poserboy71 wrote:

shramiac wrote:Who are all the dweebs in the photo holding the guitar??? Obviously excluding timstar78 if he's one of them!

doublev wrote:Rabbit ears crack me up overtime. I just did them now and i am pissing myself.

shramiac wrote:That would have been my guess that Tom was doing the rabbit ears!

shramiac wrote:

shramiac wrote:That would have been my guess that Tom was doing the rabbit ears!

And I obviously didn't mean that the talented Mr. Paleki is a dweeb either!!!

FREDDYB3 wrote:A bizillion posts later : To Timstar, great job with the reports, pic and video's. Awesome job.
Thanks again for all the work you did to bring us this info

poserboy71 wrote:From Timstar78 on Kissfaq:


timstar78
Joined: 24 Jul 2007
Posts: 11840
Location: California
PostPosted: Jan 18, 11 1:22

I went to NAMM this past Saturday and thought I would chime in with my experience.

As a longtime Vinnie fan, I felt a rush of excitement when I turned the corner in the convention hall and saw the Invasion logo and Vinnie's guitars. It almost took me back to being a teenager and staring at all the VVI posters on my wall. All BS and personal attacks aside, I've always maintained my respect for Vinnie's musical contributions to KISS, and his overall talents as a musician and a songwriter. As KISS fans, we all have our favorites, our quirks, our preferences, and this is one of mine. Such is life.

I visited Vinnie's booth twice and spent more than an hour there, collectively. During my first visit, I mainly took pictures. I talked with Les, who is Vinnie's father-in-law, and asked a couple of questions. Vinnie's wife, Diane, and the luthier who built the guitars, Tom Palecki, were not there at that point, so I told him I'd come back. Meanwhile, I took the flyer and card they were handing out. To state the obvious, I believe the guitars are overpriced, but more on that later.

I came back near the end of the day and appropriately the S/T VVI album was playing in the background, via the small boom box on the table. I stayed for the duration of the album, so about 50 minutes. I introduced myself to Diane and chatted with her for at least a half an hour. I can only go by my impression and my experience in spending that time with her. She was very nice and cordial, and looked me in the eye when we spoke. I won't go into everything we chatted about, but here are a few highlights:

- The big question, I asked "How is Vinnie?" She said Vinnie is doing fine, and stressed that he is happy and healthy. She also mentioned they have been married now for 17 years.

- They live in Nashville, Tenn., and have a nice property.

- Vinnie still plays guitar and records, and she says he plays a lot of acoustic around the house.

- She referenced that Vinnie has written country music, and alluded to one of this songs possibly being placed with Kenny Chesney at some point.

- Yes, I asked, "What about new music?" Her answer was that she thinks there will be a Vinnie Vincent release this year. She also mentioned that Vinnie has been hard at work on this guitar project.

- When I brought up "KISSology II" and the fact that Gene and Paul didn't have nice things to say about Vinnie in the commentary, she mentioned something about a lawsuit regarding that DVD set. She also mentioned other lawsuits, including some things that have been settled out of court, but I didn't press this subject further.

- She is aware of the Internet rumor mill, including the fun ones, you know Vinnie being homeless, being a woman, etc. (For the latter, she looked down and showed me her ring, and said, "I should know. I am married to him.") She essentially laughed it all off, and chalked it up to an example of something fictitious being created by hateful people on message boards. By the look in her eyes, I also got the sense that she is hurt that people have said these things about her husband.

- In perhaps the most obvious statement category, she said, and I quote, Vinnie is a "very private person."

- We talked about "Lick It Up" and the magnitude of Vinnie's contributions on the album. She says that he has all of his demos from the album that verify that Vinnie was the principal writer on all of the tracks he co-wrote. (As an aside, I will just say that I have had a very interesting conversation with one producer named Michael James Jackson very recently. He too had some very interesting insights regarding the "Lick It Up" album.)

- She said Vinnie is very creative and a perfectionist, and also mentioned that he was an artist. (I did not ask if he draws or paints.)

As some of you know, I am the inquisitive type and I wanted to ask more questions, and maybe a difficult one or two. But it was not the right time or place to ask about the box set, or any other question including Vinnie and the word "why." Again, I can only sum up my experience as being positive, and though I don't know her, Diane Cusano was very friendly to me. I told her to make sure and tell Vinnie that he has a big fan who has a tremendous amount of respect for his talents, and still aims to play a passable version of his solo in "Ashes To Ashes" one day.

Moving on to Tom Palecki, I asked him if I could ask some questions about the guitars, to which he said, "Sure, what do you want to know?"

Here is a Q&A summary of our conversation:

Q: How long have these guitars been in the making?
A: Four years. It's based on a guitar I built for him in 1992, which was based on the design of his Carvin model.

Q: Which is the anniversary model?
A: The gold one.

Q: What kind of paint does it have?
A: Gold leaf.

Q: How many frets do the guitars have?
A: Three models have 22. The white model has 24.

Q: What kind of pickups?
A: They are outfitted with Seymour Duncan George Lynch Screamin' Demon pickups. With the exception of the pink model, which has a new EMG pickup.

Q: What is the third control knob for?
A: It is a rotary/phaser switch.

Q: What kind of tremolo system do the guitars have?
A: A Floyd Rose Pro, which Vinnie was adamant about having.

Q: Which color will the double-neck model come in?
A: Silver.

Q: How long do you estimate it takes to build one of these guitars?
A: About four-six months.

Q: Are there any prototypes?
A: These are the prototypes.

Q: What about the inlays?
A: They are mother of pearl. The pink model has abalone mother of pearl inlays, and the gold anniversary model has gold leaf mother of pearl.

Q: Has Vinnie played the guitars yet?
A: No, he's only seen pictures. (Note: I found this to be a bit odd. But Tom did point out that they had been in heavy contact, and that Vinnie has been very involved in the process, including sending him photos and diagrams. Obviously the guitars are prototypes, so my take is that Tom has been working on these for the past few months and is finishing these up to send them to Vinnie.)

On that note, Tom also shared that these particular guitars were not totally finished as some of the fretwork still needs touching up. It was a pleasant conversation, and we exchanged contact information. I hope to have a follow-up, more formal/detailed conversation with Tom in the future.

These guitars are very striking in person. They are slick looking and the colors really pop, especially the gold leaf, which was quite impressive. I wanted to pick one up and plug it in and give it a spin.

This is where my questions come in. Why was there no amplifier at the booth and no opportunity to test them out? You were allowed to touch them, but couldn't take them off their stands. That doesn't really equate if they were trying to drum up interest in selling them. And many exhibitors at NAMM will let you test out their products.

And where was Vinnie? Why didn't he represent his guitars at the booth?

What's the deal with the price? Personally, yes, I think they are overpriced. And as big of a fan as I am, I just couldn't rationalize paying $10 K for this guitar, at least not right now. Moreover, to put down that type of money -- again stating the obvious -- I'd have to sit down and play the guitar. (On paper, the guitar seems like it would play very nicely.) Something like this would be a collectible, yes, but not in the sense of traditional collectible guitars like classic Strats or Les Pauls. It's almost more of a novelty item, and personally I'd want to play it, not just put it on display.

Overall, I think it's great that Vinnie has resurfaced and hope that this somehow works out for him and that there will be some sort of new music on the way. But given Vinnie's activity -- or lack thereof -- for the past decade and a half, I can't blame anyone for being hesitant or doubtful about this. I know I have my own hesitations and doubts. Time will see how this all unfolds...

For me personally, even if Vinnie is never heard from again, this will always be a nice memory, as my experience with Diane and Tom was nothing but positive. To that end, I wish Vinnie the best with this venture. And to draw an applicable parallel, if Gene and Paul want to charge $1,000 for meet-and-greets, or Paul wants to charge $5 K for a broken signed guitar, or X artist wants to charge X price for a concert ticket, part of me says Vinnie is well within his right to charge whatever he wants to for his custom guitars, no matter if I or anyone else agree with it.

During my second visit, I took a bunch of more photos. I am not a professional photographer so many came out poorly, and I also shot some video (some of which is shaky, I guess because I felt rushed). One of my videos has gotten nearly 4,000 hits in just two days. Crazy...

poserboy71 wrote:

poserboy71 wrote:

Lorenzo Lamas,Andy Sandberg,Jack Black, Alan Alda, George "The Animal " Steele, and Don Knotts.

poserboy71 wrote:The silver Anniversary model could be made with that diamond chrome plating process. I don't know how it affects the sound ,but it sure looks cool.

Ryan Roxie (Alice Cooper) recently had a guitar that had a finish like this. It looks like a metal mirror (for lack of a better description).