Alan Beardsell up in Canada makes one cool-looking harp guitar.  Only 2 or 3 built so far I think.  The other day, fellow Canadian Martin Larose sent me this photo of himself with his new Beardsell harp guitar (at left).  His (work-in-progress) site’s song samples sound like he’s got lots of techniques and ideas, and it’ll be interesting to hear what Martin does with this high-end instrument (2 songs on his upcoming CD feature it, he says).

Meanwhile, I’m still dying to see and hear one of these…would one of you owners (Martin, Esau Simmons?) please come to a Gathering so we can paw at it?!  Unfortunately, the new clips of Henry Kaiser stopping by Alan Beardsell’s place to demo one of these don’t cut it for me.  Seriously, Alan – are you expecting to advertise the presumed fantastic tone of this instrument through Henry’s – ahem – creative techniques?

Hey, I know Henry’s a big name in Modern Creative Guitarist-land, but he’s gonna give harp guitars and harp guitarists a bad name!  At the very least, it would have been nice to hear just one properly plucked sub-bass string (honestly, it’s not that hard to do), which I bet sound really great and potentially useful, besides their obvious suitability for random, Hanna-Barbera cartoon sound effects.  Though, admittedly, I may be too “old fashioned,” I have nothing against Henry – I just feel sorry for that beautiful harp guitar!