Buzzard copy

[Chris P.]

http://www.hembryguitars.com/buzzard.html

Well, this is new. After Fenderbirds and Explorerbirds this is a Fezzard? Buzzder? Kinda like the finish with the logo.

[Dave W]

Another terrible relic job. Not at all like real wear.

[Chris P.]

Uwe must like these:


http://www.hembryguitars.com/NaziX.html

http://www.hembryguitars.com/redBaronRat.htm

(I do like the Red Baron Gretsch but those are all quite made by someone with a bad taste)

http://www.hembryguitars.com/coopcross.htm

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I do like the Red Baron Gretsch but those are all quite made by someone with a bad taste

His "Buzzard" has a basswood body. While I have some basses with basswood bodies, that's not a tonewood that would get the JAE sound and considering there's a huge Who logo on it, it's clearly aimed at that market segment. Looks like somebody has too much time on their hands, lots of aftermarket parts connections, and a decent web developer. I doubt this guy sells many instruments.

 I'm not one for censorship, so I'll say that while I respect his right to put a Nazi swastika logo on a guitar, the fact that he did so unsolicited and publicized it on his website seems like a childish cry for attention. I get the concept: bad boy rebellion and all. But who knows? Maybe he sells most of his guitars to the straight edge Aryan Nation bands. The Iron Cross is a different story, even if the Nazi's kept using it. The Germans of WWI weren't out to systematically exterminate anyone except on the battlefield. Hell, we have Red Baron frozen pizza in the US!

[Basvarken]

That Nazi guitar is a display of very bad taste and lack of historical awareness and respect.
It is disgusting.

[Chris P.]

When I saw it I was silent for a while... That someone builds that... Very bad taste.

[Dave W]

I didn't look at his other guitars.

"Although I am not a Nazi and hope this guitar offends no one, I have to admit this guitar is striking and embodies what rock and roll is all about. Loud. Brash. In your face. Rebellious."

What a crock.

[Lightyear]

I didn't look at his other guitars.

"Although I am not a Nazi and hope this guitar offends no one, I have to admit this guitar is striking and embodies what rock and roll is all about. Loud. Brash. In your face. Rebellious."

What a crock.

Yeah, to say the least.  The guy should be given a permanent place in the douche bag hall of fame

[uwe]

Uwe must like these:


http://www.hembryguitars.com/NaziX.html

http://www.hembryguitars.com/redBaronRat.htm

(I do like the Red Baron Gretsch but those are all quite made by someone with a bad taste)

http://www.hembryguitars.com/coopcross.htm

  Looks like a prop from Iron Sky.

I'm no shrinking violet when it comes to Nazi humor, but I wouldn't want to be caught playing that (never mind that it would be a criminal offense in Germany to do so, depiction of Third Reich symbols outside of historic context is a criminal felony in Germany).

I know what the guy advertising this is aiming at though, I don't think this is made for up and rising Nazi bands but more for the guys looking for an ultimate shock effect, could envisage this with a Brit glam or Japanese manga style band. Good taste it isn't and probably not meant to be. It's saving grace is that the Nazis themselves were very particular about their symbols being used and would not have approved of the relic job at all.  This would have seen you off to the Lager for an educational stay very promptly, jawohl.

Taste questions aside, I don't think this is political. When Jimmy Page wore his Luftwaffe hat with the swastika, Scott Weiland his SS cap with Velvet Revolver (scrapping it when he caught, pun intended, flak because of it and donning a Russian officer's cap from then on), when the Sex Pistols sang/punned, albeit historically inaccurately, "Belsen was a gas" (there were no gas chambers in Bergen-Belsen, people died of starvation and rampaging diseases there), when the Thin White Duke gave his Nazi salute or when Ace Frehley had the fine humor of surprising his son-of-an-Auschwitz survivor bandmate Chaim drunk in an SS uniform in the middle of the night during a Japanese tour, none of them were advocating Nazism as a political ideology. Whether you think it's funny or necessary is another matter.

I believe we will see more of this in the future though as the generation who experienced/suffered under Nazism dies off and those generations that followed - like us - become older too. To an 18 year old today, Nazi horror is more likely than not an abstract thing.  That doesn't mean that these people are then Nazis or sympathetic to the Nazi cause, I firmly believe that as an ideology Nazism - except for those utterly depraved in intelligence and/or character - is forever tainted and discarded on the scap heap of history. (Any comparison of dictatorial or racist regimes today with Nazism as it was are always inherently flawed and unhelpful from a political analysis view.)

[Basvarken]

There is one BIG difference to the inebriated rockstar(s) wearing WWII paraphernalia at a drunken night.
This guitar was handmade by a luthier. He spent hours and hours on creating this.
He had several chances in time to rethink his sick joke. But he didn't. He chose to go on and create this display of bad taste and disrespect.
The man is an ignorant moron.

In The Netherlands kids at school still learn about the holocaust. The message is being told by teachers whose parents weren't even born when it happened. I'm glad my kids won't grow up as ignorant as this stupid asshole luthier.

Rant over.

[uwe]

Yes, it is still being taught in Germany too and for good reason too. And of course there is this whole culture of remembrance and the Jad Vashem and the Holocaust "Stelenfeld" in Berlin will still be here in a 100 years, luckily. People will see Schindler's List and Auschwitz documentaries. But the horror pales inevitably, it becomes a black and white photograph of an ugly and not quite anymore comprehensible time. One Jewish survivor speaking to a class of teenagers in Germany leaves more of a collective imprint than the ghastliest Auschwitz documentary, any teacher will tell you that. But those first hand witnesses are getting fewer and fewer.

I'm not saying that this change in remembrance is a good thing, but I see it happening, most people twenty or thirty years younger than I don't seem to have the same historical conscience for it anymore (or share my obsessive interest for anything from that darkest period of Germany).

In a 150 years from now, Hitler will just be a footnote in history, an abstract evil, and maybe that is the ultimate defeat for someone who believed to lead a "Tausendjähriges Reich" that lasted 12 years.

[Chris P.]

In England people seem to be a bit easier with nazi stuff. And of course there is Lemmy. Love the guy.

Uwe, I read one of the most fascinating books a while ago, called The Kindly Ones.

[uwe]

Max Aue. It's a well-written book, but it never became quite clear to me what made Aue tick. He wasn't a raging anti-semite nor grossly cruel, but could be viciously cold. His homosexuality kind of hung in midair. You could neither quite hate him nor develop any sympathy for him, but I guess that was the author's intention.

[Highlander]

In England people seem to be a bit easier with nazi stuff.

Quite the opposite, actually, dear chap... political correctness is rife over here... ah... with the possible exception of the Imperial War Museum...

[drbassman]

Yikes, I am the last person to be politically correct, but the Nazi thing is way insensitive and really not necessary.

Uwe is so right about how time slowly erases a citizenry's memories and sensitivities.  In the US, we are quickly forgetting all of the sacrifice and foundations laid by the founders of this country.  If you never lost or had to fight for your freedom, you don't appreciate it nor does one see it slipping away.