This was at the time and still is, the most money I’d ever spent on a guitar. A frankly ludicrous £3000. Still, welcome to the world of Aluminium Guitars. Nothing gets out of bed for less than 2k.

This particular guitar also happens to be one of the rarest. As far as I know, only 5 were produced (in varying liveries, some with tremolos, some without) after the first one was made for a certain tattooed lead guitarist in Atlanta based prog-metallers Mastodon. This led, apparently, to some sort of issue between the aforementioned Leviathan of metal (see what I did there??) and the builder of the guitar. There will be no more.

There are many things that can and have been written about the company that is EGC. the wait times (measuring in years), poor communication and general awfulness to deal with. I have no such story, as I’ve never dealt with them, so I’ll stick to the guitar.

I bought this from a guy in Leicestershire in mid 2019. He was a pleasure to deal with and as a resident expert in all things EGC (he had a number of these guitars), full of useful information about the brand and it’s users. So I parted with the money and he shipped the guitar. One of the nicer things about guitars made of metal… no fears of broken headstocks. Nevertheless, it arrived extremely well cosseted within it’s SKB hardcase and I fell, briefly, in love.

An aluminium guitar doesn’t sound like a wooden one. That should be fairly obvious, but I wasn’t prepared for the quality of the tones that would come out of it. It was like a bell, with a resonant, almost angelic ring to every note. One of those instruments that new riffs and ideas just fall out of. It was glorious.

It was not all sunshine and rainbows, however.

The sheer weight of the thing was problematic. it was a (very predictably) heavy beast, but the neck was the real problem. it comprised maybe 65 – 70% of the weight of the guitar (my estimation from how it felt to hold) and the neck was SUPER thin, I think probably the thinnest I’ve ever played, meaning it sat on the left hand like a dull axe. Add to that the weird dimensions of it with the neck leaving the body at the 21st fret, it felt more like a baritone to hold. It looked awesome. Odd, but awesome.

Part of me wishes I’d kept it, just as a thing to have. but £3000 is a lot of money to sit on a wall as a vanity piece, so I sold it. Or rather I swapped it for a gorgeous Gibson Explorer an Marshal Origin 20 amp, orange cab and life pedal clone. In retrospect, he got the better end of the deal. Still. we live and learn.