Guitars have long been the subject of tireless tinkering, colorful decoration, and often outrageous custom-work. Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen has turned heads for years wielding his unwieldy five-necked Hamer and a twin-necked model that’s a cartoon half-scale effigy of the guitarist himself.
But Rick’s custom instruments look downright tame compared with some of the (often) home-modified axes music news website MusicRadar.com found posted in cyberspace. There’s an instrument that takes Guitar Hero to its logical conclusion, using a real Sega Genesis game console for a body. Another forged from an actual TV satellite dish by a veteran tinkerer. Other instruments come variously shaped as a saxophone, giant foot, and skateboard. Then there’s the Wangcaster, hand-tooled in the shape of a … well, take a good guess.
Here are a few favorite highlights:
Stig Pedersen plays this surreal, bass-ackwards design in Denmark’s D-A-D
This guitarist’s best friend is the Teenar, by Lou Reimuller
A toilet-shaped number that never needs to change the roll – ‘cause it’s the strap!
A unique way to achieve that cut-through sound?
Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age plays Fred Mangan’s customized satellite dish guitar – but does it get HBO?
