We remember the days. Fourth-period algebra. 10:37 a.m. Stomach rumbling, still over an hour until lunch. Mrs. Klein at the blackboard slaving over the basics of quadratic equations, chalk somehow on the back of her blazer.
We passed the time hunched over our notebook, mechanical pencil primed with a little too much lead, drawing incredible electric guitars that we planned to play someday on dramatically lit stages in front of hoarse, intoxicated, sweating groupies.
It turns out that there were others like us. But whereas we ceremonially burned our spiral-bound five-subjects when the school year was over, they kept at it. While we were playing violent video games, smashing our shins on skateboards, and being rejected by girls in form-fitting turtlenecks, they were at the library, photocopying their blueprints and then sending them off to the world’s leading guitar manufacturers.
The five axes after the jump are physical proof of what can happen when you follow your dreams. Let us know which one speaks to you the most.
The Wangcaster Like Corvettes, cigars, universal remote controls, and vegan sausage links, most electric guitars are thinly disguised phallic symbols. The Wangcaster may be the only six-string ever made that does not qualify as such, because there simply isn’t an iota of symbolism involved. Note the baroquely rendered pubic hair on the pickguard.
Heart-Shaped Ibanez Tripleneck Somebody sketched this one on the bottom of a note to a Theresa or a Gretchen on Valentine’s Day, captioned “Baby someday I will buy this for you.” Nowadays, we would definitely wield this amazing Ibanez — which STEVE VAI played on tour with DAVID LEE ROTH — if only we could lift it. Until that time comes, it will sit unused in the corner of our pre-adolescent self’s fantasy bedroom while we rep our days away on the local Y’s creaky old Nautilus machine. It will be so worth it.
ESP TriRyche In 1990, the American heavy-metal act QUEENSRYCHE scored a hit with their last-dance-at-the-prom weeper “Silent Lucidity.” Around the same time, some kid obsessed with the band’s logo added a fretboard and headstock on a whim, and ESP took it seriously. It looks downright sinister posed before this glacial lake in Scandinavia, but we have a feeling that most of these ended up in some middle-aged fan’s partially finished basement in Bayonne, NJ.
Toilet Seat Guitar Dude do you know what would be hilarious? If we turned my stepdad’s toilet into a guitar! He and Brenda are gonna love it. Do you want to take another hit off this or are you good?
Any Gun-shaped Guitar Ever Made It’s only natural that someone would combine the abject horror of combat with the sweet, soul-touching melodies of a masturbatory guitar solo. The shred machine above, cuddled by former ALICE COOPER guitarist KANE ROBERTS, doubled as a flamethrower. See you in Walter Reed, buddy — we’ll be one of the nurses applying the special gauze and cooling salve after your face transplant.
– Chris Diken