3 ms·

Shame, I'm a huge fan of the Parker Fly. They're arguably the biggest step forward in electric guitar since the 50s. Lots of new stuff there for the time, some

by whstl 1y ago

Shame, I'm a huge fan of the Parker Fly. They're arguably the biggest step forward in electric guitar since the 50s. Lots of new stuff there for the time, some of which became standard years after: stainless steel frets, piezo+magnetic pickups, carbon fiber reinforcement, adjustable vibrato, possibly the most seamless/flattest neck joint ever... not to mention the whole design is amazing. This video from this guy dropped just two days ago, and explains a lot about the features and constructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S6Cni3nkws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S6Cni3nkws It's a shame they stopped manufacturing after the company was sold. I had one and regret selling, as prices haven't really come down! Rest in peace and thanks for everything, Mr Parker!

sivers 1y ago
I had my Parker Fly with me at a gig in NYC, when back stage I met Les Paul. He had never seen one, and he admired its radical choices. So we found a nice big permanent sharpie, and Les Paul signed my Parker Fly.
- sedawkgrep 1y ago
  That’s amazing! From one of the original innovators to one of the most recent.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  That is an absolutely amazing story, thank you for sharing it!
- DrewADesign 1y ago
  That’s totally rad. Bummed I never got to see Les play. At least I got to see Dick Dale a couple times.
- GoofballJones 1y ago
  Les was known for that. I heard a story of him doing a signing and these two guys came and one had a Gibson Les Paul for him to sign. He turns to the other guy there and he said he didn't have a Les Paul, but he had a Strat. Les signed that too and told him "there, now you have a Les Paul".
brandall10 1y ago
Just a note that he continued on his path of innovation w/ Ken Parker Archtops, which he was still involved in building until just before the end. These are $20k+ custom orders so there aren't too many in the wild. The neck 'join' in particular is wicked: https://kenparkerarchtops.com/guitars2 https://kenparkerarchtops.com/guitars2
- kranner 1y ago
  Wow, so you can adjust action with just a screw at the back? I wish it were that easy on nylon-string guitars instead of having to file and shape nuts and saddles. The last time I made a saddle from a bone blank I spent hours only to find I'd messed the curvature up.
DrewADesign 1y ago
My dad got to play a prototype Parker Fly while doing some collab at the Fishman R&D facility. (I’m not sure many generations, but fishman made the piezo bridge pickup for the more acoustic sound.) Of course this was well before phone cameras but the way he described it with the naturally curved ergonomic neck and stuff made it sound like pure magic. Gotta say, when there was one I could play at my local music shop a couple years later, it didn’t disappoint. Too delicate feeling for me but it felt like the future.
exasperaited 1y ago
Yeah. I am not the greatest guitar player but once after seeing Pops Staples playing one on TV a little voice in my head told me “get a Parker Fly, you will never need another guitar” … and I ignored it. Shouldn’t have.
b00ty4breakfast 1y ago
the guitar market is very conservative , as can be seen by the fact that the design itself was pretty divisive even if a lot of their innovations have stuck around. I always though the Fly looked awful but I played one once and it was amazing. If they could've just done that but made it look less like a piece of modern art from Patrick Bateman's apartment, I would've definitely been more interested
- whstl 1y ago
  I feel like Ken unfortunately started Parker Guitars a decade too late for the 80s and too soon for the technical players of the 2010s. He also caught mostly the attention of forward-looking players of past decades, rather than new players. I wonder if he had gone after nu-metal artists like PRS did the brand would have survived.
  - wheels 1y ago
    Pretty much this. They were perfect guitars for the 80s that came out right smack in the middle of 90s grunge. They were shredder guitars right as shredding was going out of fashion. I loved Parkers, even though I was way more a grunge person than a 80s person, but I'm mainly a bass player, and bass building is generally a lot less conservative than guitar building, and building with more exotic materials wasn't out of style for bass in the 90s, so Parkers kind of felt like a 90s guitar that had been built by a bass company.
    - whstl 1y ago
      I always envied the amount of options bass players had. Even in the 90s there were new brands starting to pop up like crazy. Lakland, Ritter, Tobias, BassLab... With guitars, apart from the metal guitars, there's only vintage-inspired stuff with either a tune-o-matic or a Wilkinson tremolos... I'm exaggerating but that's indeed what I see for sale on my local shops. On the other hand we do have Teuffel guitars in Germany, so maybe I should just put up and buy one from Uli Teuffel while he's still young.

by whstl 1y ago

sivers 1y ago

I had my Parker Fly with me at a gig in NYC, when back stage I met Les Paul. He had never seen one, and he admired its radical choices. So we found a nice big permanent sharpie, and Les Paul signed my Parker Fly.

sedawkgrep 1y ago
That’s amazing! From one of the original innovators to one of the most recent.
jacquesm 1y ago
That is an absolutely amazing story, thank you for sharing it!
DrewADesign 1y ago
That’s totally rad. Bummed I never got to see Les play. At least I got to see Dick Dale a couple times.
GoofballJones 1y ago
Les was known for that. I heard a story of him doing a signing and these two guys came and one had a Gibson Les Paul for him to sign. He turns to the other guy there and he said he didn't have a Les Paul, but he had a Strat. Les signed that too and told him "there, now you have a Les Paul".

brandall10 1y ago

Just a note that he continued on his path of innovation w/ Ken Parker Archtops, which he was still involved in building until just before the end. These are $20k+ custom orders so there aren't too many in the wild. The neck 'join' in particular is wicked: https://kenparkerarchtops.com/guitars2 https://kenparkerarchtops.com/guitars2

kranner 1y ago
Wow, so you can adjust action with just a screw at the back? I wish it were that easy on nylon-string guitars instead of having to file and shape nuts and saddles. The last time I made a saddle from a bone blank I spent hours only to find I'd messed the curvature up.

DrewADesign 1y ago

My dad got to play a prototype Parker Fly while doing some collab at the Fishman R&D facility. (I’m not sure many generations, but fishman made the piezo bridge pickup for the more acoustic sound.) Of course this was well before phone cameras but the way he described it with the naturally curved ergonomic neck and stuff made it sound like pure magic. Gotta say, when there was one I could play at my local music shop a couple years later, it didn’t disappoint. Too delicate feeling for me but it felt like the future.

exasperaited 1y ago

Yeah. I am not the greatest guitar player but once after seeing Pops Staples playing one on TV a little voice in my head told me “get a Parker Fly, you will never need another guitar” … and I ignored it. Shouldn’t have.

b00ty4breakfast 1y ago

the guitar market is very conservative , as can be seen by the fact that the design itself was pretty divisive even if a lot of their innovations have stuck around. I always though the Fly looked awful but I played one once and it was amazing. If they could've just done that but made it look less like a piece of modern art from Patrick Bateman's apartment, I would've definitely been more interested

whstl 1y ago
I feel like Ken unfortunately started Parker Guitars a decade too late for the 80s and too soon for the technical players of the 2010s. He also caught mostly the attention of forward-looking players of past decades, rather than new players. I wonder if he had gone after nu-metal artists like PRS did the brand would have survived.
- wheels 1y ago
  Pretty much this. They were perfect guitars for the 80s that came out right smack in the middle of 90s grunge. They were shredder guitars right as shredding was going out of fashion. I loved Parkers, even though I was way more a grunge person than a 80s person, but I'm mainly a bass player, and bass building is generally a lot less conservative than guitar building, and building with more exotic materials wasn't out of style for bass in the 90s, so Parkers kind of felt like a 90s guitar that had been built by a bass company.
  - whstl 1y ago
    I always envied the amount of options bass players had. Even in the 90s there were new brands starting to pop up like crazy. Lakland, Ritter, Tobias, BassLab... With guitars, apart from the metal guitars, there's only vintage-inspired stuff with either a tune-o-matic or a Wilkinson tremolos... I'm exaggerating but that's indeed what I see for sale on my local shops. On the other hand we do have Teuffel guitars in Germany, so maybe I should just put up and buy one from Uli Teuffel while he's still young.