Tango | soldguitars

1985 Performance Custom Shop

(Jeff Paris' Guitar)

"Tango"

Those of you that know of Performance Guitars will realise why I got a little excited about this one. To the rest of you? I guess you're having those "Who the Hell ..." thoughts, right? To the majority of folks, even many guitar fans, the Performance brand is something that they'd walk straight past if it was on a rack in a guitar shop.

Performance Guitars operate out of their plain and unassuming shop / workshop in Hollywood, and are run by master luthier Kunio Sugai (who formerly spent time with Fender). Custom orders are taken in the shop, and the order form travels all of twenty feet back into the workshop, where the guitar is made, from scratch. There's no screwing around getting the body from supplier 'a' then the paint done at supplier 'b' ... it's made in one place. Plain and simple.

The shop was there through the mid 80's, and was positioned right in the middle of the area where the Hollywood recording studios were. Not surprisingly then, they started to get business from the folks at the sharp-end of the guitar scene in that neck of the woods. They produced hot-rodded guitar bodies, fast necks (flat radiuses, big frets, you know the kind of stuff ...), as well as full guitars, most of which came with the obligatory Floyd (it was the mid 80's remember)!

One notable fan of their gear was Frank Zappa, who used Sugai to repair and maintain his guitars till the day he died (Frank, that is). It was natural, therefore, for Steve Vai to jump on board as well (being Zappa's guitarist) which he soon did. Vai continued with his Performance Guitars gear well into his tenure with Dave Lee Roth. Maybe the most famous of them was the kooky "flames" guitar, which he used during the 1986 "Eat Em And Smile" tour, shortly before announcing his Ibanez endorsement with the release of the JEM at Summer NAMM in 1987.

Warren DeMartini of RATT also has a deep history with Performance Guitars, despite his recent Charvel endorsement. Interestingly, many of the snakeskin-covered guitars played by Warren are Performance Guitars, not Charvels ... and if you see one of Warren's famous graphic guitars with his signature on the face of the headstock in place of the usual logo, then that'll be a Performance.

Who else? Well, Dweezil Zappa, Paul Gilbert, Billy Sheehan, Joe Walsh ... there's a very long list ... including Tom Morello. Tom's main "Arm The Homeless" guitar was made by Performance at their Hollywood shop. Hopefully, I will NEVER manage to get this guitar to sound like he gets his to sound. I'm no tone hound, but he is CERTAINLY NOT an influence of mine! Whatever.

So. This one was made in January 1985 in Hollywood (meaning, in the back-room of their shop) ... the neck is dated 28 Jan 1985 ... written by hand of course. I'm not sure who initially specced and ordered the guitar, but by 1986, this guitar had made its way onto the back cover of Jeff Paris' first album, "Race to Paradise". Then in 1987, it features in the front cover if his second album, "Fired Up". I remember Jeff as being the bloke who wrote "Crying" and "Edge of a Broken Heart", which were covered by Vixen; one of my favourite bands back then ... both of those songs are on "Fired Up". The chances of those songs being written on this guitar? Modest to good I suppose. Certainly, Jeff has confirmed that this guitar is the one on the record sleeves, and that it was played extensively on both albums. Which is nice ... a bit of history.

So. It's clearly a superstrat, with a standard strat body and guard ... but under the guard it is clear that the bridge humbucker (which is a cool old Seymour Duncan ... with a sticker on the baseplate that reads "The JB Model") is a retro-fit. The pickguard is original ... it still has the original screw-holes where the single coil would have been. There's a coil-split switch next to the volume control, which it's safe to assume was added at the same time as the humbucker. That switch is visible clearly on photos of Jeff playing the guitar, so we can assume that the mods were carried out in the mid to late 80s. Interestingly, that mini-switch is a three-way, which I'm assuming probably gives (1) both coils (of the humbucker) in parallel, (2) both coils in series, and (3) one of the coils split. Whatever, it sounds cool. The cavity for the humbucker has been routed into the body very cleanly, and exposes what is clearly a big slab of dark, dense, hard mahogany. Its bloody heavy mahogany too ... this weighs in at well over 9 lbs. The two other pickups (both also old Seymours) would appear to be original, as would all the pots and caps. The Floyd is NOT a factory-install, as evidenced by the six screw-holes still present from the original strat trem, although the guitar was wearing a Floyd on all of the pictures with Jeff. I'm assumimg that the mods would probably have been done at the same time, as all have been done very well. The Floyd locking nut, especially, has been installed very smartly, with no nasty shims. Very nice.

The neck is a deep chunky 'C' ... a real handful (just how I like 'em), and the frets are maybe medium-jumbos, although they've obviously been crowned and filed a few times, which gives them a lovely slinkiness. Very nice. It plays well, I've set the action nice and low, and the neck is still poker-straight after all these years. There IS lacquer on the neck back and on the fretboard, but hey ... it doesn't detract much from the playing experience.

Plugged in, this is a BEAST! The humbucker is packed full of powerful, juicy mids, and the coil split allows the usual quacky, stratty sounds to escape, if you choose to let them. For now (at least), this is being routinely set to the bridge hum flat out ... the pup cleans up really nicely with the volume control too. Wonderful.

So there you go. An excellent player, and with a bit of history under its belt. I recommend them. If you can FIND one, then go for it ... just watch out for my last-second sniper-bids ... because I'm watching!