I “know” Sid from a Facebook group or three, and James Gunn not only crushes it on making movies and TV shows with crazy needle drops, but he also has no problem setting the record straight on DCU projects directly to the people. I have written about his move from Marvel to DC and his Creature Commandos Playlist before.
So, how cool is that? An-Die DysLeXiC introduced me to the cinematic masterpiece that is Tromeo & Juliet featuring one of the most unhinged car crash scenes of all time.
The soundtrack is banger after banger, and knowing that Mr. Gunn chased down every one so it could be included is incredible. “Mr. Superlove” by the Ass Ponys is awesome. Same with “Math” by Supernova, “Gizzards, Scrapple and Tripe” by The New Duncan Imperials, “Drink That Whiskey” by The Wesley Willis Fiasco, and… “Sacrifice” by Motörhead!!
I still have this CD, and I’m gonna need to pop it in. I love the inside baseball on making movies and music selection. I’m reading You’ve Got Red On You about the making of Shaun of the Dead right now, and it’s fascinating about all the stuff that has to happen to get a project done.
I wanted to grab some of the info I gathered from there to drop here to go along with my Dewey Decibel FlipOut and Indy Custom FlyCaster posts, hell even the custom Russ Lorenz Shitar. Sorry if most of these links below are just broken or no longer exist. I like weird guitars and obsolete websites, I guess.
The short of where it stands as I understand it now:
Jerker Antony & Orjan Jacobsson designed the guitar, had it manufactured at Un-Sung in Korea, sold it under the Eagle brand in Sweden/Scandinavia and in the U.S.A. under the Galveston brand… Maybe Brownsville too? I still don’t know anything about Galveston, or really Un-Sung. B.B. Stone was a nickname for a salesman, and he was not a player who got a signature. I can assume this was inspired by Bo Diddley’s square guitar meeting 80s flash? Maybe? I should reach back out to these guys and see if I can get some updated information. It seems there are 24 worldwide, and 12 made it here to the US? There there is an orange/butterscotch option and a black/ash one. The names Dae-yong Suk & Chess Lim have come up in searches too.
I’d love to find the owners of the rest of them out there in the wild. Please, share your stories and photos in the comments!
The original synopsis from me (via SquareGuitar.com):
My band was playing show at the American Music Café, a venue in Murrysville Pennsylvania with an attached music store. The venue & music store would be described by many locals as a “shady” business place. We played there a lot because it was easy to book shows, & a lot of our fans & friends all seemed to gravitate to the place because of the growing (at the time) void of live all-ages music venues. Every once in a while a cool or strange guitar went through the store among the usual myriad of second-rate knock-offs. On Saturday December 23rd, 2000… I saw the “square guitar”, and bought it that day. I actually ended up trading in a Cimar by Ibanez Strat clone guitar that I had purchased earlier in the week in trade for it.
Trying to find out anything about the guitar manufacturers that use the Galveston brand can prove to be difficult. The best I can gather is that they’re made in a factory somewhere in Korea.
The model name is not listed anywhere on my guitar, & I didn’t know what it was until I came across a black & white photo on some discount guitar store’s website. I noticed that he headstock is quite different from my guitar though, and there was no visible name on the headstock of the pictured guitar, but I’m getting closer.
The first piece of useful information about the Galveston B.B. Stone that I came across was a review found at Harmony Central. Check it out here. – I don’t know if I agree with this guys ratings 100%, but he seems to have a lead on Galveston, Silverstar, and Un-Sung Musical Insruments… and what he’s equating it to as far as existing models. I haven’t been able to find anything out about Silverstar or Un-Sung Musical Instruments either, but if you have any information on any of the aforementioned companies, please let me know.
From that website, I was able to discover & e-mail the actual designer of the guitar, Jerker Antoni. This is my correspondence with him, we were sightly confusing each other at the beginning. Maybe it has to do with the language barrier?
I sent the same e-mail to B.B. Stone himself, and got a little less of a reply. I think there was a slightly stonger language barrier here.
I can only see one major difference between the Galveston & Eagle models, the headstock. Also, the Eagle models appear to have the words “B.B. Stone” on them.
Know anything about this guitar? Where did you find it? Remember the day you bought it? Please share it with us!
My Emails from Jerker Antony:
—–Original Message—– From: Jerker Antoni To: ERiC AiXeLsyD Sent: 7/8/2004 11:54 AM Subject: SV: Mail från hemsidan (Galveston B.B. Stone?)
OK – now I understand what model it is – it is the B.B. Stone model, not the Flash B.B. model. In Scandinavia we used the Eagle head as you can see on attached picture. We sold just 24 pcs all in all world wide I think.
I designed it (like I told you about the Flash B.B.) – but this model was designed totally from scratch, and not like the other models with the B.B. names like Flash B.B. aso. Still with indonesian mahogany body and canadian hard rock maple neck. It was never imported by Sam Ash or anybody else from what I know, I think there are just 8 or 12 pcs in the USA and all imported by Galveston. Thanks for the pictures, I might put one up on our hompage later and link to your homepage if that is OK. Take care!
—–Ursprungligt meddelande—– Från: ERiC AiXeLsyD Skickat: den 7 juli 2004 23:44 Till: ‘Jerker Antoni‘ Kopia: ‘eric@aixelsyd.com‘ Ämne: RE: Mail från hemsidan (Galveston B.B. Stone?)
Wow Jerker,
You don’t know how long I’ve been searching for the origins of my guitar! Here’s a picture of my collection:
When my band plays out though, people always ask to see the “square guitar”, ha ha ha. It’s what I use on stage mostly. I love the feel of the fretboard, and I love the sound. It does have great sustain, & someday I might replace the pickups with something a little screamier… but for now, I love what I’ve got. I’m assuming it was made in Korea & it’s from a small run. It’s next to impossible to find anything out about the company Galveston, but it looks like I somehow surpassed them & got right to the source!
I don’t know how I can thank you enough for the explanation, or for the great guitar design. I will tell you to keep up the great work, & link you to some photographs of me with the guitar in action:
—–Original Message—– From: Jerker Antoni Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 2:47 PM To: ERiC AiXeLsyD Subject: SV: Mail från hemsidan (Galveston B.B. Stone?)
Dear Eric, I designed that model. It is a great guitar, light and easy and with better sustain than most Les Pauls, as the body is from indonesian light mahogany, and the neck is not from mahogany but from hard rock canadian maple. Pickups are OK for korean made, but that is easy to change if you want. They got so popular here that Gibson sent their lawyers to sue us, they thought it was a copy of their LP model but they just had the picture, and they did not see the backside of the instrument with the body shape going through the neck like an S-curve. So I took a picture of the backside and they gave that thing up. We called it Eagla Flash LP as all models I designed with star inlays in the fretboard were called Flash something, but Gibsons lawyers thought LP stood for Les Paul so they were still angry. So we changed the name to Flash B.B. as B.B. Stone was the boss of the factory that produce them, Un Sung in Inchon, Korea, south of Seoul. The B.B. Stone name is another story, his korean name was very odd, so I asked him to interprete it in english, and it meant Big Brave Stone, so I thought he would be better remembered as B.B. Stone. So he changed his name and he also put up his own company later on using this name. We sold a few hundred of this model in Sweden, and also a few hundred in the USA, some to Sam Ash (they used the Brownsville logo for their own imports), and some to other importers like the guys with the Galveston logo. They all use other headstocks, we had our own Eagle headstock which I think looks better. Later on we made other versions of it like the Mezz signature model, the same instrument but with oil finish for even better sound. The guy Mezz is a great guitar player and singer, american that lives in Europe. His father was jazz musician Mezz Mezzrow, who wrote a classic jazz book in the 50’s. Take care of the guitar – it is really a great instrument – especially compared to the Gibson models which I think are great looking junk for the guys that were not allowed to play with doys when they were young, so now they compare the looks of the birds maple tops of their Les Pauls… Best regards
Jerker
—–Ursprungligt meddelande—– Från: ERiC AiXeLsyD Skickat: den 7 juli 2004 20:07 Till: ‘eagle@eagleinstruments.nu‘ Ämne: Mail från hemsidan (Galveston B.B. Stone?)
Hello,
I found your sites at www.bbstone.co.kr & www.eagleinstruments.nu and I was wondering if you knew anything about the Galvestion B.B. Stone model guitar? I belive that I own one, only it does not have the B.B. Stone logo, or the correct headstock… I cannot find any history on Galveston or the guitar itself. I was wondering if you could possibly help me out?
Thank you, -Eric
My Email from B.B. Stone:
—–Original Message—– From: BB.Stone To: ERiC AiXeLsyD Sent: 7/10/2004 11:38 AM Subject: RE: Galveston B.B. Stone Model Guitar?Dear Eric
I have developed “BB.Stone” guitar before I established my own company. At that time, Galveston purchased guitars. I am now selling various kinds of musical instruments and guitar parts. I hope this will help your questions.
Hello I was one of the owners of Eagle Instruments AB Sweden. Jerker Antoni and I Orjan Jacobsson. This guitar was designed by Jerker that´s right. We made about 12-18 pcs of it under our brand Eagle. Since there are too many Eagle branded products out there we could not use that name in other countries than Sweden. Other companies like Galveston bought guitars under their own labels to sell. Some of them through Sam Ash under the brand Brownsville. Made by Un Sung in Inchon Korea. BB Stone is no blues guy from Korea. He was the salesman at Un Sung. Hes name was something like Dae Young Suk. That did not sound so good Jerker thought. He asked him to translate this korean name into English. He said it means “Big Brave Stone” Hence that: BB Stone. So Jerker named him that. Today he uses this on his buisness card. He has his own Company today and don´t work for Un Sung. Funny story isn´t it?
I may have a problem. Let me know if I’m missing some obvious or obscure bangers! A lot of these I will listen to on shuffle/random, because I add stuff in what could be aptly described ss manic bursts of energy. Bold ones are ones I probably hit more often.
OK, so I drew up a maze with a Leprechaun and a pot o’ gold, because… Stereotypes. I thought it may be a fun activity for people who celebrate their Irish or Celtic heritage this time of year. I do love to rock the Celtic Shenanigans 🍀 playlist on random more often than usual this time of year. You can spare me your “dusting off” Dropkick Murphys/Flogging Molly jokes. I have heard them all, and I listen all year. (I also don’t drink much any more, but my Beer 🍻 playlist also feels stereotypical and apropos.)
🪙☘️🪙🌈🪙🍀🪙
I also made a shamrock maze & a four-leaf clover maze, for a fun quick activity, & I uploaded them to my TeePublic & RedBubble shops. Everything is on sale right now at TeePublic, including these two designs. Get T-shirts for $16, stickers for $3, or all kinds of other cool stuff. You can even customize the colors of the products, so you can have a black hat or T-shirt, a green one, or whatever you prefer.
Which one do you like more, the shamrock (three-leaf clover) or the lucky four-leaf clover? Should I add this leprechaun maze to the shops too?
☘️🍀
Check out all of these mazes, in a printable black & white if you’d like:
🍀☘️🍺🤘🍻☘️🍀
They work great as adult coloring book pages too. You can fill in the dead ends to find the path, or just color ’em however you please. I’m a big fan of anarchy.
You can check out my playlists on your preferred streaming service with these links from Tune My Music:
I love Thanksgiving. It’s coming soon. This is some Turkey Day attire that you can relax in. Wear it under a nice cozy flannel. It appears to be on sale at both my TeePublic and RedBubble shops currently. You should take advantage of that if you’re so inclined.
You can get this design on an apron, a coffee mug, a tote bag, a hoodie, a blanket, a pillow… or all kinds of stuff really. You can change the clothing color with a bunch of options & styles at each site too. Poke around & see if you can find something you like!
Also, you can print this out & try to solve it for free. Or do it on your phone/tablet/whatever. You can post it on social media & tag me@AiXeLsyD13.
Of course, I have a buch of other Thanksgiving themed mazes too:
Hey, this pumpkin maze works for Halloween and Thanksgiving if you ask me. And, you can get two versions of it on all kinds of stuff too:
You can get the full color orange one on stuff at TeePublic and at RedBubble. You can also get the black & white one on stuff at TeePublic. I thought that might look cool on an orange T-shit.
I have a playlist problem. So, I have a lot of Halloween and Halloween-adjacent playlists. Some I have that are just massive & I listen to them on random. Some are a little more compact. What are your favorite Halloween songs? Anything I’m missing, songs or themes?
It took me forever to get into podcasts. Some I have been enjoying lately are Chris DeMakes a Podcast, One Hit Thunder, & more recently A Band Called Punchline. (The former two break-down & deep-dive into songs in totally different yet incredible ways… I highly recommend them to musicians and fans!)
You can listen to all of these anywhere you find podcasts, but I do mostly all of my listening on Amazon Music.
I have absolutely no idea why I didn’t get big into Punchline in the very late 90’s or early 00’s. We all frequented the same places. I had to have seen them. I was active in AiXeLsyD then Gasoline Dion at the time. Their music is in my wheelhouse. I have heard a lot of Chris Fafalios because he produces on Chris DeMakes a Podcast & co-hosts One Hit Thunder. Chis is a great co-host with Matt Kelly & producer with involvement in 2 quality shows. This came up, and I was like… I have no excuse to not check this out as I love music, music documentaries, stories about songs, stories about playing & touring. It’s a no-brainer, right?
Well, I’m 3½ episodes in and the name-dropping alone is mind-blowing. Laga, Logic, AMC, Berlin Project, Mr. Smalls, Soundscape Studios, Garfield Artworks, Josh Bakaitus, Drusky, Joker Productions, mp3.com, practicing in McKees Rocks, and more I am surely forgetting. It puts me back into the days when I worked on the assembly line at Sony with Alf from Circle of Dead Children, or when me & An-Die ran into the Zao guitarist at Westmoreland Mall. Everyone was in a band. Ha ha. I remember Dirtbag Rob saying he had an AiXeLsyD T-shirt or patch before he was in the band.
I was at so many shows at Laga. That’s where I got to see Doyle play the Misfits intro in their green room one time. I remember Logic from that killer Take Me To Your Leader compilation CD. Man I miss punk comps. AiXeLsyD was practically the house band at AMC for a bit. We played every open stage we could. Berlin Project always worked the crowd well. I remember playing Mr. Small’s at least once with Gasoline Dion, not sure if Ernie and the Berts ever played there or not. I also remember being in the back for some reason. Maybe hanging out with Dethlehem? Me & Jason were hanging out with Next Stop Detox when they recorded at Soundscape in McKeesport. I was in Detox for like 30 seconds and recorded a single at Studiophonix in Mt. Pleasant. I think Gasoline Dion played Garfield Artworks… Maybe EaTB too? I know I saw a bunch of shows there. Ernie and the Berts recorded drums there once, I think? (It’s oddly not on my places I have played map.) We practiced at the shady ABC Storage in McKees Rocks and up in Allentown for a bit.
It makes me think of all the cool bands & all the fun times we had back then!
But, the cool part is hearing Berlin Project’s story, from the guys themselves. They seem like genuine nice people who set out to make some music, make a living doing it, and accomplished that! It’s presented documentary style and sort of gives me NPR vibes.
I am rooting for them every step of the way while I listen, When they talk about literally losing a tire off their van, using calling cards & pay phones, running up cell phone bills in the Nokia brick & flip phone days, purposely putting music on Napster just to get it out there, paying way too much for recording, sleeping on floors & booking tours, meeting other great and not-so-great bands… it all just hits. I am not and never was a pro touring musician, but I get it. I respect the hustle, and I appreciate the insight & shared experiences.
If you were around the southwestern PA scene in the late 90’s or early 00’s, ever picked up a guitar (or bass or drums or keys or horns), or are a fan of punk, indie, & DIY… you gotta check this out.
It’s on a bunch of platforms, so find it how you find yours… or start here:
I’m starting to dive into their stuff. I really dig the old stuff on their bandcamp that they sort of don’t recognize as much any more. Check out their website. I also want to see their music special on Amazon Prime. Punchline fans, what are your favorites? Can you make me a top 20 playlist in the comments? What are your memories of seeing them play or hearing their songs for the first time? What about if you played your own shows in & around that time?
These go around all the time on social media. Saw one on Bluesky. Thought I’d make a playlist. This, like all of my musical tastes, could change if I were to do it again in 5 minutes. Here we are though. I made a playlist & put it on Amazon Music, Spotify, & YouTube.
It was tough to pick. I could do this list probably 5 deep with entirely different yet valid answers right now. I mean, I have whole playlists for color, numbers, dates, names, & more. I also thought of another ask that I wonder if anyone would participate in?
If you read this, you know I mostly use Amazon Music, but I do copy stuff to Spotify. I should copy these ones over. I refuse to pay to synch them with Tune My Music though, so I try to wait until I’m close to done to copy it. I may have copied some of these a long time ago.
What are your go-to Halloween songs? What am I missing from these lists?
This is another punk-rock leaning short one. “Bloodbath at Burger King” is an absolute gem, as are many others here. This is what I have so far:
Screeching Weasel – “I Saw The Devil At McDonalds (Demo)”
Teenage Bottlerocket – “Blood Bath At Burger King”
The Berlin Project – “Taco Bell World”
Gas Station Boner Pills – “Fist Fight at the Waffle House”
Richies – “Le Big Mac”
Indigo Girls – “Dairy Queen”
The Knuckleheadz – “Fuck McDz”
Teenage Bottlerocket – “Too Much La Collina”
Wesley Willis – “Rock ‘N Roll McDonald’s”
The Smithereens – “White Castle Blues”
Boris the Sprinkler – “Don’t Really Want To Walk To Taco Bell Without You”
Silly Stu – “McDonald’s in the Pentagon”
Motorpsychos – “Fries With That”
The Aquabats! – “Burger Rain!”
Parry Gripp – “Raining Tacos”
What am I missing? Are there punk-leaning songs about Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, KFC, Raising Cane’s, or Chick-fil-A? Panera? Jersey Mike’s, Jimmy John’s, Subway, Quizno’s, Vocelli Pizza, Papa John’s, or Domino’s? What about Hardee’s, Carl’s Jr., Checker’s, Rally’s, Five Guy’s, In & Out, Krystal, Jack-in-the-Box, Rax, Arby’s, or Auntie Anne’s? I’ll even take Eat’n Park or Denny’s.
Holy cow, reddit’s r/punk and Facebook’s Oddly Specific Playlists stepped up with some killer suggestions! The list is currently at 85 tracks. Some fit more loosely than others… but close enough counts in horse shoes, hand grenades, and punk rock.
Also, I need to figure out the right plugin to let me embed Amazon playlists here.
