The State of the Guitar

There are state guitars and then there are guitars of the state.

The New Mexico Senate has passed legislation that would establish a state guitar -- an acoustic called the New Mexico Sunrise by the Pimental & Sons shop in Albuquerque. It's made of 10 kinds of wood from around the world and has red coral and mother of pearl inlays depicting a sunrise and a black bear, as seen on the left and right.

It runs about $10,000 but if the New Mexico House and governor approve, that state will probably get it gratis.

Back in the days of the Soviet Union, the state controlled the means of production, which meant the state controlled the means of rocking out and, therefore, the electric guitar was a late bloomer under the Communist Party. After all, could there have been a more damning symbol of American decadence?

Without easy access to electric guitars, Russians would get them from touring foreigners or, using the Russian knack for tinkering, just make their own from whatever parts they could scavenge, according to the author of cheesyguitars.com. Skis were used for necks and it was hard to find a working public phone because they had all been harvested for parts to make pickups for Cold War guitars.

Finally, in the late 1960s or early '70s electric guitars went into mass production in the Soviet Union with the Tonika brand. The result (below), according to cheesyguitars.com, was "an unplayable super-heavy guitar with sick body shape, thickest neck you'll ever find and sound suitable for anything but music."

I think I see how we beat the Russians to the moon.