I started playing guitar at age 11 (Born in 1966). Took group
lessons at the local hockey rink in the Detroit, Michigan area. When
junior high school came about so did wood shop. In 7th grade I built
my first guitar using parts from a junker and made a solid maple SG
style body. Teachers all the way through high school allowed me to
build guitars alongside my class projects. Always stayed active in
local bands playing hall and house parties. Then came the move to
Santa Maria, California in "82". In 11th grade I made my first neck,
truss rod and fret board. At this time early
BC Rich Koa Bitches and
Mockingbirds were some of my favorite to emulate, laminated woods
and wilder shapes. Still all the while playing in garage bands, taking
jazz band in school and prepping for G.I.T. through and excellent
teacher by the name of Jerry Coelho who was in G.I.T. the first year,
being taught by Pat Hicks, Howard Roberts, Joe Pass and many more. He
still teaches and operates a music store/academy of music in the Santa
Maria, California.
G.I.T
I graduated from G.I.T. in May of "86" and moved off to Huntsville,
Alabama with fellow G.I.T roommate Timothy Saunders, to try and
become rock stars, ha! Met some great people and experienced real
life on my own for the first time. Gave private lessons, built a small
hand full of my early brand of "Mean Gene" guitars while also doing
retail guitar sales in a local store.
Mean Gene
Guitars (88"-"90")
A year later and I'm back in Santa Maria, California working part time
at Ernie Ball and learning the fine art of detail sanding a guitar
before paint. That lasted about 3 months and they fired me for being
too slow. I was hurt, but never the less still determined to learn how
to build guitars the right way from industry standards. At this time I
am at an age of 20. So I set up shop in my parents garage and I start
building guitars under the "Mean Gene" name again and carrying on with
repairs as well. At this time I am really into the Jackson/Charvel
heavy metal strat 's and Randy V's. This turned into a partnership
with a friend named Eric Zoellner which lasted about 1-1/2 years. We
actually moved out of my parents garage and into our first building
where we did retail sales, lessons, rehearsal rooms, repairs, and
built about 30 custom guitars over this time period. We had a local
cable commercial that ran for awhile plugging into MTV. I would love
to get it on our site for a joke because its kind of cheesy and
captures the time period.
After the business dissolved I took time off and
wrote an instructional book and video entitled "Mean Gene's Insane
Lead Guitar". This was a 100 page book, 2 hour video giving the
viewer a hands on basic theory lesson, written tests, playing tests,
flash cards, exercises, chords, etc... It was produced and edited by
Computer Cafe of Santa Maria. During this time I gave lessons at 3
local music stores. At night I played in various cover bands on the
local club circuit. Meanwhile still repairing and building a few
guitars out of mom and dads garage. Even took a trip one week and
hunted for guitar building or sales related jobs in the Los Angeles
area in hope to pursue playing more seriously. This ended up in no job
but made some good connections that would later pan out.
Gibson
Custom Shop ("91"-"93")
Finally I found a steady girlfriend who is now my
wife (Charlene) and decided I had better get a real job. A student of
mine got me into a high end printing company. I learned a lot about
color mixing which later translated very well into guitar painting,
plus learned a lot about the printing industry that is helping even
more now running Baker Guitars having to develop brochures, web sites
and such. By this time I'm about 24 and feeling comfortable with the
job and the girlfriend when I get a call from Master Builder Roger
Giffin of the "Gibson West Custom Shop" in North Hollywood, California
whom I had met 1-1/2 later on my job hunt excursion. So I auditioned
for the job to be his only apprentice against about 7 other guys. 6
months goes by and no word about a job but he says to stay in touch.
One day I get a call and he has the opening available.
So I pack my bags and its off to Beverly, Hills
that is, actually North Hollywood. Roger and I operated this shop
together for nearly 2 years building about 30 guitars and performing
repairs, restorations and Gibson warranty work. We repaired anything
which was a great learning experience getting to work on Martin,
Gretsch, Gibson, Fender, Rickenbacker and many others so I learned a
lot of vintage knowledge/history that I cherish to this day, giving
insight on other methods of construction, hardware, finishes,
electronics, cosmetics, etc... We worked alongside Gibson artist
relations maintaining many local and touring musicians instruments on
a regular basis. Roger Giffin was a major influence in the rest of my
building career helping to hone my eye for details in all aspects and
he'll remain my mentor for the remainder of my life. I LOVE YOU MAN!
Fender
Custom Shop ("93"-"99")
Gibson was destined to close the place down so I found refuge at the
Fender Custom Shop in Corona, California in June of "93" one month
before I was to marry. So off I go again but this time with my wife
Charlene at my side. Here Fender started me off buffing the set neck
models being produced. This lasted for a few months until the Robben
Ford model was introduced in the Custom Shop. Being use to building
Les Pauls and a bit of hollow body experience they offered me the
position. I worked closely with Robben making a bunch of
pre-production prototypes using various woods, chambers and hardware
to release them for the January "94" NAMM show. We released 3 models,
a solid body, a chambered body and a more semi hollow body.
That lasted about 6 months when I was to train an
apprentice "Greg Fessler" (now current Robben Ford Master Builder) so
I could be moved up to Master apprentice. There I worked alongside
Fred Stuart and Jay Black gaining more vintage Tele and Strat
knowledge while building decaled "Gene Baker" 1 off guitars. January
"95" they appointed me to Master Builder. Also at this time I
prototyped and built the first Contemporary Carve Top Strats for the
January "95" trade show. I kept building 1 offs and became more
involved with production sides of the shop, training, scheduling, even
took on 2 apprentices to bring up through the ranks. Mike Bump who
since has gone into the R&D model shop and the other Mike Ponce who is
now off to being a Master Builder.
Other projects I became heavily involved in was the
Re-issue of the mid to late sixties big peg Strats, production of
round-lam necks, twelve strings, double necks, bajo sexto's, the new
Showmaster downsized carve top Strat and the John Jorgenson signature
model which were both released at the NAMM "98" show. I loved working
there, it was a very creative environment with allot of great talent
around to share ideas and always have some to push you to bring the
quality level higher with every instrument as we developed new
techniques and ideas. My learning came to a new plateau seeing
manufacturing on a custom and grand scale.
Baker
Guitars
In "93" I moved to the Corona, California area. I still gave guitar
lessons out of our apartment and became very good friends with a
student named Gil Vasquez. We ended up setting up Baker Guitars in his
garage since I couldn't build much in an apartment. He was leaving the
construction industry and was eager to learn the trade of guitar
building and I was in need of an apprentice. We built guitars and
performed repairs in his one car garage for about 1 year until it was
about to explode. Then I bought our first house and enlarged the shop
to our existing two car garage. He took off to Las Vegas for a year to
take a job building musket loader style riffles for J P Gunstock. They
built beautiful and custom reproductions with all the trimmings. This
helped hone his wood working, inlay and finish skills.
But wait! He moved back and once again I had an
apprentice by night while he took a job at Jackson/Charvel working in
the neck department, fretting, inlaying, binding, shaping etc... this
proved most helpful towards our Baker BNT model neck through.
This brings us pretty much up to date except for
school. I've been going to school taking Auto CAD 14 (computer aided
drafting) for a couple semesters boning up on putting shapes to
computer files for reference, tooling, documentation and the ability
for customers to receive a drawing before hand to help layout their
individual changes and again keep record of it for repeat orders.
As of January 1st "99" I have left Fender to take
on Baker Guitars and the world, full time. Gils Guitar Garage (no
longer doing repairs, sorry guys, just want to build more Baker's).
I met Gil through the recycler paper for I had an
ad out advertising guitar lessons and repairs when I first moved to
Corona in "93". We became close friends right off the bat and at the
time I was living in an apartment with my wife, giving lessons in the
spare bedroom that I had converted into a repair and lesson room. We
talked about building guitars and Gil offered to have me setup in his
one car garage. This was the start of Gil entering his guitar building
career.
I got a loan from my sister Tina whom is now
married to my old grade school best friend Jimmy Lovinggood, that's
double g for double good, had to add him to the list of people because
he was going to kick my butt plus he did sell my parents the very
first electric guitar that they gave me for 5th grade Christmas. A
Sears Global single pickup 3 tone sunburst with card board case. A
rock star was born! No a builder was born! Something like that.
Back to Gil, well we bought a pin router , a band
saw and an edge belt sander. We built half a dozen guitars out of Gils
garage and paid of the loan to Tina. By this time we started
accumulating more large tools and Gils garage was about to bust. A
year later my wife and I bought our first home and the shop grew into
a two car garage. Gil goes to Vegas for a year building musket loader
rifles and pistols for J.P. Gunstock and learns a whole new art, old
furniture finishing techniques, engraving, inlaying, carving and allot
of hands on large machinery.
Meanwhile a job opening becomes available at
Jackson in Ontario, CA. Gil applies to get closer to family and gets
hired and is back in the area. At Jackson he became a floater through
many operations but specializing in necks, inlays and binding. A year
and a half later the Fender Custom Shop gets an opening that could use
Gil's talents. Gil gets hired at first to do binding and inlay work
doing allot of block inlays on Jazz basses and various other Fenders.
He eventually moves into rough neck and body production, pin routing
and getting time on the CNC machine. In no time he becomes in charge
of the rough mill for the Custom Shop running a crew of 6 guys
training and fitting 1st articles together before a run is started to
assure consistency and quality.
Gil and I have been doing repairs and building the
early stages of Baker guitars after work each night till the wee hours
with the aid of a lot of coffee and a strong desire to build guitars.
Gil has left Fender as of April 6th "99" to continue on into the next
phase of Gil's Guitar Garage and Baker Guitars as we move north to
Santa Maria, California. |
