Content area
Full Text
In a 42-year-old class C industrial building in Westminster, Kevin Ryan crafts $12,000 guitars.
There's no name on the door; it goes on the guitars.
He sells 30 to 40 a year, some for $40,000.
Jackson Browne is a customer.
Folk and blues man Eric Lugosch, as well.
TV producer Michael Jacobs another.
The kinda guys who list Guitar Shoppe in Laguna Beach as an emergency contact.
Model Builder
Second-home guitar dealers-Norman's Rare Guitars in Tarzana, the North American Guitar Co. in London-are why Ryan took a 10-by-10-foot booth for $2,700 at the National Association of Music Merchants show, or NAMM, at Anaheim Convention Center this week.
He's attended for 25 years; this is his first exhibiting.
"We're changing the business model," Ryan said last week as he worked on a 10string model that will be in booth 1902 in Hall E with nine other guitars-all 10 already spoken for by one dealer.
"I can only build so many guitars in a lifetime," said Ryan, 61. The 10-stringer bears No. 922 and Ryan's stylized, cursive R in flexible abalone on the guitar head near the tuning pegs.
"We need to get these guitars in a lot more hands."
Riff Week
Others have the same idea.
A NAMM website search for "fretted" exhibitors-guitars electric and acoustic, ukuleles, mandolins, basses and accessories-turns up 907 results, from 660 Guitars Inc. in Gilmer, Texas, to Z.Vex Effects in Minneapolis.
On the list are several dozen Orange County exhibitors, including Kay Vintage Reissue LLC in Newport Beach, Rickenbacker International Corp. in Santa Ana, and Yamaha Corp. of America in Buena Park.
Fender Musical Instruments Corp., formerly of Fullerton and now in Los Angeles, is there, as is the Fullerton-based U.S. arm of Duesenberg Guitars in Hanover, Germany, and the Huntington Beach-based U.S. arm of Tagima Guitars in Brazil.
Accessory makers include Snark in Irvine, Bad Cat in Santa Ana, and Gruv Gear in La Habra.
Irvine-based logistics provider Aeronet Inc. gets product from Santa Monica-based Cordoba Guitars to NAMM.
Stratocaster Characters
Today a budding Buddy Holly or Buddy Guy could circle OC, collect parts-strings and pegs, a bridge, a neck-and build his own guitar.
Yesterday...