Left handed guitars for left handed Rock Chicks

In my time, when Punk Rock music was just coming to an end and “New Wave” music was emerging a “part-time” Punk Rocker was called a “Sunday Punk.” Anyone, for that matter who was a “pretend” something was a “Sunday” something. I suppose that term was from my folks era, so that would have been, what 50′s? 60′s? The moral of the story was if you are going to be or live the life of something then you be or live the life. You don’t “dress up” once a week and fake being that thing for a day. You could say “be professional” about whatever it is you are being.

As a musician myself and the designer and creator of Gaskell Guitars (http://www.gaskellguitars.com), a company in Sydney Australia which makes left handed guitars only, not only have I witnessed the continuing evolution and progress of guitar brands such as the mighty Gibson, Fender, Gretsch, Jackson, Rickenbacker, Ibanez, etc over many years now, but I have also experienced the changing views of new generations of people and guitarists about different types of guitars

As a left handed guitarist myself, I have also experienced first hand the feelings of frustration and anger about the choices of left handed guitars being so poor. And somehow lefty guitarists are forced to feel like “second rate citizens” because of it. And it is damned WRONG! Any lefty guitarist who, prior to discovering Gaskell Guitars, will have experienced these same frustrations. All lefty guitarists who have not given up, feel this same thing. We are UNITED in this respect. Incidentally, of late, several major guitar brands have stopped making left handed guitars altogether – how’s that for a slap in the face!

So the point of this story, how do you live the life, if you are 1) a left handed guitarist, and 2) playing a genre of music where a certain type of guitar is representative of the genre yet not available left handed?

Simple answer: with great trouble (and great expense if you go the “custom guitar” route.)

Now here is an additional question: what if you are a … girl?

A “Rock Chick” left handed guitarist, for example.

“Rock Chick” guitarists are like any other guitarist. There are plenty of Rock chicks living the life playing in bands, all around the world. Some are left handed guitarists.

Ok, so you are a Rock chick and you want to play some Rock, Metal, or Grunge, or whatever. Are you going to be playing a sunburst, gay-looking Fender Telecaster? Hope not! (This doesn’t matter whether you are a righty or lefty guitarist, by the way.)

So if that’s your music and you are giving it your all, then how about a Dean or a Jackson, or an Ibanez Super-strat guitar? (they all make them) Maybe, but Strats are pretty boring, really. Not unique to the genre. Plenty of Country and Western players play Strats. Doesn’t quite complete the look.

How about a Les Paul? Well, yes. A Les Paul is a Rock guitar. But even then a Les Paul is a little bit of a compromise for someone who is serious about living the life and being representative of that in their music and in their musical instrument, particularly Metal or any of the darker offshoots of Metal.

Do you want a REAL ROCK GUITAR? A real Rock guitar is a Randy Rhoads V, or perhaps a regular Flying V, or something by BC Rich or Halo, both famous for “extreme” guitars popular with Heavy Metal guitarists.

Now, if you are a Rock Chick and you are in a Metal band and you want a Metal guitar, and you are also a left handed guitarist, what are you going to do?

You are going to seek GASKELL GUITARS.

Gaskell Guitars makes left handed guitars only. We all know that now.

But how about left handed guitars for girls? Yes, yes yes.

We don’t discriminate between male and female at Gaskell Guitars.

We make a Randy Rhoads V guitar in SHOCKING PINK. (http://www.gaskellguitars.com/models/35-guitars/47-koru.html

This is the perfect guitar for any Rock Chick. There is no other guitar more suited. There is nothing “gay” about a pink coloured Heavy Metal guitar. A pink Heavy Metal guitar in the hands of a girl is COOL. On the other hand, there is everything “gay” about a pink Strat, or Tele or Les Paul, etc. Yuck!

Rock Chicks: you will not get left handed guitars easily in shocking pink by other brands. Other brands don’t care about left handed guitarists! Gaskell Guitars has other “extreme” guitars on offer in shocking pink if you don’t fancy the Randy Rhoads style one. (http://www.gaskellguitars.com/models) A shocking pink extreme guitar looks awesome on a Rock chick (It needs to be a proper Rock/Metal guitar that everyone easily associates with that style of music.)

Left handed Rock Chicks, you can really look the part. No one can accuse you of being a “Sunday Rock Chick” when you come out with a Gaskell guitar. Your audience will go mad! If you are a Rock chick, playing left handed guitar in a band, then you should get and play Gaskell guitars!

Gaskell Guitars is a guitar manufacturer in Sydney, Australia that makes only left handed guitars
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Left Hand Guitarists and Left Handed Guitars

Left Hand guitar players the world over have always had a problem with availability of left handed guitars.

Many left handed people newly learning to play guitar end up learning to play right handed out of frustration. Many experienced left handed guitarists have simply become apathetic and given up looking for that which is abundant for right handed players. Not only is there a limited range of guitars, but the resources for learning are also pretty limited. This situation is the same in every country in the world.

It is not hard to understand. Of the world’s population, left handed people are a minority compared to right handed people. Within this minority there is a further minority of left handed people who play guitar left handed. Despite the small percentage of left handed guitarists, there have been a number of iconic left handed players who have made a huge impact on the music scene. These include Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, Tony Iommi, and Kurt Cobain.

Many of the big guitar manufacturers do not offer left hand versions of some of their popular guitars. to be fair, US guitar manufacturers, have been facing harder and harder times, year after year. We all know that ALL industry (that is trying to do the right thing and being honest) is suffering and this is proportional to the decline of education (kids can’t learn, can’t hold jobs), the rise of drugs (thank you psychiatrists for getting rich by doping a whole generation into a state of useless-ness while brainwashing parents into believing frying kids brains with drugs is good) and increase of social hardship due to the world economic crash that’s going on (thanks Oil companies, banks, and government suppression) So it is tough for all.

Some guitar manufacturers offer left handed versions of their guitars through their Custom Shop. And although this is an attempt at service, the costs and waiting times can be quite painful.

Well, not any more! GASKELL GUITARS is a small Australian guitar manufacturer that makes only left hand guitars. Gaskell guitars are high quality, yet affordable instruments, that can be gigged with as they are or further upgraded or modified and still come in well under the cost of a custom shop order for the same kind of instrument!

Being situated at the “bottom of the world” and to some degree away from the noise of the collapse happening in other continents, we are able to operate intelligently and with focus on producing well-made, high quality left handed guitars that are not available as left hand models by original manufacturers.

Go to : http://www.gaskellguitars.com

You will find left handed guitars that you have not seen before in left hand and probably never thought you would! Some dreams do become reality.

Gaskell Guitars (Australia)
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Why I Love Gibson Guitars

There is something timeless about Gibson guitars.

They have been around for a million years it seems and they have been responsible for some of the most innovative guitar designs ever to appear.

The humbucking pickup is a Gibson design. Who could imagine life in the 21st Century without humbucking pickups for guitars? You couldn’t! That would be a nightmare reality! There goes “Rock” music. We’d all be playing and listening to … I don’t know!

There is a passion behind Gibson guitars that is very admirable and commendable. That passion has been there for many, many decades! We the user have received and created JOY with a Gibson in our hands and our creativity in full bloom. Many generations of great song writers, and guitar players have been and gone. The Gibson name has stayed througout time. Why? Because they are great guitars!

At GASKELL Guitars we manufacturer exclusively left handed guitars. Our mainstay model is based on the 1958 Gibson Explorer. This is a wonderful guitar, ahead of it’s time when it was designed, and to this day is a popular “extreme shape” guitar with many artists such as James Hetfield (Metallica), The Edge (U2), Gary Moore, and more. In the 1980s and 1990s just about every guitarist seemed to played Explorers or Explorers made by other guitar manufacturers such as The Police, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Kiss, U2, Metallica, Rick Nielsen, ZZ Top, Lynard Skynard, Gary Moore, and more!

The modern day Explorer is not made in left hand by Gibson or their subsidiary, Epiphone.

A left handed version is made by GASKELL GUITARS.

Other guitar manufacturers who have been inspired by this masterpiece of music instrumentation are Hamer (theirs is called the Hamer “Standard” and doesn’t have the pickguard), Dean Guitars (make an impressive range of colours for their version), Jackson Guitars (Jackson’s is called the “Kelly” and is a little different from the Explorer but is still visibly Explorer derived.) Other companies have made clones of the Explorer such as Tokai, Stagg, Aria, and in the past Ibanez, ESP and Peavey to name a few.

None of these companies listed above as far as we know make their variant Explorers in left hand without going the “custom shop” option which usually results in a pay out of around $4000 and possibly more than a year waiting time.

The Explorer guitar is really a master piece.

Left Handed guitarists can play one now, via Gaskell Guitars, and experience first hand the pleasure of such a fabulous instrument.

Gibson is a musical instrument company that has stood the test of time because of innovative and dedicated passion towards the music industry and guitar players and we here at Gaskell Guitars would like to tip our hats in honour of the legend that we have had some fortune to partially benefit from by way of the left handed Explorer style guitar we manufacture to fill that gap in the market.

EXPLORERS are great guitars. Left handed guitarists can now enjoy the greatness of them via Gaskell Guitars!

Gaskell Guitars is a guitar manufacturer in Sydney, Australia that makes only left handed guitars. See http://gaskellguitars.com for more info on our left handed guitar products
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Gaskell Guitars Makes Only Left Handed Guitars

This is an interview with Kevin Gaskell, designer and founder of GASKELL GUITARS from Australia. This is from January 2008.

Name of your company?
Gaskell Guitars

Your name?
Kevin Gaskell (I am the designer)

Your Location (city, etc)
Alexandria, Sydney. Australia

Please give us a short summary of your company?
Gaskell Guitars is the only guitar manufacturer in the world that makes ONLY left handed guitars. Based in Australia, Gaskell Guitars is attempting to provide popular guitars not otherwise available as left handed models to the LEFT HANDED GUITAR PLAYERS of this world. I started this 10 years ago. I got it fully together at the end of 2006.

What inspired you to launch your own website?
To get the message out: Left hand guitarists need not feel left out in the dark, or penalized, or ignored for simply being a left handed guitar player.

When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
We have been in business since the beginning of 2007 but did not launch our website until mid 2007. There is still some work to be done but the most important thing is getting high quality guitars into the hands of left hand guitar players who have often given up ever finding the guitars we make!

How did you decide on a name for your website?

Brand name

What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
We are the only company in the world that provides left handed guitars exclusively despite it apparently being a small market. No one else is doing this because no one else really cares about left handed guitar players unless they have a lot of CASH to flash around and have something made in a Custom Shop.

What is your eventual goal?
Corner the market. Internationally. Our brand name recognition is growing. People like our products and they ARE good. I am a left handed guitar player myself so I talk the talk and walk the walk.

How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Still to make a profit! Heavily driven by passion, as any purpose that someone is dedicated to.

If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would things change?
We’d be able to make more guitars faster and satisfy even more left handed guitarists – e.g bass players. Demand is greater than supply at the moment. It costs money to take another step and then another step.

If your business site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Already struggling with keeping up with product demand! Left Handed guitarists are a passionate lot. And they should be! They’ve been kicked in the teeth for many years. All lefty players know this.

What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
The first model is always the most expensive. All our guitars had to be redesigned from scratch and are largely hand made. Tooling (CNC Machines) in factories is designed for making right handed guitars. It’s been “interesting” to set this up shall we say. It would never have been this tough to make right handed guitars and try and break into a saturated market there. It is much much cheaper to make right handed guitars.

What has been your biggest challenge?
Making the guitars affordable while still making a profit. We don’t make a lot on our guitars. We could’ve charged ridiculous prices since no one else makes our models but then that’s called “greed” and that’s not where we are at. Left Handed guitarists have been betrayed bad enough as it is. The other thing we struggle with is shipping costs. This is beyond our control. Costs to USA and Europe from Australia are pretty ridiculous in the post-9/11 world.

What method has been most successful for promoting your website?

Classified Ads

How has running your website differed from your expectations?
I’m not a website builder or hoster. Every little change or improvement costs money! Good news comes at a price!

How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don’t enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
Since about mid 2007. We intend to keep it going for as long as left hand guitarists want our guitars – hopefully forever!

Why are you doing this?
I was born in New Zealand. I have been playing guitar for 25 years. I always wanted to own a Gibson Explorer. In 25 years I never saw one and Gibson only ever made them at one time, in the 1980s when I didn’t have the money to buy one. Many other guitars didn’t come in left hand at that time. 25 years later NOT MUCH HAD CHANGED. I decided that if we are going to be essentially “overlooked” by the big guitar manufacturers then I will fill this void. I made my first guitar in 1992 and it’s developed from there. Customers who have bought Gaskell guitars are routinely delighted and grateful for these instruments, not just because the price is good, but because they are EXCELLENT, high quality guitars which has always been and always will be our intention. We don’t do “cheap” except in price.

What is your website address?
Gaskell Guitars