Written at approx 5am on May 30th 2010

Well it has been less than 24hrs since I returned home from Kananaskis where I gave Ian his new guitar. Many of my friends have been following with great interest, however…. I have been keeping my cards fairly close to my chest on this one for most of the duration of the build….. Some have stopped by my workshop to check in on the progress, many of you in the final days and to those that did so, it helped keep me moving…. Thanks, you are all wonderful… So….. here’s the story…..

Late September 2009 I flew down to Toronto to meet up with Ken to deliver to him his new acoustic guitar that I had just finished ( and I mean just ). This was a big moment for me to be giving Ken his guitar, he had waited over a year for it at this point and been growing more and more excited to see it finished, especially after having seen it nearly complete a few months before while The Watchmen and Thornley were playing in Regina. Upon meeting up with Ken and giving him his guitar we ran around Toronto and on out to Pickering to Yorkville sound, we had some lunch with Jeremy and then headed back to Ian and Christine’s. Christine also an old friend from Newfoundland, I hadn’t seen since we graduated high school and was excited to see her after all that time. Ian, who I had only met briefly was looking forward to seeing this guitar of Ken’s as well. He is big fan of the custom guitar in general and plays some himself. Well…. He liked what he saw and the conversation started…. The next thing I know we are talking about the possibility of a Macfie custom electric guitar.

In the interest of keeping my store open and my house paid for I took a position with an engineering company out of Mississauga that had a project in Edmonton, nice and close to home for me. In my spare time which seemed to becoming less and less, I would try to do repairs for my customers as well as get to work on Ian’s guitar. We had some details worked out but many were to come. The wood selecting had started on my end and the emails were going back and forth with designs drawn on paper and scanned to send. Some phone calls ensued, we started settling on some details, enough so that the build could get under way. However….. work was becoming quite busy and time for family was becoming less and less in my busy schedule and things slowed to a near halt on the build. I had all the wood but beyond the wood, the design and the pickups nothing much was happening. Before I knew it, it was Christmas and we were still not much farther ahead of the game, I had fiddled here and there but nothing substantial.

January comes and Thornley is doing a quick tour schedule out in the west. Ken gives me a call when they hit Edmonton and we meet up. I was fortunate enough to catch them again the next night in my home turf, Red Deer. Ian and I chat some about his guitar. If there is one thing I can say about this build is that Ian’s desire for knowledge about tone etct etc and the relation to the woods, the joins etc etc, I have learned so much more than what I already knew just finding the right answers to his questions. Ian and I chat some more about his guit-fiddle and he asks “When?” and I say “Soon…maybe..I hope…ahhh”

February – March – April come and go with little progress…. Ian is hoping to see some pics soon and I am hoping to send some soon. We have made some headway but I really need to get the ball rolling and hit this guitar with a vengeance! Knock it out of the park so to speak…. My wife Karen has been telling me to get this done for Ian and we decide that I need some grounding. Off to Tugaske SK to see David Freeman at Timeless Instruments where I trained to become a Luthier. Tugaske is just what the heart and soul needed. David has a class that just started so there are three students in the workshop learning at the same time I am there. I make sure that they know about Wing Night in Tugaske, what Turtle Spice is, we stay up late jamming and drinking the first night but I know, we all have lots of work to do so it was just the one late one while I was there with them for three nights. I get the body chambered and I think maybe even impress David a little with my chambering design…. I know he took a few pics of it when we were all gone off for wings….. There are still things to work out though, I need to find a nice top for this guitar and send pics of my choices to Toronto to Ian… one problem….. cell service is 45min drive away and the internet connection found seems to have found me and now I don’t have any internet. No problem, I will just send hem from my blackberry…..nope….. that isn’t working either…. It gets figured out in the end though and after a lengthy conversation with me standing on the roof of my SUV on the side of the highway in rural SK in the rain, we pick a flamed maple top for his guitar. I assure him it’s nice and I will make it even nicer when I start the coats of dye…..

Home and back to repair work that has accumulated once again, the onslaught of my old regulars who were always so used to seeing me in the shop all come to see me….. I have quite a diverse group of seniors that come to see me there, most of them musicians of some sort and one stand up comedian…. Bil… god love em….. I see another Thornley date on the calender, I have some time, not much, but I had best use it all of it if I want to put this guitar in his hands… Now…. One thing I have neglected to mention at this point is the complexity of the wiring involved in this guitar… I will never forget when Ian started telling me what sort of things he would like for his guitar to do… I have a friend, a great player and electronics guru who I ask if he would be interested in doing the wiring and he says sure… Vic is on board and I am thrilled because I would trust this man to build a tube amp blindfolded and standing on his head with one arm tied to his leg and make it sound better than any Mesa/Marshall/Fender amps etc… ( Not Traynor though ) What follows here is a series of phonecalls everyday as well as pictures being sent at fairly regular intervals daily and let me tell you…. Ian was spotting things in low res pics that I was missing standing in front of the darn thing! He has an amazing eye for attention to detail. We were really rolling now too! For the days I would work at the store during the day, we would chat about this and that ideas for design because now some things we had talked about trying were showing that they might not work with this design, the chambering etc. It would be time to close the store and go home where I would grab a quick bite and then hit my workshop at home out in the garage and other than picture emails that came in to send, I was in the shop most nights till usually 1am or so.. We are getting to mere days away from delivery and things have taken shape the body is almost done lol….. The neck is ready to mount and it really has amazing things showing through now…. Ian is beside himself, I am beside myself and my friends are all scratching there heads wondering if it will actually be ready….. The ace in my pocket…. my apprentice…..Brett Phillips….. he says he’ll help and he’ll put the hours in and let me tell you he did…. In the end, if he hadn’t been there I would have been short of my deadline. Which is now really looming because I still need to get the body to Vic to wire!!!!!! Vic picks up the body after he gets off work and takes it home to get going on it and says he will get it back to me when he is done that night, which was 11:30pm, a mere 20hrs from Ian landing in Alberta…. Now let me tell you, this wiring, I have never seen ANYTHING compare to this quality. STELLAR, I tell him it’s the nicest part of the guitar and he tells me to give my head a shake and now he wants to build one for himself… Brett has known me for a while now and knows how easily distracted and the fact I suffer from verbal diarrhea so he interrupts conversation at what is now almost midnight and says let get to work…. We still have to drill the holes out for he bridge, attach the neck, tailpiece and do a setup, which I might add differs a little for the professional musician than the customer paying my standard bench rate. I would and have done the same for customers but you PAY for it….. 4am comes quick and Bret and I are in the house and playing the guitar through a vintage Fender Tube amp and loving it…. ahhhhhhhhhh…… we crash…

We head south to Calgary airport to meet Ian and Ken and company at the airport. New drummer playing with them, Jeff Burrows of the Tea Party. Amazing drummer and what an amazing guy too, very cool…. Paulo is committed to something that prevents him from being able to attend so Chris Caddell will be filling in, again another really cool guy and amazing player… Now I have brought Brett with me because I know there is going to be work involved in the final fit stuff for Ian, to make this play like a guitar that was made for him and him alone….. and based on first touches I know that we are changing the neck some, which I expected and I have all of my tools to so with me to do so…. They hop on the bus with guitar and we follow in my Durango out to Stoney Nakoda Casino in Kananaskis where we check in and get settled…. I head up to Ian’s room to start working the guitar with him, find out where we need to do what etc…. He is loving the sounds we are getting and is excited that I assure him the neck will be fine for tomorrow to play it in the big boy amps… I call Brett up to the room and we all sit and talk and listen and plan for tomorrows list of things to do till a little past 2am…. We still can hear the guitar as we walk down the hall to the elevator, barely audible, but he hasn’t put it down really since he got it….

I guess Ken and Ian were up between 6-7am and guitar playing ensued… I was up a little past 8 and knew these guys would be up so it wasn’t long out of the shower when my phone rang to come down and hang out out…. We brought a bunch of stuff for people to noodle around with so while poor Ken tried to watch a movie “The Big Lebowski” it was turning into almost a guitar clinic at a music store…

When Ian was ready to surrender his new guitar to fix the neck shape he near shit himself when I started right in on it with a rasp….. As he started seeing what was happening with the shape he started digging it though, even once when I laid down my tools, I turned around only to see him rasping away on the neck himself….. It wasn’t long and we had the shape and sanding commenced.. and yes, those who know me know that I used the micro mesh and that neck is like glass but not sticky like lacquer. Soundcheck is coming quick……

For soundcheck I am being joined by Vic, Brett, and three good friends and bandmates Martino, Wynette and Celina, they have driven down early to see not only the soundcheck but to see Ian play the guitar I built. Knowing how the music scene works though, I have fully prepared myself for the fact that it may not work well enough yet or it may not have the right combo in pickups etc, what I am saying is, I know that soundcheck is where we make or break it for today. He loves it, but that doesn’t matter if it isn’t working properly.

I stand alone and watch as he noodles around with it cranked through his stage gear, I am digging the sounds it has coming out of it and he appears to be the same and I am smiling ear to ear. The thing I like most about soundcheck is that it is like my own little private show, one where I get to learn at the same time. They will play a few tunes from their set list for the night to get things dialed in. When they got rolling out came one of his other customs, black flapjack, which is an amazing guitar, followed up by a gorgeous white Steve Morse Ernie Ball guitar and then out comes his new MACFIE custom… You could say I was shaking like a leaf, partially because of the repair Brett and I had to do to it less than hour before, lets just say don’t ask and we won’t tell….lol….I kid of course, we did a solid repair that ended up having it tighter than original. anyways…….. Out comes his new guitar… As soon as he strts playing I know whats coming….. “Blown Wide Open”, a song from the Big Wreck days which for me makes it even more amazing because this is a song that has been with him for some time and we all still love it and they always still play it…..

It was one of those moments that I knew if I spoke, I would break down in tears right then and there. To listen to that song, to listen to what he was doing on the guitar, to see him enjoying and loving it so much, knowing that this was a joint effort, Ian was with me along the entire project. This was a very emotional moment for me in my career as a builder, I had been burning the candle at both ends for weeks all for this moment and every cut and pinch and missing fingernail pieces along that way were all worth it.

Later that night, after Bif Naked did this amazing acoustic set Thornley took the stage….. My guitar was worked into the set.. For those who don’t know, Ian changes up guitars lots during a show, this was a small selection he brought this time and I know that there were more than 10, but his new guitar that he has barely anytime to work with and develop where the sound fits, took the stage for BLOWN WIDE OPEN, a crowd favourite and there he was, playing the guitar I built him….

When this all started, it was a bit surreal at first when a guy like Ian asks you to build him a guitar. I didn’t know him then, I knew of him, I knew his wife years before, I knew his best friend and brother in law but not him. Here I was building Ian Thornley a guitar. Over the duration of the build we have developed a pretty good friendship and it it was what made this guitar that much more special. Ian was with me every step of the way and while I may have done the grunt work I consider him to have been an incredible help. When looking at pictures many of you will notice that there is no headstock logo and the reason being is… I built this guitar for him…. I didn’t build it to get famous, if people want to know more, he will tell them how to contact me. We were more fixated on other things than a name on a headstock.

To end I want to say a special thanks to my wife Karen for being there through thick and thin on this and to my children Thomas and Rayna because Daddy missed you guys while he was working and loved it when you both would come out and sweep up my shop.