Started in NYC by Improv Everywhere eleven years ago, the event has been gaining popularity ever since – so much so that a staggering 27 countries took part in Sunday’s festivities.

Multiple thousands of pantsless pranksters swamped subways all over the world, with LA’s participants -boxers, briefs and thongs on proud display- nearing 400 as they gathered at downtown’s Union Station to alternating amusement and dismay of unsuspecting bystanders, then rode the Red Line to Hollywood and Vine.

The official mission statement instructed “agents” to behave naturally and to answer inquiries with nonchalant ease, which became increasingly difficult as their numbers grew. When time came to pile into a train and head to Hollywood, the northbound Red Line was filled almost entirely with bottomless Angelinos.

Costumed heroes and villains faced serious competition as the raucous mob descended onto the Walk of Fame, while tourists wasted no time snapping away with every manner or photo-device imaginable. Even Mickey couldn’t resist a stolen glimpse.

Words and photos by Zoetica Ebb (@Zoetica)

Friday morning arrived and I manned up, drove into Hollywood, and found myself in the lobby of the world famous Museum of Death. J.D. was there to greet me and there was absolutely no turning back from this point on. I’m happy to report that I went through the museum without fainting, screaming, turning blue in the face, shortness of breath, or any sort of emotional outburst and that after completing the tour, I actually felt like a bit of a wimp for any pre-museum anxiety and a bit of a badass for not having been one of the fainting victims.

“I’m more into installation so I think that the way you can talk as an artist in this day in age is by immersing the viewer in the environment and not so much as just a painting on the wall. By doing that it creates this whole thing around it that you have no control over. And that’s why we have people pass out. You know people come up with their own ideas about what this is supposed to be and that’s the best thing about it,” says J.D.

Just how many people pass out inside The Museum of Death?  Well according to J.D., it happens from time to time but isn’t really an everyday occurrence. “We get a few every month but, like last December, we had seven people pass out.” He went on to explain that it’s a mixture between men and women but that last December was all women. “I had a girl pass out last month and she went down, went through the baby casket area, came back out, got up and went, ‘Wow that was hard.’ I said, ‘You’re going back to see the rest right?’ She goes, ‘You bet.’ And she went back in there. The time before that another girl came three times. She passed out and she kept going back in, kept going back in, and kept going back in.”

The museum features a collection of pieces of, well pretty much what you would imagine, artifacts, pictures, and memorabilia all rotating around the theme of death.  The Museum of Death contains death related objects that you can’t find anywhere else in the world, such as Serial Murder Artwork, autopsy instruments, a body bag and coffin display, World War II images, a wall of funeral home matchbooks, skulls, photos from the Charles Manson and Black Dahlia Murder crime scenes, the eerie Traces of Death video, and a taxidermy animal display, featuring J.D.’s own deceased pot bellied pig Chaos.

J.D., and his wife, Cathee Shultz, decided to start the museum due to the lack of education available on the concept of Death. “We’re all gonna die. It’s not that big of a deal. If you live your life fully right now you have no worries. Don’t wait to live your life. You live it now,” explains J.D.

The museum was originally located in San Diego and J.D.’s first exhibit featured an annual serial killer art show, a project that required him to begin corresponding with notorious killers in prison and on Death Row. “I was juxtaposing cereal boxes, you know the corporate way that companies advertise to children, and serial killers and posing them together so – what’s really evil you know…big corporations that brainwash thousands of millions of kids everyday or serial killers that get a couple hundred victims? I tried to put those together so that people would have a dialogue about what’s been really bad out there -serial killers – cereal corporations. You know it’s a whole weird thing. So that’s how I started writing serial killers because I wanted to learn more about them. I started writing to and then I started visiting them on Death Row and then my wife started writing to them. I still get letters from Richard Ramirez.”

I asked J.D. where on Earth he finds half of these artifacts to which he replied, “People bring things to my desk every day. I’ve been collecting avidly for 25 years – everywhere from EBay to auctions to estate sales – antique stores, thrift shops.” J.D. is proud of everything he has on display in his museum but is particularly pleased with his ‘Guillotined Severed Head of the Blue Beard of Paris,’ “The pieces I have are amazing. The severed head that I have is the only severed head of a serial killer in the world,” exclaims J.D. “Someone saw us on TV who was a neurologist and he lives in Malibu and he had a garage full of brains and stuff. His wife wanted to convert the garage into a day room or family room and so they did and as she was going through the garage she looked in a bag and there’s the head. She brought it in, put in on the kitchen table, and said either the head goes or I go.”

Highlights from my tour included being forced to sit in an electric chair and have my picture snapped, which J.D. said he looks forward to seeing, a taxidermy animal collection including Jayne Mansfield’s Chihuahua, albino creatures, deer hoof BBQ tools, a two-assed chicken, and playing with J.D. and Cathee’s pet two-headed turtle named Eng and Chang.

As you leave the Museum of Death, J.D. looks at you, smiles, and proclaims, “Have a nice life.” After experiencing the museum first hand, I’m definitely more inspired to do so.

The Museum of Death: ENTER IF YOU DARE!

6031 Hollywood Blvd.
Hollywood, CA   90028
(323) 466-8011
$15 admission
Free parking

www.museumofdeath.net

Hours:
Sun-Fri 11AM – 8 PM
Sat 11am – 10pm

Words by Nicole Pajer.  Photos by Zoetica Ebb.

Every Halloween, Johnny Love invites the public inside his spooky world of ghosts and ghouls as he hosts the popular Love Manor, his personal haunt display that invades his home.  Johnny has been transforming his house into a Halloween wonderland since he was a child, where he resided with his family in their San Diego home.  As a child, Johnny was known for tearing up Love abode and spending the majority of the year preparing for the upcoming Halloween season.  His mom often heard him sawing late at night and lay in bed wondering what was happening to her residence.  “I would paint walls, remove fixtures… and would have to fix them later.  I wouldn’t worry about that part till after though,” explains Johnny.  Whether or not the house was restorable, one thing for sure was that Johnny always went all out on Halloween.

“One year we did a Pirates of the Caribbean theme with fog rolling in through five fog machine and 40 galloons of fog juice,” says Johnny.  “We had fireflies out in a cemetery that I built.  They were created with little LED lights with microscopic fans that would go around the trees.  From a distance it would look like a bayou.”  Another year, Johnny put up 120 feet of raw iron cemetery fencing around the entire yard and 50 pounds of Spanish moss in the backyard trees.  “It blew through the neighborhood, but it was great for the moment!”  Before the Halloween season, Johnny would refrain from mowing the lawn for over a month so that it would be a half a foot tall and he’d also drag dead oak trees into the front yard.  Johnny has also been known to rig up several strobe lights to resemble lightening and have wind blowing through the curtains in every room of his home.

Currently residing in Los Angeles, Johnny has his own dwelling to tear up and transform into a Halloween masterpiece.  The day before Halloween, Johnny invited me into the Love Manor as he prepared the final details for the big day.  The first room I visited was the dining room which housed a table set with a white linen cloth and an assortment of eerie treats including a cheese plate with figs and actual meal worms, suckers with insects inside, “Rotten Weeds” aka a mixed greens salad, a mysterious ‘dark’ chocolate cake, bat cookies, wine bottles with “Venom” on the label, and martini glasses with ghost marshmallows and skull swizzle sticks inside.

An adjacent table held candy apples with twigs piercing through them.  Candles were lit throughout the kitchen including tall pillars set amongst a sea of cobwebs. Next to the table sat a witch’s cabinet that Johnny built and filled with antique books of ghost stories, teeth, bottles and potions, skulls, gargoyles, mugs containing eyeballs, and highly venomous snakes in a jar.  Behind the dining area was a frosted mirror, two silhouettes of a man and woman, antique ship paintings and bottles of apple cider bubbling in a cloud of dry ice.  The stairway was marked with flickering lanterns.  A hallway table contained an actual newspaper clipping about a London murder placed inside of a glass jar next to a Sabertooth skull.  Bats and crows popped out of corners of the home and you never knew when you’d run into something like a spider or a cage of rats with bloody bones on the floor next to you.

Upstairs was the swamp room where a wreath constructed of branches hung on a wall behind a table of potions, poisons, Snake Oil and Vampire Blood.  There was a painting, done by a mutual friend who introduced me to Johnny, framed in the room that was ironically inspired by a picture of yours truly.  According to Johnny, the painting is of Charlotte.  “The back story to Love Manor this year is that her husband was Hamilton and he wanted to keep her young forever and he killed her in the process so she haunts the manor.  He was a mad scientist so everything downstairs is his.  We’re going to tell everyone this when they come in.”  In the middle of the swamp sits an antique radio that plays classical music and old Twilight Zone-inspired tunes and adds an extra creepy element to the scene.

The beauty of Love Manor is that all of Johnny’s set ups are one-of-a-kind custom creations that feature props that he hand picks from places like swap meets, garage sales, and various websites.  He is continuously searching for treasures for his Halloween collection, and what he doesn’t find, he creates on his own.  “If I can’t find it.  I usually just try to find some way that I can make it.  I think I go to Home Depot and spend more money on making the house creepy than fixing it up,” explains Johnny who works in the art department for his day job. “Working in art the last few years has taught me a lot about cheap fabrication and how to vintage things up a bit.”  Johnny made the mirror look foggy and the chandelier appear antiquish by applying a coat of dulling spray.  He painted walls and put up molding to create the look he desired for his dining room set-up.  The spider webs on the candlesticks were created by a webcaster gun – hot glue and an air compressor, and the witch’s cabinet was constructed entirely by Johnny himself.  The labels on all of his potions, wines, and bottles were created by Johnny and are extremely popular with his fans.  He offers them as free downloads on his website and people frequently incorporate them into their own Halloween décor.

Love Manor has become so popular over the years that Johnny has dedicated a blog to it, which receives thousands of hits a month.  People from all over the world including Finland, Russia, and various islands follow Johnny’s work.  He had a photo of a kitchen set up in Halloween Celebrations Magazine that Women’s Day puts out and he receives fan mail and Halloween gifts from many of his supporters.  His Love Manor gallery recently surpassed 300,000 hits and his followers are continuously begging for more. “I get comments from people that live in places like Finland saying that they’re so happy that they found my website and Love Manor and they hope that by using my ideas they can help spread Halloween throughout their countries.  That’s a huge honor to have people say something like that.”

Johnny prides himself on staying away from shopping for decorations at big name stores.  He is inspired by the likes of Tim Burton and Mark Davis, who designed the Disney Haunted Mansion. “They just have a really creative style of Halloween that I like.  I’ve never really been a fan of the intestines coming out of baby fetuses on the ground – things you’d see at bigger stores.  I like creating my stuff too because then you know that no one else has it. I love being on the vintage side of everything -The elegant classy side rather than blood and gore.”

Every year his creations are different and he continuously tries to outdo himself.  “When people come into Love Manor I like them to feel disconnected from the outside world.  They definitely don’t see anything that reminds them of going into Kmart and buying commercialized stuff.  That’s what Walt Disney did. When you are in Disneyland and in the park, you can’t see any outside buildings.  When you step into door you are in a totally different world.  I’m slowly achieving that.”

Johnny’s ultimate goal is to have a haunted mansion bed and breakfast where guests can get the whole effect: eat in the dining room together, and take little hearse rides to town.  “That’s definitely one of my goals – in an old spooky village somewhere on the East coast,” states Johnny.

A few weeks after Halloween, Love Manor will start to go back into storage, walls will be repainted, and much to Johnny’s dismay, the normal furniture will be restored.  Then it will be time to prepare for next year’s event, as it takes almost a year to do so.  Ideas will be drafted, sketches will be drawn, and before long, it will be time for next year’s return of the highly anticipated Love Manor.

Words by Nicole Pajer.  Photos by Sidney Bensimon.

For most of us the awkward creations of our adolescence are safely tucked away in the back of a closet or in the deep reaches of the attic.  We stumble upon these relics while packing or spring-cleaning, we laugh, cringe, reminisce and then tuck our creations back in the boxes where they live.  Then there are the few among us who drag out old journals, letters, poems, lyrics, plays, home movies, and art and present them publicly.  Welcome to the world of Mortified, a hybrid of stand up comedy, performance art and show and tell; a meeting of comedy and catharsis.

It all began in the late 1990s when founder Dave Nadelberg stumbled upon an awkward old love letter and began sharing with friends.  In 2002 Nadelberg and co-producer Neil Katcher formalized the project as Mortified, which now boosts 9 chapters including Los Angles, New York, Chicago, Austin and even Maimo, Sweden.

The Austin Chapter’s latest performance took place at The United States Art Authority and featured 8 “authors” along with The Mortified After School Orchestra.  The Orchestra is an eccentric three piece that performs unique covers of old favorites in between the presentations, this includes a stunning kazoo infused rendition of Wham’s Careless Whispers.

The presentations varied greatly but all contained unifying themes.  According to Eric Wallenstein, who presented hard-core lyrics he wrote despite the fact he was never in a band, “Most mortified pieces don’t come from normal well-adjusted kids, and that’s what makes each piece stand on its own … the eccentricities of the maladjusted.  But, at the same time there’s always some commonalities between every show, talk of sex and drugs … and always Anne frank. There is at least one Anne frank reference every show (and they always get a laugh).”

Other musical presentations included Jenn Hartman who summed up her motivation: “As for sharing my material, I have no shame!  And I realize that the terrible, ridiculous, agonizing songs I wrote as a child, only led the way for some of the wonderful songs I have written as an adult.”

Journals are a large portion of the presentation. Jessica Stookey  read from her journal where she documented in detail what she wore to school everyday.  “ When I found out how to submit my embarrassing diary entries I decided what the heck, I won’t get selected anyway.  But I did get selected”

For more information, performance schedules or to find out how you could be a part of Mortified visit www.getmortified.com.

Words and photos by Charles Ferraro

As I walked in for my official behind-the-scenes tour, Todd and crew were in the process of feeding Lenny & Squiggy, a two-headed hognose snake, and one of the rarest snakes in existence.  “There has never been one like that in quoted history,” Todd explained.  Cheech & Chong, a two-headed turtle with six legs, was another intriguing oddity that I was introduced to.  Todd explained that many of the two-headed animals have two personalities.  They often compete over who gets to gobble up their food and sometimes disagree on which direction they want to move in.  I also had a chance to pet the adorably spunky 5-legged Miniature Pincher, Rocky, who Todd and his wife Danielle adopted and consider to be a part of the family.

Todd’s daughter, Asia, gave me a glimpse of her fire eating skills, contortionist maneuvers, and ability to tolerate sitting in an electric chair, which made me a bit squeamish to watch.  Next it was Brett’s turn to debut his sword swallowing skills.  He grabbed a sword, licked both sides, and shoved it down his throat as it disappeared into God knows where.  As if that wasn’t talent enough, Brett took it to the next level by bending forward, showing off another angle of his partially digested sword.

As a child, Todd had a curiosity with the circus and the strange.  It was when his stepfather took him to a carnival that he stumbled upon a performance by Otis Jordan, who carried a message that would stick with him forever.  Otis, otherwise known as the “Human Cigarette,” was a man with ossified hands and legs that used various parts of his body, like his tongue and shoulder, to open a jar of tobacco, pull out rolling paper, pour a perfect line, and light the cigarette.  Captivated by the show, Todd was given the opportunity to speak with Otis afterwards who told him, “If I can do what I can in my condition, you can do anything.”  Keeping Otis’s words in the back of his mind, Todd continued to collect circus paraphernalia, along with ‘strange things,’ while working his way towards a career centered around his other love, the music industry.  After becoming a Grammy-winning producer, Todd opted to bail out of the corporate world and decided to open up the freakshow to try his hand at his passion.

The quest to collect two-headed and other strange creatures is an ongoing hobby for Todd, who frequently visits reptile forums and speaks with hobbyists to track down his creatures from around the globe.  In addition, Todd never stops searching for the most talented individuals that he can find, snatching up anyone who has a show-stopping forte.  Todd explained to me that an 80-year old woman was rolled into his freakshow the other day in a wheel chair, attached to an oxygen tube.  He showed her one of his two-headed turtles to which she replied, “In my 80 years, I have never seen anything like it.”  “That,” explained Todd, “is why I do what I do.”
Words by Nicole Pajer, photos by Sidney Bensimon

For more information on Freakshows and the world of circus sideshows, please visit www.sideshowworld.com

The Venice Beach Freakshow
909 Ocean Front Walk
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 314-1808

Ask anyone and they will tell you that I love things that look like things but are actually other things. Like Chocolate Weapons. I’m not a huge fan of actual guns, bullets or grenades. And I hope to never see any of these things up close ever in my lifetime. But the idea of chocolate anything peeks my interest, add the intriguing shapes of destruction and well, I think they just might have something here.

Chocolate Weapons come in a hand full of varieties, from life size Chocolate hand guns…

…to chocolate bullets…

…to my personal favorite, chocolate grenades!

The boys (come on…you already knew they were boys) from Chocolate Weapons have a history of being in the chocolate business basically their entire lives. You know these clever weapons taste delicious!

Let’s not underestimate the power of packaging. If you threw some chocolate shaped bullets into a bag, I might pass right on the spot. But putting them lovingly into custom ammo cases is just darling. I am about as girlie as it gets but even I want these.

I hate to even utter the phrase, but Valentine’s Day is coming up and you ladies out there know that its near impossible to ever get your fella anything that he wants. This year, tell him he’s the bomb, that you’d die for him, that he’s shot you through the heart. Hey, even cupid needs a little more fire power!

The next time I’m dying for some chocolate, I think I’ll bite the bullet, and give the Chocolate Weapons guys a call!

Words by Barbie Brady

Around Halloween, the inhabitants of all those cozily, carefully-shrouded McMansions in Beverly Hills turn their eyes to the scariest thing in town: The Witch House, which looks like something like a cross between the Gingerbread House in Hansel and Gretel, and a hobbit home in Rivendell. It was built in the 1920s for a bunch of silent, and presumably creepy, films — hey, it was used in the Alicia Silverstone movie Clueless! — before finally being relocated to Beverly Hills. Unfortunately it’s not something open to public view, so the best you can hope for is a drive-by, or, for the particularly brave, a nosy peek through the windows.

But getting out to walk (or possibly trip) around the old stone driveway (which looks almost like a moat) that surrounds it, and viewing the old thatched roof,or the house’s maple-crisscrossed windows, really helps one admire the house’s venerable and strange architecture. Rumor has it that there’s a black cat which likes to perch on the roof at night, too. Even the stains and wear and tear from years of rain adds to the charm of it all. One interesting story behind the Witch House is how the real estate agent trying to sell it in the late nineties couldn’t find a buyer who didn’t want to demolish it. In the end he decided to purchase it– for 1.3 million– and live there himself. Located at 516 Walden Dr, in Beverly Hills, the house makes for an entertaining drive-by, and on Halloween, a must-see (in addition to higher-quality candy you get from rich people).

Words by Jeff Nau

A song called “The Walls are Coming Down” featured in an eye-catching new video that spotlights one of the world’s only remaining escape artists? How could that not pique someone’s interest? Catch up on what’s new with London’s Fanfarlo, and delve into their genre-bending, anarchistic plans for world musical domination.

Fanfarlo is currently touring in support of their new album, Reservoir, which was recorded with the assistance of Peter Katis (The National, Interpol), and released October 6, 2009.  The band recently took the stage of West Hollywood’s own Troubadour with a plethora of instruments and a very cohesive stage energy. ChinaShop was able to borrow a few minutes of bass player Justin Finch’s time for a quick Q&A before the band engaged in their pre-stage rituals, which Justin described as “lots of Red Bull and jumping around squawking” in order to loosen up.

You had a live escape artist in “The Walls are Coming Down” video…tell me a little bit about that?

Justin Finch: The style aspect of the Escapologist in its heyday is something we’re all fans of. Simon at the time was reading about Houdini in regards to spirituality and that really fit in with the songs subject, which is a guy called Father Marcello Pellegrino Ernetti.

Does he ever appear with you on stage?

Justin Finch: We really thought about that, but that show of his takes far too much preparation. Maybe one day when we can prepare him out of sight, we can have him in the show.

What are some future crazy things you guys have planned for videos?

Justin Finch: At some stage, we want to make a video involving a large man made body of water.  This is something Simon and I are very much interested in–hence the album title.  A video set in a submerged village.  There are a few famous reservoirs that have villages at the bottom of them.

What can we expect from your live show?

Justin Finch: Energy and precision is what we strive for right now. I think we all feel what we are doing on stage is improving with every show, so I can only imagine it getting grander.

What makes you guys unique?

Justin Finch: I think with our newer songs especially, we have come at them with a love for a certain genre or esthetic and each one really sounds different from the last.  What makes Fanfarlo Fanfarlo is becoming more ambiguous, but it remains there.

How would you describe your sound?

Justin Finch: Uplifting and Melancholy.

How did your name come about?

Justin Finch: It’s a Charles Baudelaire novella called La Fanfarlo about a dancer and a poet. People can’t help falling in love with her.

What are the plans for the rest of the tour?

Justin Finch: Well, the rest of the tour is around the UK.  As for plans, I’m still trying to shake off the jet lag.  We’re touring with a Swedish band called First Aid Kit and I think from a musical aspect it’s gonna be very interesting.

What is the weirdest thing that has happened to you on tour?

Justin Finch: Amos got seduced by a Swedish dwarf.  Simon and I bumped into Adam Green in a hotel Lobby in Norway and we ended up singing ‘Jessica Simpson’ with him on a little acoustic guitar he just bought.  That was awesome and surreal.

What is the biggest show you’ve ever done?

Justin Finch: The O2 arena in London with Snow Patrol.  It was 20,000 people or something nuts.  Not the most fun, but definitely the biggest.

Smallest?

Justin Finch: We played a show in Manchester years ago where the only 3 people there were our friends.  That was shocking.  I ended up playing from the non- existent audience and watching the band.

What is your biggest accomplishment as a band to date?

Justin Finch: Before the U.S. tour, I would have said the album Reservoir but I think playing a largely sold out U.S. tour was amazing for us – especially in NY where Bowery and the Bell House were both sold out…Just crazy and uplifting.

What is some advice that keeps you sane in the crazy world of music?

Justin Finch: My advice is to stay sober and remember that however tough it gets, it’s better than your last job.

Words by Nicole Jones, photos by Curious Josh

Gold Bug is a deco and curiosity shop tucked behind Old Town Pasadena’s main drag, just a block off of Colorado Boulevard. Brimming with entomological rarities, heart-stopping artisan jewelry, toys, knick-knacks, spider-adorned dishes and hilarious taxidermy, this place is a total treasure trove. Forget kid in a candy-store, when I walked in here I felt like Marie entering the magical kingdom in The Nutcracker [really]. It’s easy to get lost amidst gilded walnuts stacked in candy dishes beside brass jumbo teeth and towering old-school hourglasses, delicate golden keys hanging in bunches from porcelain display hands and stacks of tin crowns inviting customers to play dress-up. Though the prices can get a bit steep, the merchandise is precisely the kind you’d actually want to save up for. Perfect example: a huge oxidized silver ring with shimmering blue butterfly wings under glass. In the words of Garth: “One day, it will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.”

Words and photos by Zoetica Ebb

Rick James Stewart

For those of you into the Supercross scene you are well aware of James Stewart Jr., better known as James “Bubba” Stewart, and as seen above, alter ego, “Rick” James Stewart. For those of you not in the know I’m about to school you, Stewart is really the first black supercross athlete who has pretty much dominated just about every race he’s competed in.

Stewart won the 2009 Monster Energy® AMA Supercross, an FIM World Championship, season finale in Las Vegas. On the winner’s stand he was presented  with a one of a kind, custom, Guitar Hero Guitar.

This is about the genius that went into that Guitar Creation (prepare to geek out now).

The following Description by Ben Lewry of Visionary Instruments

Things started with a sandwich of wood glued together to make the body. Lightweight Bass wood was used for the body sides, and an Adler strip was placed in the center to give more strength to the neck joint and electronics mounts.

Next the plastic guitar controller was disassembled and carefully measured to create a virtual model for the computer controlled router.  These components were positioned into a full sized guitar model.  This model was then cut out of the square of wood, using the CNC machine, in order to make the body.

A similar process was done for the Maple neck.  Removing the original buttons and circuitry and creating a cavity for them in the full sized wooden version. I thought about using aftermarket buttons for the controller, but decided that this might change the way the game feels to play.  Without having time to test different styles of switches, I thought it was best to just use the originals.  The down side of this is that I was forced to make the neck slightly thicker than a standard electric guitars’… Perhaps no worry for the guitar hero professional

It was great fun to destroy the warranty and harvest the components from the plastic controller.  The band saw cut that plastic like butter…

Next an aluminum cover plate was cut to protect the electronics. I actually made a plywood template with the CNC router, using the same program I used to make the body.  That template was then traced onto the aluminum and cut out with the band saw and a sanding wheel.  A perfect fit…

Next trick was to duplicate the Guitar Hero buttons in Ebony, and mount them to the neck.  I precisely traced the profile onto the wood and hand routed them with a dremel tool.

These buttons were glued to the ebony and then carefully mounted in the neck.  The wires from the buttons to the circuit board had to be replaced with much longer ribbon cable.

It would have been very easy to assemble the neck by simply gluing it all together.  But I wanted to make the guitar repairable if the buttons ever wore out, so I came up with a special detachable system and hid the screws and joints as close to the frets as possible to give the illusion of a continuous fingerboard.  Then the rest of the frets were installed. This allows the button portion of the fingerboard to be removed easily with just four screws.

With the internal work complete, the neck could be shaped and sanded to it’s final dimension.

Once the neck and body shaping and sanding is completed, I began to work on the finish. Test sprays were done with the adhesive vinyl.  The problem was that the finish did not stick very well to the vinyl, and peeled off easily.  However, when we substituted for poster paper, the ink used to print the graphics began to bleed into the finish.  Fortunately, I had two copies of the printed graphic and was able to find a solution.  I used a spray on oil-based polyurethane which did not pickup the colors off the graphic.  This poly was kept as an intermediary between the lacquer clear coats, and the ink on the paper.  With this new technique I was able to protect the graphic and still spray a high quality clear coat on top of it.  The whole thing was then glued down to the body with 2-ton epoxy and carefully cut to fit the top and components.

Before I sprayed the clear coat lacquor, I added a soft black burst to hide the edges of the graphic.

This gave a beautiful transition into the black on the back and sides of the guitar. Then several coats of clear were sprayed over the next three days. I then took a little break and allowed the lacquor to harden. Lacquor dries in a matter of minits, however it’s not hard enough to sand and buff to a high gloss for over a week.

While the lacquer dries, I powder coated the aluminium cover plates for the back of the guitar. Black powder coating adds a beautiful and durable finish to metal parts.

Once the lacquer was dry, I sanded and buffed out the neck and body. This is easily the most painful part of the process. Sanding and buffing seems to take endless hours and one small mistake can ruin the entire finish. This guitar needed to be ready on time and there was no room for error! It was fun to include the broken warranty sticker on the headstock.

With the sanding and buffing done, it was time to install the hardware. No substitutes were made for quality parts, real Fender tuners were mounted on the headstock to give this guitar the authentic look!

Next the plastic from the original controller was glued into the body and the switches were installed.
Time to start wiring! I took the ribbon cable from the neck and threaded it through a hole in the body. All these wires needed to be reconnected to the circuit board. Then the components were hooked up – whammy bar, four way pad, and star power button. A little grease was added to keep the strum bar from squeaking (a common problem with many of the guitar hero controllers). Without the back cover of the original controller, I needed to create a way for the whammy bar housing to stay in place. Custom aluminum strips were added for this job.

The next problem was to relocate the sync button. An additonal button was added, flush mounted to the rear cover plate, so the controller could be synced to any x-box you like. I made sure to preserve all the original components, if the guitar ever needed to be hard wired to an x-box.

Rewire finally complete…

I added a little personal touch under the battery compartment, just in case someone wondered where this guitar came from.

Finally the finished custom full-sized Guitar Hero controller could rest up before the big game. Fits nicely in it’s case!

Words by Barbie Brady