Darwin's Revenge

One thing I’m sure most who have viewed our instagram have noticed by now,  is that we march to the beat of our own drummer when it comes to guitar design.  As the primary designer for Cowbrand Design, I ware it as a badge of honor when I get called out for the fact that  my pickup design is non- standard.   This is indeed one of the points of the design!  I see no reason to repeat  what already exist.  Wouldn’t it be so much cooler to evolve some of the ideas that have been around on the electric guitar since the 50’s and not keep repeating the same design?  I think it would!.

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   So anyway, we were contacted about a build that would included some very cool colors and appointments that we were very excited to do.  Our commissioner suggested that the color references be from the late eighties positive hip hop trio known as De La  Soul.  They are to this day, one of my favorite groups of any genre.  Though they have gone on record numerous times and stated that they are just a rap group and not hippies, they convey a very afro-bohemian / hippie flavor in their music as well as their dress. They get labeled as a hippie hip hop group because of this.  Whatever! They are different! and I love their flavor and dont care what the label is.

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   So the commissioner  (and myself) wanted to emulate the graphic flavor of their ground braking debut record "Three Feet High and Rising"  in some way with the design of this guitar. He had suggested some bubble cut-outs in the upper bout .  That sounded so cool I had to oblige. However, I suggested that I would like to do ovals because they reminded me of the Darwin walking fish and at the same time, cells evolving. considering what mainstream hip hop was like back when they emerged, I also felt hip hop evolving in the coolest way as well.

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  I thought to myself, “ now this would  be an evolution of some guitar design too. I gotta do this!   I chose the most up front color from the pallet on the record cover, which was Neon Pink!   The other colors like blue, green and yellow would be subtly splashed on in a few places as not to be just another florescent color pallet. And also, the commissioner also requested that the interior of the chamber be finished as well.  For this I chose an electric blue.

Have a look at the photos for more details.  It may take a few return trips to find them all.

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   One of my favorite songs on the Three Feet High and Rising album is called  Derwin’s Revenge.   So naturally, I titled this commission Darwins Revenge! And that's for reasons that are pretty obvious. and some that are not!