The Music Zoo's Blog Has Moved!

First of all, sorry for the inactivity lately, but we've been busy. Along with a brand-spanking new website, the Blog is now in its new and improved home at:

www.themusiczoo.com/blog

Please check it out!

The Music Zoo / Fender® CS "Vintage Not Rod"

Get ready for the next big thing from The Music Zoo and the Fender® Custom Shop: The "Vintage Not Rod" Series. Back in the early '50s, Leo Fender felt that if a guitar was built right, it didn't need a truss rod (the adjustable metal rod embedded in the neck that helps keep the neck from bowing over time). But the reality of mass production meant that the assembly line could never spend enough time with each neck to ensure that it was made perfectly, so the truss rod went in, and the rest is history. Until now. Tommy Colletti and The Music Zoo traveled to Corona a few months ago to work with the Fender Masterbuilders on making a series of vintage-spec guitars with a solid, no truss rod neck. The Not Rod!

Some of the Fender employees could just not believe that a solid neck would be strong enough to not bend so we tested it out: above, Masterbuilder Mark Kendrick is standing on a neck that has no truss rod inside as other Fender employees and Masterbuilders look on. Mark proudly declared after the test that the neck was still perfectly straight. Masterbuilder Jason Smith didn't believe him, but after looking it over had to agree. It's an awesome piece of work that only the Fender Masterbuilders can pull off.

In the 1950 Fender built a handful of Broadcasters and double pickup Esquires with no truss rod, and those guitars are incredibly sought after today. Why do this now? Tone. Installing a truss rod in a neck means carving out a channel for the rod to lay inside, and where there was once wood, there is either empty space or there is metal. Less wood resonating, less vibration, less tone out of your amp. Plus, it's how the very first Fenders were built, and that's just cool.


The necks are carved slowly, in steps, to give the wood time to acclimate and adjust to its new shape. When they are done they will be completely stable. We'll be releasing more info very soon on specific guitar models that will have the Vintage Not Rod neck, so stay tuned!

Tommy with the Charvel® Nitro Aged San Dimas

The Music Zoo and Charvel® have teamed up to bring you the Nitro Aged San Dimas series of guitars. The Music Zoo's owner, Tommy Colletti, takes us through the guitar and plays some mean guitar to boot.

More Info Leaks Out About the "Cooked Wood" Guitars

We recently announced our latest project with Charvel - a run of guitars that are being built using wood that, using a proprietary kiln-drying process, has 6% moisture content. To fuel the fire (no pun intended), here are some more details about this amazing "cooked wood":

The wood is cooked in a kiln in its own smoke with steam introduced throughout the process. The resulting moisture content is locked at 6% and should not change over time. This means that the guitars, especially the necks, should be much more resistant to atmospheric and climatic changes; in other words, fewer neck adjustments. We are planning to do cooked maple necks to start with, then branch out into using cooked wood necks with regular wood fingerboards and other such combinations.

How light is the wood? Very light. We don't have a fully built guitar weight yet, but when we were at the factory our "arm scales" told us that the treated body and neck together was comparable in weight to a single untreated maple neck. That's really light, y'all. And the wood is very resonant; tapping the bodies revealed a loud, higher-pitched resonance than what you would get from an untreated body blank. To maximize the resonance of the body, our first guitars will have an oil/wax finish and direct mounted pickups.

There is one other nice attribute the raw cooked wood has that will unfortunately most likely not exist on a finished guitar: it smells like delicious mesquite bar-b-q. Mmmmmm, bar-b-q.

Can you smell what The Music Zoo is cooking?

Hold on to your hats folks, because The Music Zoo has some big announcements to make in 2009. We aren't going to drop all the specifics yet, but one of the things we can't wait to show you are the guitars we are building with Charvel using very special wood that has been "cooked" using a proprietary technique that reduces the moisture content to below 6%. The resulting wood is incredibly light, and extremely resonant; two qualities that when applied to guitars are, you know, really good. We went to Charvel's Custom Shop and oversaw the whole process. Pictured above is the Charvel's legendary "Red" Dave proudly holding one of the first pine bodies and maple necks that we will soon have fully dressed and in our hands. Stay tuned for the tone report...

Robben Ford Plays Louis Electric

Here's a clip that was just brought to our attention by the guys at Louis Electric Amps -Robben Ford playing through a KR12 amp. Both Robben and the amp sound great.

Video Evidence: Jim Campilongo is a Bad Man

This happened almost a month ago, but we just noticed that Fender has posted a video from their NAMM Kickoff of the Jim Campilongo Trio. Click here to watch. Jim is a local hero in New York City, and we've checked out his regular gigs at the Living Room on Ludlow Street many times. Anyone in New York on a Monday night could really do a *lot* worse than to drop by and catch his no-cover performance. His incredible tone (aided by the vintage Tele plugged directly into the amp), combined with his behind-the-nut string bends and endless bag of country-fied licks leaves guitarists in the audience shaking their heads.

photo: Ian Meyers