After several days of heat, our poet Colin Hopkirk recalls Wild Dog – coolest guitar in town. Whammy bar, three pickups with four way switching, man. What’s not to like? It’s Day 621 of the daily poems.
Wild Dog!
To Nottingham
forty miles out and back
in a battered Beetle,
in early summer 83 singing
to Orange Juice and Marvin Gaye
parking up in Hockley where
the Carlsbro Music Centre
( now gone) had found
a cache of 60s Burns guitars,
in rows hung by their necks
but vitally alive, waiting for us:
Hank Marvin Custom
Nu-Sonic
Tri-Sonic
Vista-Sonic
and at the back, in powder blue
with a white scratchboard
a Jazz Split Sound,
whammy bar,
three pickups
with four way switching,
Treble/Jazz/Split sound/Wild Dog
Wild Dog!
It didn’t matter that we couldn’t play,
Wild Dog gave a snarling surfer twang
and looked
so
fucking
cool
we bought it anyway.
Colin Hopkirk
Burns Early 1960’s Split-Sound Jazz Guitar in Sunburst Finish