He worked with it a little, including expanding the gash – and the Dana Scoop was born. Sutcliffe picked it up, played it, and hear amazing first – and – second string tone with no phase cancelation. The next day, it became the joke/”gash” guitar. But overnight, another employee put a neck on it.
The router hit a knot in the wood near the treble cutaway, damaging the body, which was then set aside. In ’88, one of Sutcliffe’s employees was operating a pin router while working on a Matsumoku-made Westone body. That was when the happy accident occured. A relationship between Dana and SLM ensued, and by ’88, Sutcliffe had his own “line” of Dana Westones outfitted in his shop with his electronics. But it was this sales rep who alerted Tom Presley, guitar-brand manager at SLM, to Sutcliffe and his hot pickups, circa 1987. So Sutcliffe started using those guitars while testing the amps. Sutcliffe would use a guitar with his pickups, but the rep returned red-faced, claiming Les Pauls and Strats didn’t sound good at those settings. One of the people who called on him was the local sales rep for SLM, a non-musician who would seek help in adjusting the settings on his Crate amps. He did a lot of work converting Gibson guitars for use by Delaware rocker George Thorogood. There, in 1978 or ’79, under the supervision of John Marshall, Sutcliffe earned a master’s degree in lutherie.įollowing the Renaissance experience, Sutcliffe began repairing guitars, building custom guitars, and developing more pickups, including the active units that would make him famous. Thus began a lifelong interest in electronics, and his subsequent experience with guitars eventually landed him a job at the ill-fated Renaissance guitars. So he set about making his own replacements. “Dana” is Dana Sutcliffe, who at age 13 got a guitar with four of the worst pickups ever made. During this period, SLM began moving some production to Cort, in Korea. With it went the Westone brand, and SLM’s electric line became Alvarez. It’s not entirely clear, but Matsumoku may have continued making guitars until 1990. Matsumoku had started as a builder of sewing machine cabinets, and in ’87, the company was purchased by Singer Sewing Machines. In ’83, SLM entered into a joint venture with Matsumoku, and in ’84 transitioned the Alvarez brand to Westone, which had previously been used by the Japanese manufacturer. Many were made by the legendary Matsumoku Moto plant.
Beginning around 1970 – maybe slightly earlier – SLM began importing electric guitars from Japan bearing the Electra brand. Louis Music (SLM) for its Japanese-made acoustic guitars beginning in 1966 Alvarez-Yairi models were built in Kazuo Yairi’s workshop, while Alvarez models were built elsewhere. An example of a happy accident is the invention of the Alvarez Dana Scoop.Īs a brand, Alvarez was a name originally used by St. Bad ones are when you bend over, your rear-end knocks over your axe, and suddenly you’ve “created” a headless guitar. The Alvarez Dana Scoop by Michael Wright, The Different Strummer There are bad accidents and there are good, or “happy” accidents.
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