FEATURED CREATURE

Here’s the one I have been waiting to share since I found out about it several months back. The Featured Creature hands down goes to Rock Ock. That’s right, Rock Ock. One might just think, what is this Rock Ock? It sounds like Doc Ock on steroids. Truth of the matter is, for a GUITAR, it IS the closest thing to DOC OCK ON STEROIDS. Rock Ock was created “as an over-the-top center piece for the National GUITAR Museum’s Traveling Exhibit”, “Guitar: The Instrument That Rocked The World”.

 

Rock Ock is the only playable guitar that has EIGHT necks. This is no typo. Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick is one guitarist that comes to mind who might be one who truly would want this guitar in his collection as he is known for playing multi neck guitars. Rock Ock comes complete with a Mandolin, Tenor Uke, 6-String Guitar, Fretless Bass, Fretted Bass, 12-String Guitar, Baritone Guitar, and even a 7-String Guitar. My son in law, metal guitarist and shredder, Brent Kuzmanich would love Rock Ock alone for that 7 string neck.

Rock Ock, this one of a kind special instrument was commissioned by well known author H.P. Newquist, former Editor in Chief at Guitar Magazine and Executive Director of The National GUITAR Museum.

 

Rock Ock was designed by famed letter form and logo designer Gerard Huerta, known for such logos in the music industry as AC/DC, Blue Oyster Cult, Ted Nugent, and Boston, just to name a few, as well as brands most everyone is familiar with like Pepsi, HBO, Nabisco, Swiss Army Brands, and mastheads including Time, People, Money, Adweek, and Architectural Digest. The list goes on and on.

 

Custom Luthier Dan Neafsey of DGN Custom Guitars in Fairfield, Connecticut is the man responsible for breathing life into the Featured Creature and taming this eight neck wonder. Doctor Frankenstein had nothin’ on Dan Neafsey as you will soon see.

And so the story goes with words here from H.P. Newquist, about how Rock Ock came to be. Enjoy. – Jack

 

Here’s the cheap and lowdown on the Rock Ock. It’s as detailed as I can remember. – H.P. Newquist

In mid-2010, I was looking for some unusual guitars on behalf of The National GUITAR Museum. I came across a lot of multi-necked guitars, but most weren’t playable or were done as jokes or art pieces. One guitar in the UK was playable and had 6 necks. We tried to buy it, but it had already been spoken for. The luthier in Britain wasn’t willing to build another one because he felt that the 6 neck creation was about as far as he could go.

So I thought “That’s as far as it goes? How about 7 necks, then? Or even 8?”

In July 2010, I mentioned the idea of an 8-necked guitar to Dan Neafsey, and I told him to think about it . . . after he stopped laughing. Plus, his wife was expecting a baby in two weeks, and it wasn’t like he was going to focus on hatching a bizarre guitar in addition to delivering a new son.

 

At the end of the summer at our regular Freak Fest Guitar Party–which involves a bunch of guys getting together and being loud with their guitars–I mentioned it again to Dan, whose son had been born in the interim. I brought Gerry into the conversation to get his thoughts on what the guitar might look like. At first we all joked about it, but as the drink flowed, we started talking about how it could really get done.

 

By the end of the night, Gerry had talked about doing a basic drawing for it, and I think the discussion had devolved to whether such a monstrosity would be painted red or blue (I’ll leave it to Dan to tell you why it’s blue). That was the last we really talked about it for a long time, as everybody kind of went back to reality after they woke up and dried out the next morning.

 

On and off over the next few months, I took to calling this “concept guitar” the Octagon, because of the 8 necks and the fact that it rhymed with Paragon, which is Dan’s line of guitars. I told my daughter the name, and she said it sounded “like something Doc Ock (from Spider-Man) would play.” Now, the name Doc Ock is very catchy, but since this guitar was meant to, well . . . rock, then the obvious choice for a name was going to have to be “Rock Ock.”

 

THE BIRTH OF ROCK OCK

 

Fast forward almost a whole year to the next summer. The National GUITAR Museum is up and running and I decided we should really do this 8-necked guitar and introduce it while the GUITAR Tour is in Orlando, because they were getting thousands of people going through the museum every week. Gerry had come up with a great design and had done some really beautiful drawings for the guitar that were also incredibly detailed, like down to the screw holes for the tailpieces.

 

We printed out full size templates of Gerry’s drawings. These were about 4 feet long and 6 feet wide. Dan and I went and picked out the wood for it, and Mojo Music Supply sent the hardware. As a side note, there is an incredible

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