I am all about gender association but lets give credit where its due, Bonnie Raitt has her own fender signature strat.Lita Ford had her own signature guitar BC RICH warlock, Nancy Wilson has her own signature guitars. I think a female guitarist isn't anything new and we should not make this female vs male thing cause music isn't about gender its sonic art created by anyone. btw rickenbacker was the first electric guitar made.
if you told me the les paul and the stratocaster where designed by women i would literally go "cool" and get on with my day, why is everything a political statement these days fs
I mean, I adore Annie and the achievement of being the first woman to do something, but Ringo Sheena got her own mass-produced signature guitar series like 15 years ago.
That's like telling people to stop talking about the holocaust. It may be a frail and absolutely beaten to death subject, but it's important and still bears heavy relevance to modern societal standards and standards which must be maintained. If we forget about these issues, we'll let the past rhyme over and over and over again.
So few guitarists anymore....let's all get endorsements. -btw: what a STUPID question to lead off the interview. Clearly damage control from her misunderstood socials.
I'm just a 40 year old pretending to be a 20-year-old airhead. You've just blown my cover, Lenny! Damn it! Fugazi, Sonic Youth, Swans and early The Cure are more my cup of tea, if you ask...
I guess you "Feminists" have never heard of Lita Ford, or Carol Kaye, Maybelle Carter, Bonnie Raitt, Memphis Minnie, Nita Strauss, Peggy Jones, Sheryl Crowe, Mimi Fox etc... etc... There are literally thousands of GREAT Female guitarists and other types of musicians. This notion that now the "First" Female anything is ridiculous. Get with the times and look up some great Female musicians for the "Old Days"
@@robertmorley4506 I would imagine I was responding to the notion that this video was claiming to be the FIRST at something. Honestly don't even remember watching it or commenting, nonetheless, I said it, I meant it, it's NOT bullshit. Observe the context.
mmmallory33 To be fair this reporter really had zero knowledge of guitars. Vice should have done better or just not covered the story at all. It was irresponsible journalism on their part.
Luke Skywalker showing off is a massive overstatement. It sounds like it was written by someone who just picked the guitar up 2 months ago and thinks they are sick. I could throw paint at a wall and it would still be better music
Brad Windle imo i think the riffs cool and it sounds way better in the context of the song just because a riff is simple doesn't mean it's bad example would be probably one of the most badass metal riffs ever walk
Im a big fan of Annie-but you’re mistaken in one point: Fender manufactured the Mary Kaye Stratocaster in the 50’s and in fact, it’s one of the most sought out and collectable of all Strats. A gorgeous guitar. That said, Annie Clark’s guitar is wicked awesome, too!
Sick guitar and great artist. Impressively dumb interview. Next time get an actual musician to do the interview with relevant questions to click bait oriented questions to fit your agenda
dude... this is a small clip for a general Vice News audience, not people who want to know about tonewoods and fretboard radius. she is a rare woman to make a sig guitar, and her thoughts about that aspect of her identity ARE relevant.
"First"? So Bonnie Raitt (signature fender released in 96), Lita Ford(Signature BC Rich in the mid 80s), and Joan Jett (signature Gibson in 2006) don't count. It's true she's the first Music Man female artist with a signature but not the first overall
Bonnie Raitt: It looks like any and every other fender. Lita Ford: It really looks like an edgy novelty exercise in guitar design, playable, but not something someone would buy as their only guitar for the guitar's merit. Joan Jett: Hardly a redesign of a Les Paul style body. They said it in this video, its a complete ground-up redesign by this female artist and not a matter of Fender or BC Rich or whatever, paying a female artist to stand next to it.
NO fucking way! JUST NO! She'd be 20x the guitarist she is today if she was riffing on Pantera as a child... she's ok... just ok at guitar. It was such a thinly veiled thing to say.... trying WAY too hard to get those hip points.
Yes, it is a celebrity endorsement. It follows an esthetic value more than effective performance instrument with ergonomic features. But probably it's what music industry wants nowadays, giving more attention to image than the real and deep significance of art. That riff was very goofy btw.
There's a lot of confusion here by people who think that a 'signature' guitar is somehow more than a slightly modified existing guitar. Very few artists, men or women, have been fully present to collaborate on an entirely new design. There's a video of the process she went through to design the guitar with Ernie Ball. She even blended the paints she wanted and defined a unique wiring for the selector switch. It was very hands on. Be curious who else has had the opportunity to do that. I can think of EVH, Les Paul, Alan Holdsworth, Frank Gambale, and Brian May. Who else?
You don't need to look much further than Music Man - John Petrucci's original series and Majesties, the Luke series, Albert Lee's sig, they're a very inventive and colaborarive brand when it comes to artists. But the St. Vincent is definitely something special!
My guess is EBMM didn't let her stray from their signature look. Which sucks, but makes sense. PRS didn't slap a Fender headstock on the Silver Sky for Mayer
I get that this isn't a guitar channel, but wouldn't it have made sense to talk about what makes the guitar unique other than the fact that a woman made it? It shouldn't be a cool guitar just because it was made by a woman. It should be a cool guitar based on its aesthetic merit and functionality (which based on the reviews I've read, is pretty good), AND that it happens to be the first guitar designed by a woman put to the mass market. Pickup selector goes Bridge, Middle, Neck, All Three at once, and Neck and Bridge. IMHO, it looks kind of like an angular reverse Gibson Firebird. It looks like it would have a lot of neck dive as well (which is inevitable with any guitar with a lightweight body and no upper horn).
Edward Lim Only thing I gathered from it is that apparently it's the first guitar a person can play standing up or standing down, as if thats not every guitar ever.
AFAIK this it's the first guitar designed by a woman... Courtney Love designed the "Venus", which formed a sort of "couple" with the Jagstang designed by Kurt Cobain. But in all honesty, the Venus was a bit gimmicky as a guitar, and looks and plays more like an unfinished "prototype" than a well thought out instrument: It's thin sounding and clinking, has a stylish but not very practical bridge that's prone to string breakage, and it's very much an homage to the Teisco-style Japanese guitars of the 60s that became the favorites of the garage/alternative/punk rock scene in the 70s and 80s. And as such, it can never be a great instrument, because a great instrument transcends genre. A Saint Vincent's guitar is a different beast entirely: It's a proper instrument. It's clearly inspired by the 60s Non-Reverse Firebirds, but then again only loosely. It has a functioning trem, a distinctive choice of pickups, and it's overall a great alternative to a Firebird.
Seriously Vice, what a load of shit. I own a bass thats a signature model for Doris Ye....a woman....who had alot of design input on the bass.....and there are plenty of woman out there with signature guitars that range from slapping their name on the headstock to completely redesigning the piece of wood. This is just one thing I know about - cant take Vice at face value. Theres good from this though, a lesson in always crosschecking your news.
the pickguard is a bit...repulsive?! i can't describe it, but the less pickguard there is, the better :D the shape as a whole is good and definitely original. few are like it.
this isnt a job, she just designed a guitar and its her like- signature one. shes a full time musician and they reached out to her and asked her if they could make a custom guitar for her. and they did- she just helped design it
I love St Vincent... interesting body shape reminiscent of the gibson explorer.. she's very creative so this guitar would definitely be made for exploration!
Honestly, this is such a ugly looking guitar to my eyes atleast. She is talking about ergonomics. I bet it has horrible ergonomics. Look at the portion where the neck joins the body. It will be a pain in the ass to access the upper frets. Your thumb will get blocked at first because the body intrudes the neck so early and it will be next to impossible accessing the higher frets. And ugh it looks so dull. Not hatred against women or anything but she could've come up with a better design. The guitar looks like a physically challenged gibson explorer.
I wonder how many Music Man's signature they have sold??? Your a lucky Lady... BUT bring nothing to the table.... SERIOUSLY Music Man?? WOWwwwwwww... Shame
she is not the fist woman to design or receive a signature guitar. mama June Thorp is the oldest off the top of my head. other female artists with signature guitars predating st Vincent's include. Bonnie Rate, Lita Ford, Joan Jett, Flash Bathory, Jenifer Baton. the point is check the facts before you push a false narrative.
Guitars have never claimed to be associated with a gender lol. If you didn’t want a flower guitar to play pantera, why didn’t you get a dean? It has similar top shape to your signature model. I smell a whole heaping mound of virtue signaling here. Vice is fake news!
This is a down piece. Plenty of women have had sigs. Also women love playing guitars period regardless of aim. Bipartisan angles at its best to sell. Let people play what they play.
The Lita Ford guitar is just a warlock with her name on it. Many female artists have had signature guitars over the years. To be fair not many artists in general get to have a brand new design associated with their name. She is joining the likes of Les Paul, EVH, Albert Lee, Dimebag Darrell.
yup, a Gibson melody maker without all the anoying parts of a regular melody maker. and it look awesome. So, yeah, no idea what are they talking about with the first female whatever. The guitar looks sick though and they do a cheaper stearling version that I might be able to check out.
While i don't think this interview is feminist propaganda like some people do in the comments i still don't like the interview because she really didn't go into much detail about what makes the guitar special although i do like the aesthetic in my opinion
A lot of female guitarists have signature models, but she made the design and order the production for the mass market. I am not sure if she is the first one to do it though
When she's collaborating with an established manufacture already it makes me question how much she personally designed. I suspect that she was a really, really involved consultant and it seems like they ended up with a great product.
Don't even mention Courtney Love in this. Her "signature model" was actually plagiarized from another designer. And the alterations made weren't designed from the ground up like Annie's. No comparison there.
Bad example for a valid point, if you were serious about making that point at all and not just interested in trolling or hand-waving. Courtney Love ripped off two guitar designers, Tim George and Danny Babbitt to make her Venus "signature" model. Never credited them for their design, even though that publicity would have helped bolster their names and recognition throughout the industry. That's just scum behavior and an example of using feminism and being a female musician as a branding tactic and not really being interested in innovation or carving a path for other women to follow. Clark is unique in that she's not even thinking about the debt she owns to the "pantheon" of other female rock musicians, she's just naturally that creative and thoughtful. That's a positive example for others to follow, and makes her distinct from other guitarists and musicians period.
