It was with this transition to Westone in 1985 that SLM entered headless sweepstakes with The Rail, the Super Headless Bass, and the Quantum bass.
In 1984 the separate Westone line went away and SLM’s guitars became Electra-Westone, ending up just Westone in 1985. For reasons unknown, the decision was taken to consolidate the Westone brand name with St. Around the beginning of the decade Matsumoku began marketing its own brand of electric guitars called Westone. Most of those guitars were made by the legendary Matsumoku factory in Matsumoto City. The Electra name continued into the early 1980s. During the “copy era” of the 1970s, SLM’s Japanese-made electric guitars were branded with the Electra name. Louis Music (SLM) was transitioning to a new brand name. This was the era that saw the emergence of headless guitars and basses by Ned Steinberger and others, favored by The Police’s Andy Summers.
For these groups-like The Police-their style was enhanced by the understated look of minimalist guitars. On the opposite end of the spectrum were New Wave bands with slick, tightly arranged pop tunes. Louis Music, even Fender all introduced pointy guitars in various outre shapes.įor players in a more conventional frame of mind, this period saw the emergence of the Super-Strat, a Strat-style guitar with hybrid electronics combining a lead humbucker with two single-coils and, eventually, a locking vibrato system. Heavy metal was on the rise and with it a taste for exotic guitar shapes, pointy guitars like Flying Vees even more non-Spanish shapes (to go with the wild hairdos). With notable outliers on occasion, like the 1967 LaBaye 2×4!īut as the 1980s dawned, guitar styles-just like popular music styles-began to proliferate, to fragment. Strats were popular this year, Les Pauls were in the next. Prior to the ‘80s styles of electric guitars came and went, of course, but there was something homogenous about guitar styles. And that puts you squarely within the realm of style! The kind of image you want to project when you play guitar determines what kind of axe you’re going to sling. But once you shift the responsibility for making noise to an electronic circuit, you do whatever you want with the rest-or at least with the body. As cool as a cigar-box guitar might look, it’s never going to sound as good as that classic Spanish figure-8 shape of an acoustic guitar that’s evolved over centures. The fact that they make sound by use of an electronic pickup instead of an acoustic sound box frees them from certain physical restrictions. Now, electric guitars have always had an element of “style” about them. The Rail was kind of a perfect reflection of the time it was made, in the mid-1980s. Unless, that is, they were exceptionally interesting, like Westone’s short-lived The Rail. The good news is I never got into collecting basses or keyboards. To be honest, I pretty much played them both like guitars. I wasn’t particularly noteworthy on either. While I consider myself to be a “guitar player,” I actually had a blues-rock band back in 1967 for which I also played bass (Hagstrom) and keyboards (Farfissa). Of course, we’re not all about just electric guitars – it’s always great to have a look at some great rare BASS guitars, too! In this new guest post, Michael Wright highlights a forgotten gem from the 80’s…
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