Minion | soldguitars

1985 Kramer USA Elliot Easton EE1 Pro

"Minion"

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Ok, so despite my underlying fascination with Charvels, Gibsons and luthier-made gear, I've been picking up a few 80's and 90's Kramers recently. I've traditionally been quite nervous around Kramers, especially the older stuff, as I've not known that much about them. I've been working on changing that however, and have been spending time learning what was good, and what was not (although the proof of the pudding is always when you plug 'em in ...).

All of the Kramers I've bought to date (at the time of writing this) have come from the same geezer; a very pleasant and affable Kramer collector who lives a short drive from me, and who also happens to be the Manager of one of my favourite local guitar stores. He's "good people". Anyway, as I've said elsewhere on this site, he's been shedding loads of cool and interesting Kramers, as he's focussing his (hefty) collection on just Barettas. And why not. The point IS that this is too good an opportunity to miss ... being able to vacuum up parts of a world-class collection of quality guitars doesn't happen every day.

This guitar is one that I'd heard a lot about over the years, but had managed never to see one in the flesh ... there weren't that many of them made back in the day, so they're relatively rare these days (certainly, it's difficult to find one that hasn't been modified to hell and back or played to death). So. This is the signature model of Elliot Easton, the lead guitarist in "The Cars". Now, although I've picked up a few Artist Signature models over the years (Frankie, Suzi, Mollusk, Mildred ...) they have always been associated with players who I admire very much (EVH, Nuno, Yngwie and Vai). Elliot Easton? Not so much. In fact, with the exception of "Drive" (which I'm sure pretty much everyone is familiar with) I STILL have no recollection of ever listening to The Cars, let alone enjoying their music. So, this was bought simply as a cool guitar, not as a gesture of any sort of respect to Mr Easton. Actually, from the interviews with him that I watched during the few weeks before buying this, my overwhelming impression is that he comes across as a bit of a dick, actually. And I maintain that his guitar playing is little more than fit-for-purpose, certainly not inspiring in any way. His taste in guitars is, however, rather good.

So. This is a late '87 or early '88 (EDIT - more about that later ...) Kramer USA EE1 Pro, one of two sig models that he had with Kramer. They were introduced in early '87 with maple boards only; the rosewood board on this came later, so helps to date it. They disappeared from the catalogue after '88. The 'other' model (the EE Pro II) carried a telecaster-type pickup layout and a Tele fixed bridge, but this one is a proper old-school superstrat, with a proper German Floyd and an HSS layout. The pickups are a Seymour Duncan JB at the bridge, and a pair of Seymour Duncan APS-1 (Alnico II Pro Staggered) single coils at the middle and neck.

The controls are interesting (not to mention bloody versatile), as each single has an on/off mini-toggle, and the humbucker has a three-way mini-toggle for on/split/off. A further mini-toggle works as a "rhythm to lead bypass switch" (a blower switch), which bypasses all of the controls entirely so that you get the humbucker wide open. The use of a blower switch is interesting in that this guitar (or at least the prototypes) was designed by Tom Anderson, who routinely uses blower switches on his lovely custom-build guitars. Anyway, in practice, it lets you set up all kinds of jangly, stratty nonsense as your rhythm tone, then flip directly to 'Defcon 1' for solos and stuff. Which is great. Other than that, there are standard pots for volume and tone.

Design-wise, the body is stratty (with longer horns), and the headstock is the period-correct Kramer "Beak", as used by Mr Van Halen on the revised Frankenstrat for a few years. The pickguard is inspired by the one fitted to Jeff Beck's early Jackson, and (I think) is a great design ... individual and kooky. It IS, however, bright yellow. As are the pickups. The very idea is bat-shit crazy, so I intended to swap everything out for black immediately. In the flesh, however, it looks really nice (honestly ... I was surprised too!), so it is staying original.

A nice touch on this is that the control cavity cover is covered with adhesive screening foil (not unusual), but the builders have signed it and left a message ... "Neptune NJ 4 ever" "Eddie Donnena + Cecil Battle, '87".

Stuff like that makes me smile, as does this guitar. Great stuff.