Another great video by Johnmcnair, a cigar box guitar maker. To get a glimpse of his work and philosophy browse over to Red Dog Guitars! I write “another” because he is one of the rare people that I always look at when a new video is posted.
First of all the sound he gets from all the guitars – and amps – that he plays, is magical. His notes contain large territories, the great plains, long distances, immense space.
As an US expat living in swissland most of the things I really miss are sounds; train whistles, crickets, fog horns, city traffic, small town stillness, and as to not smother in schmaltzy romanticism – although of course I am – I’ll add the sound of sports on TV.
John’s guitar sound is filled with images of America, perhaps that is why it speaks so strongly to me.
In itself that would be enough to make me go back for more every once in a while, but his videos are about more than that. In fact, and in a way not surprisingly, they are about listening. Take his series on converting old radios into guitar amplifiers, why spend your hard earned cash buying big brand names when the perfect sound may be waiting around the corner at a tag sale for a couple of bucks?
But Johnmcnair’s videos are also about looking and seeing (not the same thing IMHO) and experimenting and… Lest my lack of good words make it all seem like it’s not, best is that you check them out and decide for yourself.
Enjoy!
Updated 3/28/17: different video, same text.