. We did get quite a bit of NPR and College Radio airplay and once received a royalty check for...39 cents!
(Yes, we took ourselves out to dinner to celebrate ;-)

We started a small mail order record company in '94 and finished up our performing careers when my wife (the one with the good voice) decided she'd had enough of "pay to play" tours.

After 2001,I went into project recording studio work for a few years as a bassist. I would've liked to have toured six months out of the year but after retiring from school teaching careers that was that.

I have a prized Fodera 6 string bass (Matt Garrison model) with a Macassar Ebony top, a swamp ash body and through neck design. They're built by Vinnie Fodera in Brooklyn N.Y. and are "big" with the N.Y.C. and other Jazz Fusion players.
Another, short scale six (with a workable low B!) has an inlayed (Keltic Knots) fingerboard done by Larry Robinson (who did some of the Grateful Dead's instruments) and had a working relationship with Rick Turner at Alembic. I always wanted some of his work and it came to be. That one has an Ebony top and a gorgeous Eucalyptus back on a Swamp Ash body.

We still have CDs (and cassettes!) in the closet. (don't we all?).
I'd consider trading the Fodera for an Illur or Navigator if I ever find someone who needs a dream instrument more than their dream boat ;-)

Thanks again for your musical history and audio clips. I'll dig deeper over time. Really enjoyed them!
Cheers, DP (Jim)

[Todd Bradshaw]

The 39-cent royalty check sounds familiar. We are still waiting for our first check from Elektra Records from our 1972 album........ At the time, people told us that we were getting a really good rate. We did get an advance of somewhere around 5K each and I bought two Old Town canoes with mine, one of which I still own. I don't think we even have a contract with Wounded Bird Records (part of the Warner Group) for the re-release a few years ago with CD and digital versions. We were just happy to get it re-released. It is very clear that back in the days when there were only a handful of big record companies, the artists weren't generally making squat for their recordings.

I look at all of our old concert posters and the tickets were selling for a couple of bucks. No wonder we were usually broke. We did a lot of studio work, but not for cash. We would back up some of the worst country musicians you have ever heard in exchange for studio time to record our own stuff. The one place where we made really good money was doing commercial jingles - Kelloggs, Heinz Ketchup, AC Spark Plugs, Arby's, etc.

[cathouse willy]

spalted Maple

spalted-maple1.jpg

[cathouse willy]

Claro Walnut


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claro-walnut2.jpg

[cathouse willy]

Maple spindle, it looks like a brick of ice cream.


maple-spidle.jpg

[Hugh MacD]

Maple spindle, it looks like a brick of ice cream.


maple-spidle.jpg

Wow! That's worth polishing up and just putting on a shelf as-is!

[Todd Bradshaw]

I wonder what was going on in that spot on the tree to generate that?

[cathouse willy]

Claro walnut ioce cream.

claro-spindle.jpg

[cathouse willy]

Three pieces of torrified maple burl.


torified-maple-burl.jpg






torrified-maple-burl.jpg






torrified-maple-burl1.jpg

[Paul Pless]

I wonder what was going on in that spot on the tree to generate that?

a burl growth on the side of the tree would be my guess

[cathouse willy]

Pickguard sized maple burl.


maple-burl1.jpg

[cathouse willy]

Eucalyptus

eucalyptus.jpg

[cathouse willy]

some more spalted maple

spalted-maple1.jpg




spalted-maple.jpg

[cathouse willy]

birds eye alder

birdseye-alder.jpg

[cathouse willy]

maple flame

maple-flame.jpg

[cathouse willy]

Quilted Maple



quilted-maple.jpg

[cathouse willy]

Spalted maple burl

spalted maple burl.jpg




spalted-maple-burl1.jpg

[cathouse willy]

cottonwod burl

cottonwood burl.jpg


claro walnut


claro walnut.jpg