I Met The Man Behind The Electras

What a stellar weekend this was! ElectraFest 2014 was something to remember for the rest of my life, primarily because I met the fellow who, unknown to either of us at the time, set me down the road to being something vaguely like a guitarist.

Was it really four years ago when I went to the first ElectraFest in a Transit Connect? Yes, it was, and the story can be found in part one and part two on TTAC. Whatever the reasons for my absence in the past three years --- travel to other places, mostly, but also some annoyance about the decision to relocate the event to the South --- I was thrilled to return this year.

We'd been hoping that Tom Presley, "Mr. Electra" and the man behind everything from the Modular Powered Circuit to the 18-way switching on the Westone Spectrum FX, would be able to attend. He'd confirmed with the event organizer that he'd at least stop by. Still, to walk into a studio in Evansville, Indiana and hear the man holding forth about that critical decade of 1975-1985 was, to put it mildly, magical. Tom, fresh off a 15-year nondisclosure agreement with St. Louis Music, was free to tell us all sorts of things about which we'd only theorized prior to Saturday. He also brought some never-before-seen sales and marketing materials.

Most fascinatingly, Tom cleared up a lot of the "Uncle Mat" stuff that's been circulating among collectors of Japanese guitars in the past decade. He readily identified factory origin on a variety of instruments, and he made it plain that Kasuga was the builder of pretty much all the semi-hollow-body Electras and the MPC guitars, as previously suggested here. He identified my Electra Elvin Bishop model, seen on the left below, as a Kasuga build:

He also indicated that all the Phoenix guitars were either Matsumoku or Yamaha made, with Matsumoku parts. With a production capacity of only 2,000 a month, Matsumoku wasn't able to fill all the demand for the Phoenixes. Tom then confirmed that there are no more than five hundred Anniversary Editions. I now have eleven Anniversaries and am shooting to eventually own fifty of them. You can read some of what Tom has had to say on the Westone forum but he went into depth beyond what he's written there.

Tom spoke to us for more than seven hours and honestly we'd have listened for seven more. At the end of the day he and I spoke briefly about the impact of the Electra brand on our lives. Of course, it was his life but it was also a big part of mine and I continue to occasionally play my 1982 Electra X-130 even as I collect the various PRS guitars and whatnot that currently occupy most of my collecting mind.

Which reminds me... I made a deal on an X120 "Leslie West" model. Only 588 were made and this one is in fine fettle. Unfortunately for me, it also needs a fret job. Sharp-eyed readers will identify this X120 as one of the contenders for "Best In Show" four years ago:

The stories Tom told about Leslie West are too great --- and too outrageous --- for me to reproduce here. Let me just say that I'm glad to have a piece of that story for my very own. ElectraFest 2014 was what an owner's meetup should be: plenty of new materials, information, and excitement for the brand. I won't wait four more years to return.