Extreme Guitars ~ Minarik Guitars

Shock and Awe:

At some point in your life, you’ll probably throw up your hands and scream at the top of your lungs, “What the heck! I’m gonna buy the most extreme guitar I can find and wield that thing like a beast!” Don’t panic! Everyone gets to this stage, the stage where traditional is out and wild and outrageous is in. Why?  Because if you don’t want to look like a carbon copy of every other musician out there, the only choice is shock and awe! Like puberty, it’s natural; we all go through it. Face it, sometimes, only the extreme will do.

So, where to go when you’re looking to plunge into something that’s wildly exciting? Well, there’s a company that’s been marching to its own beat, doing it’s own thing while everyone else is imitating old Fender and Gibson designs. When it comes to fresh and original, Minarik Guitars is the way to go. (see their 2011 online catalog by clicking here)

Designs like the Firebolt, the Inferno, or the Night Crawler are definitely going to show your wild side. You might’ve even seen The Tone King with his own Firebolt, a ‘V’ style guitar that will burn its image into the cornea of anyone who sees it being thrown around on stage. The Inferno truly cooks and the Night Crawler looks like something that came straight out of your worst nightmares. For someone wanting a show-stopping axe for their next gig, nothing’s going to drop jaws like a Minarik.

For the guitarist that want a membership into the Minarik Club, but aren’t willing to venture into the territory of the truly insane, Minarik has some brands that are toned down a bit from their usual brand of excentric. Never lacking in feature or benefit, these moderate pieces have a more traditional appeal. An example would be the popular single-cut Lotus series. This guitar retails for around $500.00, and has a quilted maple top, set neck, and rivals 10 tops all day long!  Try getting so much for so little from any other builder. And, being Minarik, there are plenty of unique features that also separate it from other ‘like models’ out there, like their ‘Tone Tail’, which puts more wood mass at the side of the guitar that has the lower register strings. More mass = More vibration = More tone!

There are few guitar builders that have broken out of the norm (Bernie Rico Senior and Junior to name a few), and have designs that have lasted the test of time. The good folks at Minarik Guitars are among them.  Want something custom? Minarik will build it. The specs are only as limited as your imagination.

For those that follow guitars as closely as The Tone King, it would’ve been easy to notice that Ibanez copped Minarik’ s own ‘tone tail’ design in their newly announced DN series.  Now, I’m a peaceful guy. I don’t want to get between two competing companies, but Minarik did have the design first, which frankly speaking, speaks volumes for Minarik’ s innovation in guitar making.

By the way, if you call Minarik, you can chat with Marc or Bill Minarik. There aren’t many companies where you can speak to the owners! Again, Minarik is on that short list of go-to guys, or should I say builders, that are paving their own way.  If you’re unsure of which guitar’s gonna give you that flash to be noticed by everyone who walks into one of your gigs, consider a Minarik Guitar.  They’re affordable enough to use on stage instead of keeping it behind a glass case but unique enough to hand down to your kids when you’re ready to hang it up.  It’s a guitar that my crystal ball tells me to get while they’re still affordable. Heck, I remember the days when a USA BC Rich STiii cost $500 brand new.  Boys & Girls – that’s my tip of the day for getting into something early on, before looking killer on stage costs you an arm and a leg!

 

Tiny URL for this post:
 

SubscribeTTKsYTChannel

Filed Under: Guitars

About the Author: Marc published his first novel Becoming in 2010. It’s a kick-ass book with monsters and dreams and stuff, and you should buy it. Since then, he’s written thousands of articles for TheToneKing.com, many of which have been picked up for circulation by manufacturers and other news outlets. His next book, Drugs and Pancakes, should be available early 2014 if his alcoholic editor can find time to work on it in-between destroying his liver and screaming about punctuation. He graduated from Roosevelt University with honors, which means that he’s not as dumb as he looks. He’s been playing guitar for over 25 years, which is almost twice as long as most of his students have been alive.

RSSComments (7)

Trackback URL

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.