Despot
Junior Member
Evening all,
As I have only recently played a Guild for the first time (which led to me joining this forum last week), I have to admit that Guilds had not registered on my radar much. I knew the acoustic guitars (which have always been a feature in Ireland - and I came close to pulling the trigger on a '79 D25M last year but didn't for some reason), but apart from seeing S100s in the hands of Kim Thayil of Soundgarden when I was a kid and pictures of Starfires in guitar magazines (often referred to as ersatz ES335s), I had very little experience with the electric models.
For a time in the 1990s there seemed to be a sudden influx of DeArmond guitars - mainly the M75, but as far as I recall no store in Dublin ever carried the Guild electric line.
My recently purchases Starfire IV got it's first major outing this weekend in a trip to my old college town over Easter - none of us had ever played a Starfire before this week. I have to admit that the neck shape has taken a little getting used to (super skinny with a practically flat radius board - I guess I'm just used to playing Jazzmasters with a vintage radius board), which everyone seemed to notice as the first thing on picking up the guitar - but that initial "oh, that feels different" comment was followed by big smiles when the sound of the HB1s came out of the speakers of our amps (I had the pleasure of playing it through my old Vibrolux, a drip edge silverface Bassman and a 1990s Vox AC30 this weekend - all great amps). After two hours of messing with my old guitar playing friends from college, the thought suddenly sprang to mind - this is a fantastic guitar; why the hell don't more people play Guilds!?!
I know logistics have a lot to do with it in Ireland - they were never really sold here, hence they don't exist in the second hand market all that much. But we Irish are great at sourcing vintage guitars overseas when we know what we want (if you want anything non-meat and potatos you'll need to source it overseas - almost every eclectic guitar I've ever seen second hand in a store here was bought overseas by a player and brought home), so why haven't we been buying Guilds?
I'm a Guild owner for exactly one week - and I'm already contemplating picking up another Starfire (I'm tempted by a III with mini hums). I cannot understand how an electric guitar that sounds as good as the HB1 Starfires has been so ignored ... it's like I've stumbled into some sort of secret society!
As I have only recently played a Guild for the first time (which led to me joining this forum last week), I have to admit that Guilds had not registered on my radar much. I knew the acoustic guitars (which have always been a feature in Ireland - and I came close to pulling the trigger on a '79 D25M last year but didn't for some reason), but apart from seeing S100s in the hands of Kim Thayil of Soundgarden when I was a kid and pictures of Starfires in guitar magazines (often referred to as ersatz ES335s), I had very little experience with the electric models.
For a time in the 1990s there seemed to be a sudden influx of DeArmond guitars - mainly the M75, but as far as I recall no store in Dublin ever carried the Guild electric line.
My recently purchases Starfire IV got it's first major outing this weekend in a trip to my old college town over Easter - none of us had ever played a Starfire before this week. I have to admit that the neck shape has taken a little getting used to (super skinny with a practically flat radius board - I guess I'm just used to playing Jazzmasters with a vintage radius board), which everyone seemed to notice as the first thing on picking up the guitar - but that initial "oh, that feels different" comment was followed by big smiles when the sound of the HB1s came out of the speakers of our amps (I had the pleasure of playing it through my old Vibrolux, a drip edge silverface Bassman and a 1990s Vox AC30 this weekend - all great amps). After two hours of messing with my old guitar playing friends from college, the thought suddenly sprang to mind - this is a fantastic guitar; why the hell don't more people play Guilds!?!
I know logistics have a lot to do with it in Ireland - they were never really sold here, hence they don't exist in the second hand market all that much. But we Irish are great at sourcing vintage guitars overseas when we know what we want (if you want anything non-meat and potatos you'll need to source it overseas - almost every eclectic guitar I've ever seen second hand in a store here was bought overseas by a player and brought home), so why haven't we been buying Guilds?
I'm a Guild owner for exactly one week - and I'm already contemplating picking up another Starfire (I'm tempted by a III with mini hums). I cannot understand how an electric guitar that sounds as good as the HB1 Starfires has been so ignored ... it's like I've stumbled into some sort of secret society!
