Hit some music stores in Hobart, Tasmania today

[Wade Hampton]

Mycroft, Sherlock Holmes’ smarter brother, wrote:

Originally Posted by Mycroft

Please to look up Paddy Burgin while you are in NZ...

Can’t say that the name rings a bell. Is this someone we both knew in our earlier hell-raising Anchorage days, or some great musician I should know about but don’t?


whm

[Wade Hampton]

By the way, our ship is in “the Roaring Forties” latitude right now, coming around the southern end of New Zealand’s South Island. This is an area where the whaling ships used to encounter, shall we say, “challenging” atmospheric conditions. A huge wave came up and smacked the ship earlier today, and while we were at dinner the ship listed over to the port side and my wife’s dinner plate tried to slide into her lap.

But she’s got good reflexes, and managed to catch it just fine. But it’s moments like that that remind you that, no, you’re NOT in a hotel, you’re in a watercraft making its way across some windy latitudes in the South Pacific.


whm

[jemartin]

Originally Posted by Brucebubs

AGF member 'Guitars & gems' bought that same 358e with Tasmanian Blackwood back & sides.
Beautiful guitar.

She posted some great pictures in this thread https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=533690

Thanks Bruce... I didn’t notice that post and thread. Yes ... it is a beautiful wood combo.... (and I don’t want my Guild F512 to feel left out for a while... but this guitar has its own wonderful personality also.)

[jemartin]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

There was a Maton OM-sized guitar at McCann’s Music in Hobart that was all-Tasmanian blackwood, including a top made of the same wood. In years past I have also owned a late 90’s-vintage Larrivee L-03BW with blackwood back and sides with a spruce top, and a Blue Lion mountain dulcimer in the same wood combination.



Tasmanian/Australian blackwood is a member of the acaia family, as is koa. The two woods also look a lot alike, but the examples of Taz blackwood instruments that I’ve played haven’t been exact sound-alikes with koa. They seem to sound closer to rosewood than koa, in my fairly limited experience.



But it’s a visually dazzling tonewood, no question about that. The blackwood dulcimer I had made (which is now owned and played by my daughter) has the most extravagant figure in the grain of any instrument I’ve ever owned.



Anyway, I like Tasmanian blackwood as a tonewood, but caution against the assumption that it’ll sound just koa, because in my experience it doesn’t, not quite.





Wade Hampton Miller

Thanks Wade. I don’t know how much to attribute to the woods used... and the builders design... but I would agree with your assertion...and experience... that the Blackwood is definitely a beautiful wood and leans toward the rosewood tone.

[Beakybird]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

By the way, our ship is in “the Roaring Forties” latitude right now, coming around the southern end of New Zealand’s South Island. This is an area where the whaling ships used to encounter, shall we say, “challenging” atmospheric conditions. A huge wave came up and smacked the ship earlier today, and while we were at dinner the ship listed over to the port side and my wife’s dinner plate tried to slide into her lap.

But she’s got good reflexes, and managed to catch it just fine. But it’s moments like that that remind you that, no, you’re NOT in a hotel, you’re in a watercraft making its way across some windy latitudes in the South Pacific.


whm

Your experience inspired me to dig out a few plastic ships to play with in the bathtub this morning.

Happy voyage!

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by Beakybird

Your experience inspired me to dig out a few plastic ships to play with in the bathtub this morning.

Happy voyage!

I hope you remembered to say nautical things like: “Shiver me timbers!” and “Ahoy, matey!” while you were splashing around with them!


whm

[Mycroft]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

Mycroft, Sherlock Holmes’ smarter brother, wrote:


Can’t say that the name rings a bell. Is this someone we both knew in our earlier hell-raising Anchorage days, or some great musician I should know about but don’t?

whm

I am a bit surprised that you don't know the name, given your encyclopedic knowledge of small builders. Paddy Burgin is a guitar builder (and pretty good player, if the clips on youtube are any indication) He builds acoustic guitars, Irish Bouzoukis, Mandolins and Citterns, but is best known for the Weissenborns that David Lindley and Henry Kaiser plays. He is located somewhere round Wellington.

http://www.burginguitars.co.nz/

Did you see any of Tim Kill's instruments in Melbourne?

http://timkillcustom.com/

Laurie Williams is up north of Aukland somewhere...

http://www.guitars.co.nz/index.html

There are some other local NZ builders, but those are the one's that I would most like to see, from their reputation.

[Wade Hampton]

Interesting. No, I didn’t know of Mr. Burgin or any of the others, and the only time I’ve been able to slip away and visit any music stores was when we were in Hobart. There weren’t any hand built luthier guitars in any of those stores.

My wife and I already know that we want to come back for another trip, so I’ll just have to include some small shop luthier operation visits then.


whm

[Brucebubs]

Sadly there is no one store in Australia that showcases Australian builders ... apart from Maton and Cole Clark factory built guitars.

However, there was an interesting album by Australian guitarist David Ross MacDonald called 'Southern Crossing' where he plays a different guitar from a different Australian luthier on each track.

[Mycroft]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

Interesting. No, I didn’t know of Mr. Burgin or any of the others, and the only time I’ve been able to slip away and visit any music stores was when we were in Hobart. There weren’t any hand built luthier guitars in any of those stores.

My wife and I already know that we want to come back for another trip, so I’ll just have to include some small shop luthier operation visits then.


whm

Not surprising. Cruise shop companies are very savvy about keeping tabs on their clients so that they don't spend any money anywhere but company-owned or connected facilities.

Look into renting a motorhome. If you think that you can stay on the correct side of the road...

[welshruss]

Originally Posted by Brucebubs

Sadly there is no one store in Australia that showcases Australian builders ... apart from Maton and Cole Clark factory built guitars.

However, there was an interesting album by Australian guitarist David Ross MacDonald called 'Southern Crossing' where he plays a different guitar from a different Australian luthier on each track.

Bruce you should try and see David Ross McDonald live. His CD Knuckle Brass and Bone is superb. I saw him open for Kelly Joe Phelps in Sydney years ago.

I used to own a Dubowski and my only Aussie guitar now is my Tim Kill Weissenborn made of Fijian Mahogany. I have a few Aussie made ukes though.

[saxonblue]

Bon Voyage Wade & it seems most of our people were good to you & your wife. We're coming into another heatwave here so NZ weather would surely be a little kinder.

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

Okay, so a high gloss finish is an option, but evidently not requested all that much, or else there’d be a lot of them in the stores. Interesting.

The FL3 series come with a gloss finish standard, at least on the top AFAIK & gold coloured/plated Grovers (as opposed to chrome on the FL1 & FL2). Not sure if higher end Angels do too.

Bunya accounts for a large portion of the CC tops although my FL2 12 string actually has a Sitka top (Qld Maple back/sides/neck) which works well too, quite a unique tone.

Enjoy the rest of your trip. Cheers

[Wade Hampton]

Mick, everyone’s been lovely to us in both countries, so far, anyway. Today was our first day ashore in New Zealand - we got off the ship in Port Chalmers, walked a few yards (excuse me, “metres,”) then got directly on the train, which we rode into Dunedin and beyond. We rode up the escarpment for a few hours, then the train returned.

We were supposed to be underway tonight to be in Christchurch tomorrow, but the winds are so high it’s considered unsafe to travel, so we’re hanging out in port tonight and will have to skip Christchurch entirely. Which is unfortunate, but that’s ocean travel for you.

While we walking around downtown Dunedin I came across a music store near the Octogon, which is their central (8 sided) city square. Neglected to get the business name, I’m afraid. Most of what they had in stock was Yamahas and Ibanez guitars, with only a couple of Cole Clarks representing their higher end instruments.

What the owner told me is that a lot of the local players graduated from the Yamahas and Ibanez guitars directly to handbuilt guitars made for them by several local luthiers. Which I thought was pretty interesting.

Anyway, tomorrow we’ll be at sea all day instead of going ashore. I have to say that New Zealand is incredibly gorgeous, and the cooler weather is definitely welcome to Alaskans like us.


whm

[saxonblue]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

I have to say that New Zealand is incredibly gorgeous, and the cooler weather is definitely welcome to Alaskans like us.

As an Alaskan you may be interested to know all the rivers/estuaries & near shore open waters of that east coast are loaded with Quinnat or Chinook salmon. Probably introduced from your part of the world.

Spent an entire January nearly 30 yrs ago based around Dunedin with a Kiwi friend/workmate back visiting his family & we had some great days out fishing in his uncle's trailer boat catching some. All feeding on krill, delicious eating!!

[Tannin]

Sorry, it's an old thread, but I couldn't resist because I visited the same Hobart shops at about the same time as you, Wade.

Hobart is much smaller than the other state capitals. It has around 200,000 people where the others are between 1.3 million (Adelaide) and close to 5 million (Melbourne and Sydney). So it is as small and compact as a large country town, but nevertheless has the shops and services of a capital city. It doesn't have anything like as many music shops as a big city like Melbourne, but the ones it does have are well-stocked, and you can easily walk around and visit all of them in an afternoon.

I wanted a new guitar to supplement my little Maton SRS60C dreadnought, and played pretty much every accoustic in Hobart that looked interesting and was in my price range. (Plus a few that were outside it.)

Electrics aside, I'd never played anything except dreadnoughts. However, reading online (here among other places), suggested that a grand auditorium might give me the clarity I wanted by cutting out some of the boomy bass. Above all else, I wanted to be able to hear more of each string, rather than just an overall sound.

I started at McCanns with the Matons, playing half a dozen and immediately reducing the short list to two: both EBG808s, both delightful instruments with spruce tops and Queensland maple backs and sides. I also played a wonderful Maton custom shop "flatpicker", a traditional spruce and rosewood dreadnought, which was quite superb but way out of my price range at $4900 and, in any case, rather too similar to my existing Maton. (No point in having two instruments in the same style.)

On to Modern Musician. There was a nice example of a brand unfamiliar to me - Taylor. A 314ce, I think. A very fine instrument which went straight onto my short list. (Many other Taylors too, but this was the only one of real interest.)

Also, a whole stack of Cole Clark models. Most of them I rejected almost immediately - I liked neither the sound nor the feel, especially not after those lovely Matons and the excellent Taylor. But one Cole Clark stood out as something very different: an Angel 3. Way out of my price range (almost as much as the Maton Flatpicker), but great feel and a sound I liked very much indeed. Extraordinary timbers too - silkwood back and sides (silkwood is a close relative of Queensland maple - pretty much the standard Australian tonewood these days, alongside Blackwood - but tends to be more highly figured) and a Huon Pine top, with Blackwood trimmings. Huon Pine is very rare. Sadly, it was double my budget.

Then to the two main second-hand shops. Top Shelf where I looked at several interesting things not relevant here, and played an old Martin I didn't much care for, and Solidas, where the main attractions were a Martin and a nice old 1960s Gretsch.

That left a short list of five: the two Matons, the Taylor, the Cole Clark, and the Gretsch. Over the next week or so, I eliminated them one by one: first the Gretsch, then (reluctantly) the Taylor (on the grounds that it was too similar to my Maton), then one of the two Maton 808s. It was very difficult to walk away from the lovely Maton EBG808TE Tommy Emmanual but in the end I just completely destroyed the budget and went for the Angel 3.

All of this was in early January. I'm sorry you missed meeting the Huon Pine Cole Clark Angel 3, Wade. It is a very interesting instrument, quite different to the other Cole Clarks in sound, and a little different in feel. (I suspect they work harder on setting up the high end models just so.) But then, if you liked the other ones (which on the whole I didn't), perhaps you'd have disliked the Huon Pine Angel. Who knows?

Cole Clark's Western Red Cedar, by the way, is indeed the American species you know, but grown in Victoria, not far from Melbourne. Apparently a number were planted there a hundred years or so back.

Blackwood is often called "Tasmanian Blackwood" for reasons unclear: the species grows all over south-eastern Australia and there is no difference between trees harvested in Tasmania and Southern Victoria, and probably none to ones from New South Wales either. Cole Clark's Blackwood is mostly sourced from the Otway Ranges in south-west Victoria. Maton the same, I think.

Anyway, yours was an interesting post and I enjoyed reading it.

PS: I'm very happy with the Cole Clark Angel. I play it more than three quarters of the time, but still play the Maton as well. They are quite different and both have a place.