As some of you may know, I'm currently living in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
One of the many things I've noticed about my new town is the tendency for shops of a certain type to congregate together. For example, my local market has a row of 10 fabric shops. This extends to all kinds of things: hardware, shoes, even ice cream of all things. And being new to town and distinctly disadvantaged with the local language, my wife and I often refer to streets by their overall purpose: ice cream street, passport photo street, paperclip street...
I'm joking about paperclip street. The shops on paperclip street also sell cellphone recharge cards.
Anyhoo, one of the most famous streets in Saigon is Guitar Street.
Now, this isn't guitar street like Denmark st or that precinct in Japan (fingers crossed for them blokes right now). Guitar Street in Saigon features about 20 tiny shopfronts all dedicated to producing and selling acoustic guitars and traditional Vietnamese instruments.
Here she is:
The average shopfront is about the size of those 1950s-era garages you see subsiding at the fronts of flats in kingsland. Most of the work happens upstairs or out the back:
each with obligatory shrine:
There isn't a lot of space inside, so ceiling storage is important:
...with a few guitars hanging in the shopfront just to let folks know what's up. This is a hard life for a guitar.
Some shops have assembly offsite. The standard mode of goods transport in this town is on the back of one of Saigon's 7 million scooters. If you think this looks like a thorough use of space you should see a dude carrying a fridge-freezer around on one:
The levels of workmanship on the guitars depend on the price. Each shop has a ton of cheapo guitars that are often painted in garish (read: cool) colours. Each shop also has it's high-end guitars, often held in glass display cases away from the perfect storm of Saigon dust and guitar maker dust that fills these shops.
Here's a beautiful Koa Takamine-style that a young dude had made. It had a very nice, balanced voice, and played very well:
Yes, that's wood binding:
Here's a standard dreadnought with a cedar top:
...and a 'pinkburst' cutaway takamine-style:
How much would you pay for something like that Koa Takamine-style? -300USD. Crank up the custom build specs and get a naked lady riding a dragon inlaid on the back and you might reach 400USD.
Speaking of inlay:
-much of the inlay work is on traditional-style instruments:
But wait: is that a dragon inlaid on a seven-string shredder?
Yes, there are electrics available on guitar street. It's not really the focus, and most are truly terrible budget electric 'fenders'. But there is a smattering of mid-quality pieces around. Here's one for the custom graphic crowd:
...with simply the BEST EVER shred guitar name:
And from there, things get weirder. Here's one for Willow:
And a powerfully barmy local entry into the compact guitar market:
The Ed-ophiles among us will know that EVH's first guitar was a Teisco. It appears that the 'brand' is being made locally:
Note the awesome original-style shape and the crazy controls. I don't know how any of it worked, especially the small red button. I pushed it , but nothing launched or spun or fell off.
The more observant 35-year-old Peter Pan shredders among you may have noticed something about that Teisco's fingerboard: EXTREME SCALLOPING!
-this is very common on local electrics. I think it's so players can get more microtonal sounds related to folk music, not due to any serious Yngwie-love.
Each shop has a small practice amp to check electronics with. This caught my eye. Muldoon-era?
So there you have it. Not your average bunch of guitar builders. here's some nuts:
