The original Airline guitars were made out of “ Res-O-Glas“, a fiberglass material, and had a cavity in them where all the electronics were cased.
They were made out of strange materials and were considered cheap guitars. The story goes that in the 50’s Valco launched a line of American made guitars called Airline. This guitar, as pretty as it is, has kept me from looking behind the curtain for a long time. It’s a really cool guitar to come across, but how can you tell these reissues from the originals? Well, the shop owner didn’t have a lot to tell me so ONCE AGAIN I was waiting on this guitar. These guitars sound awesome, and look fantastic too.
The whole range of tones were available on this guitar, from muffled bluesy rhythm and country twang, to near-fuzz and full on stadium crushing leads. The guitar comes equipped with two Airline Vintage Voiced Single Coil pickups, which sounded really great. All in all, I was able to get some pretty rad growl and bite out of it. I was told these guitars sounded bizarre, but I quickly found out that these reissues done by Eastwood were not quite as odd as the originals done by Valco (which I’ll talk about in a moment).
I had some difficulties at first understanding how to blend it well, but once I got the hang of it, I had a lot of fun. Above each pickup is a tone and volume knob corresponding to that pickup, and beside those knobs is a three way “ vintage toggle” tone switch. Because there’s a tone switch, along with dedicated tone controls for each pickup, as well as dedicated volume knobs, there are plenty of tone and blend opportunities. Below, near the output jack is the master volume knob. This, along with the planed edges makes for an eye-popping axe. It’s hard to get creative with body styles and not have a guitar come out looking like a Strat, Tele, SG or Les Paul. The retro look is absolutely handsome, with the striking white on sports car red, and the striped pick guard. You can see the rubber on the side of the body in white. It has rubber binding the tone chambered mahogany body which gives it a strange feel. Here’s where I’ll get all “guitar nerd” on yuh.įirst of all this guitar feels SO different from other guitars. Today, I’m jamming on a Marshall DSL 40C. I sat in the jam space with my funky lookin’ shredder and got ready to rip some licks. Let me tell you all about the Airline ’59 Custom 2P reissue. Well, as I write this blog, I’m coming off of the buzz of having finally played this guitar. So there it was again – so close, so bloody close. I could have bugged him, but I didn’t want to disturb his work. It had it’s strings snapped by the previous customer, and the guy working there was pretty busy repairing another customer’s guitar. But a few reviews ago I went into this shop and was dazzled by all the pretty guitars, and this one was among them. Until I learned that I was driving by it literally every day, in a shop that I had written off before I even went into it. There’s only one dealer in Calgary for Eastwood Guitars ( Airline’s parent company) and I never knew where it was. So I respected his answer…erm…multiple answers. I can picture it getting dropped and ruined, and they’re not exactly easy to replace. I hate letting strangers touch my guitars, and I very rarely let people actually handle my Roland G-707. COME ON! I wasn’t gonna pawn it, I just wanted to see it. I asked several times if I could play it, and his brother always said “Ummm…I…I don’t know. Every…freakin’…lesson, I would teach this kid how to drum, while this red beauty stared at me from across the room. I taught a really talented kid, and he had an equally talented brother, a guitarist. Ladies and gentlemen, please put your trays in the upright and locked position, we are ready for takeoff!įor over two years, I’ve been waiting for this moment – the day when I actually get to play one of these.