The Summer of 2014 has proven to be a crazy one. We kicked everything off with our debut at the Chicago guitar show in May and it seems that we hardly had a chance to slow down. One of the great things that happened over this summer was a chance I had to meet with the guys in Blue Oyster Cult.
On a particularly beautiful day in June, I was out flying a kite with my daughter at the park and I got an email from Eric Bloom, the lead singer and guitarist for Blue Oyster Cult. He had seen some of my guitars on my website and had contacted me through my Linked In account. He was interested in some new guitars and wanted to talk about some custom specs. Eric has been a Gibson SG player since the 70’s but wanted a new design that was under 7 pounds because after 40 years of touring his shoulder just couldn’t bear the weight of a heavy guitar. I knew that we could get the weight of his guitar down to under 7 pounds because we had just recently created some Pasquale Classic 22 guitars that weighed in at about 5 ½ pounds.
Well the 2014 Chicago Guitar Show has come and gone and it was spectacle to be seen. Our booth was decked out in all of its regalia and we represented our brand quite well. We also proudly represented our partners that we team with to supply our hardware. We brought guitars loaded with Hipshot Hardware and FU Tone bridges as well as Nordstrand, Amalfitano, EMG and our own Pasquale Custom Pickups. We made a lot of new friends and a great time was had by all.
It was a huge accomplishment for us to even get to this show since we had to build and prep 14 guitars for our booth in less than 5 months. Our usual turn- around time for a guitar is 12 weeks so the challenge of building 14 guitars in 5 months was a big one.
Add to the fact that we set out to debut our new Metal Series Guitars at this show which is series of 6 brand new models each with custom hardware options and custom graphics. Throw into the mix a prototype of our brand new Revelator 7 seven string guitar and you can see how the challenges began to mount. But nonetheless, we were ready when set up time on Friday afternoon May 16th.
A Different Way of Frying Chicken
In the early 90’s my career pursuits took me to Los Angeles to pursue a full time career as a professional guitarist. I enrolled myself in study at The Musicians Institute in Hollywood and thoroughly immersed myself in the L.A. lifestyle.
My career path led me on a lifelong quest for tone. Part of that quest for tone was finding the perfect guitar. I soon found out that it didn’t exist at the time so I built my own guitar and started down a path that eventually led to the formation of Pasquale Custom Guitars. The other half of the quest for tone was finding the perfect amp which led me to Custom Audio Electronics in North Hollywood California.
Custom Audio Electronics was the hub of Amp Guru and Super Genius Bob Bradshaw. Bob was the underground secret to great amps and brilliant tone. I got to meet Bob and we discussed his “soon to be released” CAE 3+ Tube Preamp. I was fortunate enough to get one of the original Blue Face 3+ Tube Preamps before they switched the production models to the Silver Face models.
The guitar world as we know it is a constantly changing landscape full of variables that come and go. The ability to customize guitars like we can do today is a stark contrast to the world that existed 30 years ago.
One of the biggest trends right now is in the world of Boutique Pickups and Pedals. It seems everybody is trying to come up with the latest and greatest way to achieve the guitarist ultimate passion; finding their individual tone.
Pasquale Custom Guitars has developed our own signature series of pickups that were designed to capture the natural characteristics of our hand selected woods and hardware. This is one of the key elements to the overall feel and sound of our guitars.
Phone: 312-912-7533