Lester William Polsfuss was (and is) a brilliant guitar player, sure. But Polsfuss’ true legacy — filed under the name Les Paul in the encyclopedia — will always focus on his role in the development of the electric guitar.
Young kids in band class are always surprised to find out that Gibson’s Les Paul model is named after the man who created it — and the man who, in the process, helped invent the solid-body electric guitar.
It’s always been understood that Paul’s intense familiarity with the inner workings of the electric guitar contributed to his unique style of play, his songwriting and his handling of the instrument. And that makes perfect sense. If a musician knows what goes into making a guitar — or any other instrument, for that matter — he has a leg up on the guy who doesn’t know the difference between an Epiphone and a Gibson.
Solitary pursuit
Jordan McConnell grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, playing an electric guitar his father, an electronics engineer, made by hand for him. After graduating from high school in 1999 and feeling a little aimless, McConnell signed up for a two-month luthier course in a remote Canadian farming town.
He came out of that schooling with a guitar he had made from scratch, and it wasn’t long before he had kicked his dad out of his backyard shop back in Winnipeg and refitted it as his own guitar- building workshop. Three years after his luthier obsession began, he started playing guitar with the Duhks, an indie-minded string band that has since captured the hearts of many the world over.
“I’m not really building full-time right now, because we’re always touring,” McConnell said from a video shoot at the Salton Sea in California’s Palm Desert. “If we’re flying, I can’t take my tools with me. Sometimes when we’re doing driving tours, I’ll cut out inlays in my hotel room. But the work is either too intricate or too not intricate to pull off in a hotel room. I do most of my work when I’m home, when I’ll go into intense isolation mode.”
Having played the guitar for more than 20 years allows McConnell the experience to properly build instruments for others. When he initially connects with somebody who wants a guitar built specifically for them, he asks them to bring over the guitar they’ve been playing.
“I know my playing really well, and I know what I want out of a guitar,” McConnell said. “So when I’m building a guitar for somebody else, I watch them play the guitar and then I can focus on the sound and the feel and the playability they want out of the guitar that I’m building for them.”
Bringing the noise
Oliver Ackermann is another musician who creates instruments while also making his own music. Although in Ackermann’s case, some conservative or traditional listeners might not consider his compositions “music.”
Ackermann is the singer-guitarist behind the Brooklyn shoegaze/noise band A Place to Bury Strangers, a group that has been called “the loudest band in the world.” APTBS makes music in the vein of the Jesus and Mary Chain, and My Bloody Valentine, only with a heavier focus on volume and noise.
And that’s where Ackermann’s Death By Audio company comes in. Ackermann turned his electronics hobby and passion for music into a legitimate business making effects pedals that retail from $150 to $320. His signature pedal: Total Sonic Annihilation. And what does that sound like?
“It sounds kind of like aliens landing or explosions or drum-machine sounds,” Ackermann said. “It takes your effects and transforms them into other sounds. It (expletive) up the whole system of what you’re working with and turns everything upside down. It’s almost too crazy for me to use in a live setting because it’s too hard to control. I use it in the recording studio, mainly.”
As with many kids into shoegaze music, Ackermann developed his love of unique noises by taking apart various pedals and amplifiers. He read a couple of books on electronics, and he broke a couple of pieces of machinery. And finally it came down to Ackermann needing $3,000 for a trip.
“I’d been working on this pedal for a while, and so I called it Total Sonic Annihilation and sent out some press releases, and sure enough I made enough money to make that trip happen,” he said. “It was an effects pedal that nobody else had come out with. It was new that you could create sounds that you couldn’t get anywhere else.”
Like most indie musicians, Ackermann doesn’t make much money via his music — even though APTBS opened several arena dates for Nine Inch Nails last month. He is, however, seeing a profit on his pedal-oriented business, and his pedals — from Total Sonic Annihilation to Octave Clang, Soundwave Breakdown to Interstellar Overdriver — are available at retail shops throughout the country.
Carrying on tradition
Other musicians are forced into making instruments to save a dying breed — and to continue the tradition. Aaron Keim plays the stand-up bass for the Boulder Acoustic Society, one of the busiest bands in Colorado. But he’s also well known across the country as the man behind Bean Sprout Banjo Ukuleles.
The banjo uke is a Depression-era instrument that fell out of favor a long time ago, and while a few small, mom- and-pop shops continue to make them, the majority of the banjo ukes on the market are guarded antiques.
“There wasn’t a modern version of it that was very good,” Keim said recently on his way to play at the KBCO studios in Boulder. “I’d done plenty of restorations, so I’d had dozens and dozens of banjo ukes in my hands. I had been interested in building them for a couple years, but starting this company was what finally made me a pro builder.”
One of the most difficult aspects of making these instruments is the metalwork. Banjos, unlike guitars, have a lot of metal parts. And Keim secured a confidential deal with a machinist — who publicly already made parts for banjo companies — for his metalwork.
So far, Keim has made 42 banjo ukes in his Broomfield basement, but he’s also the lead Bean Sprout salesman. He sets up meetings with potential customers at each of his band’s tour stops, bringing a banjo uke to the merch table after a performance so he can show it off up close.
“I’m pretty much a traveling salesman,” he said. “And I love it. I love the process and the feeling of it — making something at home and then going out on the road and testing it out. Everyone in the band helps me, too. The way our band operates is that when we’re riding around in the van, somebody always has a ukulele in their hand and is playing and everybody is singing. Our last record, ‘The Caged Bird,’ we wrote the whole thing on the road. And 90 percent of it was written with a uke in somebody’s hand.”
