PRODUCT REVIEW
EASTWOOD
GUITARS
Airline Tuxedo
BY BEN FRIEDMAN
Go Ahead Punk... Make Me Play
I love stories about entrepreneurship, particularly ones that lead to ways of enhancing
the guitar playing experience. An example
of this phenomenon is the story of Mike
Robinson, founder of Eastwood Guitars,
and his pursuit to produce Radical Vintage
Remakes with modern playability at an
affordable price point. After the well-timed
sale of his California-based technology company in 1999, Robinson leveraged his collection and passion for low-budget eclectic
vintage guitars from the ‘50s and ‘60s into a
prolific eBay store. It soon became an online
source for all things vintage bizzarro with
the formation of his website myrareguitars.
com. This site soon provided Robinson with
a large email database of fellow enthusiasts to give him the confidence to form
Eastwood Guitars in 2002. His vision for
Eastwood was straightforward: to combine
the retro styling of these long-lost classics
with modern playability, to offer them at
a price far less than their original counterparts, and to emphasize customer service.
This lofty vision is achieved in part by using
overseas manufacturing (Korea and China),
and in part by retaining customer service
and final setup operations at its Ontario,
Canada headquarters. It is apparent that
Michael Robinson’s entrepreneurial vision is
being achieved, as Eastwood now offers 45
models (and growing), including the Airline
Tuxedo model reviewed here.
You Owe it to Yourself to Live a
Little, Harry
The Airline Tuxedo is modeled after the
1950s Kay Barney Kessel guitar, which was
also was offered under the Airline brand
name as the Tuxedo model (Eastwood guitars acquired the rights to the Airline guitar
models in 2004). The Tuxedo oozes retro
