DonCon Gear Box
Electric Instruments... DonCon's Arsenal
"Parts" Telecaster and Stratocaster and a Washburn "335" Style HB30
I bought a 1975 Strat used in Burlington Vermont in 1978. Some one had given it a coat of blue Corvette car paint. Guess that made it my Little Blue Corvette. Stock pickups. It had a Mighty Mite replacement neck...all maple. The original neck twisted in the cold one winter riding around in the back of my truck. I never did have a heater that worked those six years I lived in Vermont. I had a badass Telecaster that met the same fate that winter. You can hear that Strat on just about every recording I've worked on. It was my main axe for decades. After I shattered my left leg in 2009 in Taos I had to sell off a lot of gear and that guitar went to my Taos buddy Jon Gold. I hunted down a bunch of parts and took them to my luthier/player pal Scott Harris of Caledonia Guitars (also in Taos) and he constructed a "stock" Strat for me and a custom Tele with an over wired bridge pickup, a Firebird neck position pickup and a soap bar humbucker routed in between with a 5 way switch. I picked up the Washburn hollow body at Oklahoma Vintage Guitars in Reno, OK during a tour in early 2010 and have been steadily rotating through these three axes since... although I have to say i'm quite fond of the custom Tele and tend to grab that one first when I'm running out the door to a local gig or packing for a tour.
1966 Fender Music Master
¾ scale neck with an EMG single coil pickup. Otherwise this is stock. This was given to me when it was found in the basement of the house next door where I grew up...Mrs Puddelick's house. It was bought new apparently for her son to learn on and still had the display tag in the case from 1966.
I had it set up as a high string guitar for years but now have it set up with some pretty beefy strings and use it in open D or G for bottleneck slide work.
1930's Oahu Lap Steel
I use the all metal Rick now (see below) but before that I used a vintage bake-a-lite monster with one pickup molded into the body. The pickup started to short out a little bit and my brother Mike now plays it and keeps it at his place. You can hear th Oahu on the solo early in Juliet from my Boxes Of Bones CD or in the latin jam section at the end of Love And Understanding from my Beneath Your Moon CD
1940s Rickenbacher Lap Steel
I got this from Rich Mermer who builds my Hawaiian Kona Guitars. Rickenbacher was the first mass producer of the electric guitar. This is a hollow, all metal little monster. It rips. You'll hear it on future recordings.
Danelectro 12 String
A gorgeous purple metal flake reissue with the classic "lipstick pickups". It's a twang king and you can hear it on many of my recordings especially the electric version of Drink Another Round on my Paradox Of Grace CD
Danelectro Longhorn Fretted Bass - Four String
I love the sound of this thing and it is fun to play. I used it on all the all the tracks of my Paradox Of Grace CD.
Fender Style P-J Combo Fretless Bass - Four String
This was originally a Stryker fretted bass by ...Kramer? I got in Wisconsin. I put EMG pickups in it and Kent Everett removed the frets and the decals and made it a phantom PJ Fretless. Meaning that it has one pickup that you'd find on a Fender Precision Bass and one pickup that you'd find on a Fender Jazz Bass. I have recorded a lot with this bass. It's the house bass right now in Don Richmond's Howling Dog Studio in Alamosa.
I bought a 1975 Strat used in Burlington Vermont in 1978. Some one had given it a coat of blue Corvette car paint. Guess that made it my Little Blue Corvette. Stock pickups. It had a Mighty Mite replacement neck...all maple. The original neck twisted in the cold one winter riding around in the back of my truck. I never did have a heater that worked those six years I lived in Vermont. I had a badass Telecaster that met the same fate that winter. You can hear that Strat on just about every recording I've worked on. It was my main axe for decades. After I shattered my left leg in 2009 in Taos I had to sell off a lot of gear and that guitar went to my Taos buddy Jon Gold. I hunted down a bunch of parts and took them to my luthier/player pal Scott Harris of Caledonia Guitars (also in Taos) and he constructed a "stock" Strat for me and a custom Tele with an over wired bridge pickup, a Firebird neck position pickup and a soap bar humbucker routed in between with a 5 way switch. I picked up the Washburn hollow body at Oklahoma Vintage Guitars in Reno, OK during a tour in early 2010 and have been steadily rotating through these three axes since... although I have to say i'm quite fond of the custom Tele and tend to grab that one first when I'm running out the door to a local gig or packing for a tour.
1966 Fender Music Master
¾ scale neck with an EMG single coil pickup. Otherwise this is stock. This was given to me when it was found in the basement of the house next door where I grew up...Mrs Puddelick's house. It was bought new apparently for her son to learn on and still had the display tag in the case from 1966.
I had it set up as a high string guitar for years but now have it set up with some pretty beefy strings and use it in open D or G for bottleneck slide work.
1930's Oahu Lap Steel
I use the all metal Rick now (see below) but before that I used a vintage bake-a-lite monster with one pickup molded into the body. The pickup started to short out a little bit and my brother Mike now plays it and keeps it at his place. You can hear th Oahu on the solo early in Juliet from my Boxes Of Bones CD or in the latin jam section at the end of Love And Understanding from my Beneath Your Moon CD
1940s Rickenbacher Lap Steel
I got this from Rich Mermer who builds my Hawaiian Kona Guitars. Rickenbacher was the first mass producer of the electric guitar. This is a hollow, all metal little monster. It rips. You'll hear it on future recordings.
Danelectro 12 String
A gorgeous purple metal flake reissue with the classic "lipstick pickups". It's a twang king and you can hear it on many of my recordings especially the electric version of Drink Another Round on my Paradox Of Grace CD
Danelectro Longhorn Fretted Bass - Four String
I love the sound of this thing and it is fun to play. I used it on all the all the tracks of my Paradox Of Grace CD.
Fender Style P-J Combo Fretless Bass - Four String
This was originally a Stryker fretted bass by ...Kramer? I got in Wisconsin. I put EMG pickups in it and Kent Everett removed the frets and the decals and made it a phantom PJ Fretless. Meaning that it has one pickup that you'd find on a Fender Precision Bass and one pickup that you'd find on a Fender Jazz Bass. I have recorded a lot with this bass. It's the house bass right now in Don Richmond's Howling Dog Studio in Alamosa.