I once ordered three sets of guitar strings and a mic stand from one of the big online music retailers. They sent me one $5 set of strings and three $30 mic stands, charging me $35 as per my order.
To apologize for the windfall, they reached out a week or so later with voucher for 20 percent off a single order — not item, but order, with only the usual fixed-margin manufacturers excluded, namely Apple and Shure, and nothing else.
I went to town on an order: strings, picks, straps, and two big-ticket items, a Fender Blues Deluxe 40-watt tube amp and a Daisy Rock Retro H semi-hollow body guitar with mini humbucker pickups and an ice-blue sparkle finish.
Daisy Rock makes electric guitars for girls. The necks and bodies are small and ergonomically tailored. Some bodies are shaped like butterflies, others like hearts with Power Puff branding. Models include the Pixie, the Venus, and the Debutante, Jr.
Daisy Rock CEO and founder Tish Ciravolo, a seasoned Los Angeles punk and glam bassist who has played with Gene Loves Jezebel and many others, said that “every girl who wants to play guitar is welcomed and inspired to do so.”
The guitars are well made and legit. Tish is married to Michael Ciravolo, president of Schechter Guitar Research, instrumental in the early years of Daisy Rock.
The Retro-H was small and vaguely girlish though not by comparison to, say, the discontinued Daisy Rock Debutante Butterfly, a mysteriously beautiful guitar.
One night, the Retro-H was the only guitar I brought to a Ratboy show at the discontinued Cabaloosa in New Paltz, opening for the punishing and popular Tool tribute band Schism.
It was an unseasonably frigid early spring evening. I had spent several hours on the outdoor patio chatting with friends and gripping an ice-cold pint glasses before being paged to the stage. The crowd was large. Everyone was there to see Schism. Tool fans are, pretty much to a man, gym-buff tough guys with an intellectual taste for dystopian mysticism and odd-time signatures. They packed in around Ratboy.
When we began our set, I could not feel my fingers. The slim neck of the Retro-H felt unfamiliar. Throughout our 45-minute performance, I was the old guy with the tiny girl’s guitar who simply couldn’t play at all, not a note, all flubs.
I just thought you should know.
Read more installments of Village Voices by John Burdick.
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