Jeff Fiorentino's equipment details - page 2
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Jeff Fiorentino's equipment
details - page 2
Click here to return to the
main website
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Jeff Fiorentino's Green (Metallic pea)
mid 80's
era Kramer Baretta
All text
written by: Guitarist Jeff Fiorentino
This guitar was found in a dumpster near
our "old" studio location on 5th St. in
Santa Monica CA. It has a crack in the body and was thrown
away
probably by either a brain dead fool, or someone's angry girlfriend, or someone that just didn't know any
better.
I have a lot of spare parts laying around the house so I put it back together
and to be honest its become one of my most asked about guitars. 1.
because it's a Kramer Baretta and people love those because of Eddie Van Halen,
and 2. because they wonder why I ruined it with such an awful paint color...lol...
All that aside
I've done a couple of studio gigs with it, and it's a real nice playing and
sounding guitar. I really like it a lot despite what some think about the
color. Its certainly come a long
way from its original final resting place in a Santa Monica dumpster. As far as electronics go
I originally had put it together with a Duncan JB pickup at the bridge, however I changed it to
a Duncan PAF 59. This pickup seems to work better in this guitar. It gives
it a very authentic VH tone especially on big chord ring outs. Obviously
it being a Kramer from the 80's I use it primarily for Van Halen type
applications. But you know it can do Jazzy stuff too. So if you have
a Kramer like this one at home go ahead and take it to a Blues or Jazz gig /
jam, it'll do just fine I promise. The Floyd
doesn't float on this guitar and much like the White Kramer I leave this guitar
with a flat tuning. Although because it's a non-floating bridge I can easily tune
this guitar to a standard tuning if I want to, but tuning a Kramer to a standard
tuning is kind of a sin around here.
Not much more I can say about this guitar, I don't use it a lot on video but I
do use it to record a lot of the mp3 files you hear. It's not a good video
guitar because it's hard to see the neck. Maple necks are easier to watch
and see finger movement on. I use this guitar to record about half the
song tracks featured on our Van Halen style product line though, so you've all
heard it a Million times.
The neck on this guitar by the way is actually the original neck that was on the
White Kramer. It's a Kramer American neck for the Sustainer guitar with a
classic "U" shape to it. It's a smooth playing comfortable neck. These vintage Kramers from the 80's are worth their weight in Gold and should never be just
tossed away for something as stupid as a crack in a non-essential location.
Frankly there's really no need to throw away a solid guitar body because it's cracked
in the first place. It's just a piece of wood, glue the darn thing back together
tightly with some biscuits and it'll be just fine. I should point out that
things get
more complex with hollow body guitars, but if it's a solid body you're dealing
with, a little glue and C clamps is really all you need per say. Worst
case scenario just cut the darn thing into a new shape. Make a Triangle
out of it or something, who cares. As long it plays OK that's all that
matters.
____
VACATISMS 101 -
Adventures in Metallic Pea. The story of a weird
sound guy and a guitar color that's hated by some.
--- Written by Jeff Fiorentino
Copyright
© 2008
( vacat·ism -
[vacat-siz-uh
m]
- noun -
definition: Seemingly meaningless advice and or life
lessons given to friends and total strangers based on events that happened in or
behind the scenes of a Chevy Chase comedy movie.. Said advice or lesson is
usually totally off point, often leaving the recipient confused, dumbfounded,
and sometimes frightened. )
On a separate slightly funnier note.
This guitar seems to be a bit of a bone of
contention for Kramer fanatics that either know me, or come to the website. I get yelled at a lot about the color of this guitar
in particular.
Fans of the site and or of vintage
Kramer guitars often email me in anger (and I'm serious too) asking why I ruined this classic guitar
by painting it this god awful Green puke color. Some of these
"fanatics" are actually enraged to an alarming level, so I should point out that
I use the phrase, "Kramer fanatic", quite literally.
Fact is, I always laugh when I read those emails because I know the back
story behind why we painted it this color. It's all in good fun and maybe
we should have re-painted it by now but the truth is I kind of like the color,
it looks real cool in a dark studio.
The reason it's painted this awful shade of Green is a hilarious story, but you kind of have to know the person it's about to
follow it and get the full humor impact of it... "It's actually
about our very own Mick the Mixer here at JFRocks.com. Now as our credits
page states that's NOT his real name of course. We can't say his real name
here on the website because it's a conflict of interest for him to be my sound
engineer."
In an effort to prevent, or at the very least cut down on, any future hate mail from confused Kramer fanatics
that think I'm butchering a vintage instrument, let me try to clear up a few
things.. It's a good idea when coming to this
website
to understand that a lot of what we do here at JFRocks involves some sort of
inside joke. Inside jokes are all over our video lessons,
especially the Mailbag videos where we're not trying to be overly professional.
We try to have a sense of humor about what we do here so that it's more fun for
us to put in the long hours we do to make this site and its products happen.
Ultimately this site is just a bunch of good friends with too much time on their
hands and a desire to teach, play, and record music, or in the case of a couple
actors who work for the site to simply do something entertainment related while
they wait for a part to happen for them. We really don't take
ourselves that seriously. We take the teaching seriously, but not
ourselves, so with that comes a lot of joking around and messing with each
other.
Most fans of JFRocks know this already but for those that don't. Pretty
much everyone
that either works for me or volunteers their time over here is in the entertainment industry in some facet,
either behind the scenes, or even in front of the camera. We're in
Los Angeles after all, and I work in the industry myself so of course my friends
are always willing to lend a hand around here.. This site started out real
small and was pretty much just me and a friend of mine in the beginning, it was kind of a
just for fun
thing. With its increase in popularity over the years it has now it's
grown into this rather large operation that's taken over my guesthouse and in
some aspects my entire life.
Now where this all ties in with the puke Green color of this Kramer guitar is
that a lot of our inside humor and razzing stems from gigs in the industry that
we've all either had or been connected with. Usually most gigs, especially
for actors in particular will leave some sort of lasting impression.
Sometimes that impression is in the form of new lifelong friends but more often
than not
that impression also comes with a lot of stories, jokes and things of that
nature...
So taking what I've just typed into account, in the case of the Green Kramer,
the Puke Green hating Kramer Fanatics among us can simmer down.. lol...
I'm not trying to ruin a classic Kramer guitar. The term and color
"Metallic Pea" (as indicated in the description photo below) is taken from the color of the "Wagon Queen
Family Truckster" from the original National Lampoon's Vacation
movie from back in the mid 80's. Oddly, I've never seen the movie but man
do all of us over here end up hearing about it.
Without going
into too much detail and blowing the joke, in a nutshell it stems from the fact that one our JFRocks behind the scenes people
who also works for Warner Bros. worked on the original
"Vacation" movie from start to finish and references it constantly in almost any life situation
giving what can only be called "odd" life lessons to others based purely on things that happened either behind the
scenes of, or in the Vacation movie itself..
It's REALLY hilarious, it's
all we can do to keep a straight face when we hear one coming...lol...
It's especially funny when it's a total stranger receiving the advice, because
the confused look on their face is mind-blowing! They assume it's a joke,
and are almost frightened when they find out that it ISN'T!!! lol..... I
can dig it too. People will stand there totally baffled as to how for example, "Rusy's beer with dad" helps them
get a handle on their house foreclosure situation or bank loan problems.. lol...
Like I said it's just the most bizarre advice that's purely based on stuff that
happened either in, or behind the scenes of "Vacation"..
"Over the years I've learned to take this "Vacation based" advice and decipher
the moral for people, In fact I'm the best at it around here despite never
seeing the film other than remembering the trailer for it on TV when it first
came out.. Admittedly
it's not always easy for me to de-code the advice but I can see how a total stranger would cock their
head in confusion at most of it... lol...."
We call these Vacation based life lessons, "Vacatisms".
Our sense of humor has no bounds though... As many of you who have been
around here awhile know, we did a short spoof of National Lampoon's Vacation
back in early 2007 as a birthday gift for JFRocks's Mick the Mixer. Well technically we
shot the film in late 2006 but it wasn't edited and ready to roll until April of
07 just in time for Mick's birthday bash. The film isn't available online and the DVD is not for sale as it was
off the books and we secured no rights to make it. Despite this it ended
up being posted on YouTube back in late 2007 by a party goer who wasn't thinking
and we ended up having to jump through some hoops and get it removed from public
view. I had done the soundtrack
for it with Alan Davis who has produced some great stuff here on the JFRocks
site for us like "Johnny B. Bad Ass" and "Road Trip with Huell". We did remakes of "Holiday Road",
and "Dancin' across the USA" from the original National Lampoon's Vacation
soundtrack which were given to me as singles on CD by Alan since I really had no
idea what the songs were and needed to hear them to do a remake/re-write..
Those song versions that we did for the spoof film are easily
found on the internet with a simple search of Google.... The spoof film
was titled, "Vacation, The Long Way Down" and featured quite a cast from
yesteryear.... Everyone was happy to jump on board and poke fun at Mick
and his stories because his "Vacatisms" are freakin' hilarious and
moderately legendary in our little circle of friends..
Just to be helpful I've included a condensed definition of Vacatism below:
( vacat·ism -
[vacat-siz-uhm]
- noun -
definition: Seemingly meaningless advice and or life
lessons given to friends and total strangers based on events that happened in or
behind the scenes of a Chevy Chase comedy movie.. Said advice or lesson is
usually totally off point, often leaving the recipient confused, dumbfounded,
and sometimes frightened. )
I won't bother going into any detail about the "specific inside joke" of
why specifically this guitar was painted "Metallic Pea" because like I
said already you would have to know Mick the mixer for it to have the full
impact anyway.
As far as the Guitar's color goes I will say (and
trust me it's with absolute certainty) that the paint that we used on this guitar is the
"exact" color used to paint the poor desecrated "Family Truckster" station wagon in
"Vacation". Although I should note that on the videos the guitar appears in it often comes
out a little darker than it actually is. (This is also the case with
the photos below too, the guitar in person is actually about 3 or 4
shades lighter than the pictures reveal it to be.)
____
Hopefully this quick explanation stops the hate emails from angry vintage
Kramer fanatics that think I actually wanted to ruin a rescued Kramer Baretta.
Fact is, I honestly feel that anyone who would send angry emails to us about the
color of a guitar probably has anger issues that run far deeper than my choice
of paint color.
I feel that it's best to live life with a sense of
humor. I know there's a lot of angry people out there, we get their emails
all the time, But come on, it's just a guitar. It's a piece of wood
with some strings on it, calm down! lol... I sometimes wonder
what some of these angry people must be like to hang out with. Do they
just sit around and bitch about stuff all day and then go to bed early with a
puss on their face?? I don't know, but I do know that we spend probably
about 60% of our time behind the scenes here at JFR laughing our asses off at
something or another, because, well, why the hell not!!
So while I appreciate that there are fanatics of Kramer guitars that are angered
by Metallic Pea paint, or don't like the fact that we have a sense of
humor, or don't get the humor, or whatever. I feel it's always a good idea
to look at both sides of a coin rather than just focus anger in one direction.
What I mean by that is if you're still angry at me for the "Metallic Pea"
thing, try to look at it from another angle. We saved this guitar from
a dumpster! On top of that I've since used the guitar (Green paint
and all) on 6 different Los Angeles area radio commercial spots, and a dozen or more
instructional videos. If you're really a fanatic about vintage Kramer
guitars, you shouldn't be angry at me. You should be angry at the moron
that threw the guitar away in the first place... lol ..
No the truth is I don't much care for the color although it's growing on me.
The guitar is just
painted this way as a harmless funny little ding on an amusing "Vacation"
movie alum
that we happen to have among us over here at JFRocks. Nothing more,
nothing less. On the flip side though I think that "some"
people should try to keep in mind that opinions vary. One man's junk is
another man's pot of Gold. Some people like Green guitars, and quite a few
people have emailed in to tell us that they really like the color. From a
color standpoint it's a to each his own thing I guess..
In closing I'll throw the Kramer fanatics a bone here and say that this
particular guitar is one of my favorite guitars to take out and play, it's
awesome!!! If you can get your hands on a mid-80's era Kramer Baretta DO
IT!!! They are amazing instruments that actually lend themselves well to other
styles beyond just Van Halen or 80's rock or power pop in general.
Funny thing is though I can't use this guitar live anywhere (especially in Los
Angeles) without some JFRocks fan walking up to me and asking, "Wow is that the
Vacation guitar"... or even worse, "Is that the guitar from Vacation"...
lol..
This guitar has some seriously weird Karma
attached to it.. Don't even get me started, but it's like a "Three's Company" setup
where the harmless funny tales of Mick's "Vacatisms"
have spread outside of our little circle and have been exaggerated around town
and twisted up into god knows what.
In the end I guess I think if I see "Vacation" I might realize that Mick the
Mixer is in actuality a total moron, and the "Vacatisms" themselves might lose
some of their humor for me. So no I've never actually seen Rusty having a
beer with dad, but I imagine if I ever do it'll have absolutely nothing to do
with someone's house being foreclosed on.. LOL...
Jeff Fiorentino,
JFRocks.com
____
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