S A L U D

SALUD

Texas Toasting the world of music...

In This Issue:

September 2024

OUR NEWEST: The AMERICAN ICON There’s no identity crisis here - familiar yet unique at the same time.

Are you Iconic?

The Guitar Build Workshops get a new name, a new look, and some new offerings Get to know Texas Toast Guitars’ Matt and Chris Twenty Questions with Jim Jamm Jimmy Need some new tunes in the rotation? The guys share what’s currently on their playlists

The Inaugural Issue: It’s onward and upward with Texas Toast Guitars. Here’s what’s going on...

“If you climb in the saddle, be ready for the ride...”

If there’s one thing I’ve figured out about tthis business of guitar building, it’s that...I haven’t.

Letting go of things that are beyond our control is a long and continual exercise in patience and resolve. As it turns out, the world doesn’t bend to your will so it eventually becomes apparent that we have to just embrace absurdities and acknowledge some overwhelm. When failure comes (and it does) I try to fail quickly and step from the past and into the present. Oh, the tales our piles of “cut in half” bodies and broken necks could tell...

But hey. That’s showbiz, man.

The good news is that’s the business. The art and soul of guitar building is still beautiful and amazing and intriguing and seductive and creative to me. It’s who I am and it’s what makes walking through the shop doors fun. The sights and sounds of the shop are an elixir, the cocoon to butterfly stages of our creations are truly climactic, and the people who have passed through as well as those that have become a part of TTG have forever changed me. The ability to work a passion is a gift that hasn’t gone unrecognized. I’m a lucky man.

I have often reminded someone mid-tale - “no, no...you don’t HAVE to do it, you GET to do it...” and it’s the damn truth.

We GET to create beautiful instruments in our shop, in our hands, and send that piece of us, that collective inspiration, out into the hands of someone who is actually waiting for it.

It’s cool. It’s really, really cool.

Matt

The Texas Toast Challenger Level 2 Loaded Package Fabric Top Starting at $1,699 USD

www.texastoastguitars.com

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The American Icon We discuss Texas Toast Guitars’ newest design with Matt Flaherty

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5280 Lutherie Workshops The rebranded Guitar Build Workshops from Texas Toast have gotten a makeover.

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Get to Know Matt & Chris Who ARE these guys? One finds joy in peace and quiet, one finds it on the open road. Who’s who?

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Jim Jamm Jimmy You know him, you love him. Our friend Jim sits down with us for a quick 20 questions.

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The Toast Each edition highlights someone near and dear to our hearts. Meet Don “Doc” Siltanen...

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Shop the Shop This issue’s buying guide for some shop must-haves.

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Groovin’ Get the playlists that keep these guys rockin’ and rollin’.

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The Great American Guitar Building Contest We’re already planning for next year. Here’s this year’s winner, Deven Rittal!.

SALUD -The Inaugural Issue -

Volume 1. September 2024 Texas Toasting the world of music, and all the people, places and things that make it.

We know we’re a product of our own blood sweat and tears here at Texas Toast, and we have created this magazine as a vehicle to show you what’s resulted from these hard miles. We love what we do, it’s who we are, and we are proud to offer our beautiful instruments to anyone who can appreciate the precision of our craftsmanship, the thoughtfulness of our designs and the style they bring to whomever is fortunate to play them.

Style.

That’s what this magazine is about. Us. Our guitars. The people and places that help us create the Texas Toast vibe. And the sometimes agonizing pain of hanging on to the past traditions of guitar building and seizing the opportunities of modern advances at the same time.

See what we build, see what we teach, and see what our friends and colleagues are doing in today’s world of music.

Editor / Photography Joy Kaminski www.texastoastguitars.com

The American Icon

The newest model from Texas Toast Guitars, The American Icon is “your guitar.”

From design, construction, paint and assembly, we built this instrument with one thing in mind...Making you fall in love with the guitar every single time you pick it up.

We are American, and as such, your new favorite guitar should have a decidedly American aesthetic. We paired decades of modern lutherie with inspiration from the classic blues and roots instruments, so it is familiar and unique all at once.

One thing was for sure...we were not content to build another electric shaped, acoustic style instrument with an obvious identity crisis.

The result is an instrument that delights you from across the room. One that inspires you to play and have fun making music again.

Starting at $2,499

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Matt has had a vision for quite some time about creating an instrument that felt so right, sounded so good and looked so sexy that the player would never want to put it down.

Thus, the birth of

The American Icon.

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When did you first start thinking about building the American Icon?

The first time that I wanted to build a guitar that was like the Icon was after a NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) Show. I think it was probably 2016 or 2017. We were wandering around all the booths and I was getting inspired by building an acoustic style instrument that looked easier to play than what people think of when they think of a standard steel string acoustic. I wanted something with a little smaller body, a little thinner body, that took electric guitar strings so that it was as easy to play as an electric guitar but had some of the same sonic properties as an acoustic. Of course the idea of a guitar like that is nothing new. I remember growing up in the 80s, Kramer had an instrument called the Farrington which was a full-on acoustic guitar but it was shaped like an electric. In fact it was kind of shaped a little like an 80s style electric. They had pointy head stocks. When “MTV Unplugged” was a big show everybody played these Kramer Farringtons or something like that and they were really popular but they were really dumb. (laughs) And then before that Gibson had something they called the Silent Acoustic and it was a Chet Atkins signature model. I always thought that guitars like that were neat. The Chet Atkins looked cool. It was, I believe, supposed to be an instrument that was an electric instrument for recording that gave you the same sonic qualities of an actual classical instrument.

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How many iterations of this specific guitar build have you gone through before arriving at what it is today?

There were at least a couple of them back in my home shop, back in the old Gray Street days when I worked out of my garage. It was wildly different than where we landed today for the Icon and all those guitars got chopped up and never to be used again. I think it was because I didn't have a good plan, I just had this vision of what I thought it could be but I didn't have a good plan on how to do it correctly. I think everything changed when I started using bent sides and doing more instead of trying to come at this the way that everybody else in the industry does where you take a big block of wood and cut away a bunch of material from the inside. I think when I got back to my roots of actually bending sides like an acoustic, that's when everything changed. So there were a handful, probably 3 or 4 guitars, that were sub-optimal but they were built like an electric guitar to look kind of like an acoustic guitar. What the Icon really is now is when an electric guitar builder builds an acoustic guitar... this is what he comes up with. Believe it or not, I think the biggest inspiration for the Icon was that nothing like it existed. There were some things that were close but nothing was exactly what I wanted.

The biggest inspiration is probably the B&G Little Sister. I really like those guitars and while I have never met the guys from B&G because they're in Israel and I'm in the United States, that was probably the biggest inspiration. But other than that there was a lot of stuff that came close but really just missed the mark. I thought that the Fender Acoustasonic was neat but it's not what I wanted to make. That, to me, was too much like things that had come before and not enough like something brand new. What sets the icon apart is the construction technique and that's the thing that people don't really understand. With the Icon, what we don't do is as important as what we do. I don't really want to get into all the specifics of how we do that but, mark my words- I believe one day some big company that you know is going to catch on to what we're doing and they're going to do the same thing. And while that is this great cloud looming over me because as soon as (insert name of guitar company that you've heard of before) starts to make it, the Icon will be the “also-ran”, but I really do believe that they will take some inspiration from us. And so, in a way, that's a good thing. That's a cool thing, too.

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We have seen a tagline of the American icon being “your guitar.” What niche is this going to fill and who is this guitar designed for?

I certainly had no idea that this guitar was going to be as neat as it is when I first started doing this. I thought this was going to be a pet project of mine that only I liked. What happened was after several years of refinement this became a guitar that everybody seems to love and gravitate towards. It's the guitar that people pick up and don't want to put down. It's easy to play and it's fun to play and it's unique and familiar and it's the perfect guitar for filling a niche that nobody knew was needed. It's an answer to a question nobody asked, but as it turns out it's just a really fun thing. It's not quite as loud as an acoustic, and it's louder than an unplugged electric. It plays as nice as an electric and it's the same aesthetic as an acoustic.

It's just a really neat little guitar. So that's the reason that it's “your guitar.” When people pick it up they don't want to put it down. It makes playing guitar fun again. I had no idea that was going to happen. Of course I’m elated that it did but I had no idea that was coming. It will very, very quickly become your go-to guitar, if not your favorite guitar.

So it is the perfect guitar for social and party situations with friends. Is it your gig guitar? Is it your stage guitar for a big show?

I don't see why not. You know, I would say that every electric guitar probably gets played 90% of the time with no amplifier. Plugging into an amp requires an extra step, and finding a cord, and then you know, getting the amp set just right.

That's certainly cool, and to quote the movie Crossroads, “Muddy Waters invented electricity,” but sometimes the convenience of just picking up a guitar and strumming it is a really cool thing. I built the Icon to be something that's fun to play acoustically but also is sonically excellent played plugged in. Now generally speaking, it does not offer some of the features from the 80s like double locking tremolos and lots of pickups and lots of switches and controls, but we only use premium components, premium electronics. The pickups that we choose to go in the Icon sound terrific. And because there's only one, you don't really worry too much about all these great sounds that you can get. I get stymied by that a lot. People who I respect say things like, “The guitar has to be personal” or, “What do guitar players want? They want more sounds!”

The fact of the matter is, I think that what guitar players want is more guitars! And the Icon - I don't consider it to be a one trick pony. I think it's got at least a couple tricks but it's very, very good at those tricks. The versatility that it offers on paper does not look comparable to some of the other modern offerings from Fender or Godin, or, you know, (insert name of guitar manufacturer here) but it does so many things so well and it looks classy. If you are a roots musician or a country musician or if you just want something that kind of looks like an acoustic guitar on stage, the Icon is everything that an acoustic guitar is, in an easier to play package

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How can you customize your Icon?

That's a great question. The standard Icons come with Honduran Mahogany backs and sides, Honduran Mahogany necks, and Flame Maple tops with Rosewood fret boards. They're all double bound with neck binding and they look classy. The neck joins the body at the 16th fret which is pretty cool. They feel a little bit like a regular electric in that regard. Even though the Icon looks a little bit bigger than a standard electric, it feels instantly comfortable and instantly familiar. As far as color options go on the standard, I like them both with and without sunbursts. They are available both ways. Now, every so often some new wood will drift through and we'll try some new combinations. I really like the allmahogany version, so it's all the same back and sides to neck, with a mahogany top. I also like the all-Maple we're doingback and sides and top and maple neck, or even a mahogany neck. We're still experimenting but we're taking a lot of cues from the old acoustic instruments. One of the first ones we did had a Rosewood back and sides and I was really excited to do it but I was a little lukewarm on the end result. Mahogany and Maple so far seemed to be the perfect marriage between an electric and acoustic hybrid. Of course, if you wanted to do something outside the box like a Paduq back and sides or Wengue back and sides we could certainly do that with the way it's constructed. I think we'll probably see some Spruce and Cedar tops coming soon.

We saw a black Icon recently with chrome finishes that gave it an edgier feel...

Yeah they're definitely cool. That was the one we did for Dylan McKerchie from Dylan Talks Tone. He customized that a bit and added a Bigsby and some other stuff. I was certain that people were going to ask for a handful of upgrades almost immediately, and that was one that really worked out well.

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How did you come up with the name, “The American Icon”?

I can’t remember how I came up with the name, but it seemed to fit - a classic name for a classic American style instrument. I didn’t want a goofy name. There’s nothing goofy about it. It derives it’s aesthetics from cool, simple, classic Americana. You can’t beat Levi’s and a T-shirt - there’s nothing cooler. This is the vibe I was reaching for.

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Welcome to Odyssey Beerwerks...

Odyssey Beerwerks was founded in 2013 and named for a love of travel and new adventures, and just trekking through this odyssey we call life.

The result of over a decade of love and labor is a fullproduction brewery. Odyssey has won numerous medals and awards, ranging from Gold at the Colorado State Fair, to Silver at the Great American Beer Festival, to Gold at World Beer Cup. We’re proud of our taproom, and we’d love to share a pint with you!

Welcome TTG workshop attendees!

Looking forward to seeing you!

Chris and Deana

5535 W. 56th Avenue, Suite 107 Arvada, CO 80002 www.odysseybeerwerks.com Odyssey Beerwerks is a 21+ establishment only!

We are dog-friendly both inside the tap room and on the patio.

Water bowls and treats available!

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The Guitar Building Workshops offered by Matt Flaherty and Chris Fesker at Texas Toast Guitars have been wildly popular, often selling out months in advance. To help accommodate as many particpants as possible, across all kinds of topics, they have overhauled the curriculum, overhauled the workshop areas...and they’re ready to welcome more to “the Brotherhood.” Check it out...

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Sofia Texas Toast Guitars American Icon Black Limba Starting at $2,499

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Texas Toast Guitars “The American Icon”

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You may know about his jewelry, tattoos and ‘57 Strat (yes, it’s a real one...) but Jim is an entertainer at heart, and he’s got some stories to tell...

Twenty Questions with Jim Jamm Jimmy

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Hanna.

Texas Toast Guitars “American Icon” Black Lima Front, Honduran Mahogany neck and back Starting at $2,499

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2231 S. Platte River Drive Denver, CO

Hanna The Texas Toast Challenger Level 2 Maple Top Starting at $2,199

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Hanna The Texas Toast American Icon Black Limba Starting at $2,499

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Chris with some Americana Icons The Texas Toast Guitars “American Icon” Maple Top and his 1969 Buick Electra 225 48

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These “Challenger Level 2” model guitars are a collaboration between Texas ToastGuitars and Maximum Guitar Works. These instruments represent terrific value in an artisan guitar with a number of special options available to make it uniquely yours.

Honduran Mahogany, White Limba, Alder Body or Maple (Maple top, extra) Carved top solid body 3 piece Maple neck or five piece Maple and Walnut neck Modern C or “JJJ ‘57” V to C neck profile Black Kingwood fretboard Hipshot hardware - hard tail or trem Your choice of pickups TTG exclusive 73 finish Starting at $1,699

Matt, with his Texas Toast Guitars Challenger Level 2 www.texastoastguitars.com

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The Texas Toast American Icon Flame Maple with Dog Ear P90 Starting at $2,499

The Texas Toast Challenger Level 2 Loaded Package Starting at $1,699 www.texastoastguitars.com

That is one beautiful model...

This is our Texas Toast Guitars “American Icon.” A decidedly American aesthetic built to inspire you to play and have fun making music again. And, by the way, we think Hanna is pretty amazing, too.

www.texastoastguitars.com