My Custom Guitar Is Finally Here!
Here is my new video.
I’m glad to Introduction to my original guitar!!
It is an Ibanez high-end guitar AZS 2200,
customized by Waltz Guitars.
It’s named "Anzu Cream”.
(anzu means apricot in Japanese.)
I hope you enjoy this video.
Another video I’m really excited about is finished! This one introduces my Ibanez AZS 2200, which Yanagi at Waltz Guitars transformed into my very own custom guitar.
I threw in a little gag where I mimic the spoken introduction note for note on guitar, then built the video around some killer riffs. Give it a watch!
I named it “Anzu Cream” after its apricot color. This little beauty is going to be my main guitar from now on.
Come to think of it, even before I started my own band, I had my heart set on taking the stage with a guitar of my own design.
I played my very first gig on an Ibanez JEM, Steve Vai’s signature model. After that, I used a completely custom guitar (left), for which I designed everything from the body shape to the artwork.
True to its nickname, “Shovel,” it had a shape all its own, and I was attached to it. But when the live debut of my band POLYGON HEAD was booked, I wanted a fresh start. That’s when I got the Italia guitar (right).
The acrylic body looked like a sign outside a cheap bar, and it made that wonderfully tacky vermilion pop. I also hoped the guitar’s B-movie pop look might disguise the highly technical playing style I was so into at the time.
I had some pretty monstrous modifications done to the Italia, too: a Bigsby tremolo shoehorned onto it and a Roland VG system built in. I loved it and played it as my main guitar for years, though I can’t deny it had design problems. The semi-hollow acrylic body flexed, for one thing, so it went out of tune easily.
I’m no spring chicken anymore, and POLYGON HEAD still has a long way to go in terms of getting our name out there. I wanted to go at it head-on with a good guitar that actually sounded right.
That’s what drew me to the Ibanez AZS 2200.
The AZS, as I understand it, is the Tele-style version of the AZ series, designed to cover playing styles from A to Z. I played Ibanez guitars so much in my teens that they became part of me. Time to pick one up again and go back to my roots!
“Kerrrang! ♪”
I’ll never forget the satisfied looks on my bandmates’ faces the first time I fired it up at rehearsal: “That’s it! That’s the sound!”
The specs were everything I could ask for, but I wanted a guitar that anyone could recognize at a glance as mine.
So I asked Yanagi at Waltz Guitars to customize it for me.
Before Waltz Guitars moved its workshop to Yamanashi, I often took my guitars there for repairs. I used to daydream that if I ever had a model made for me, Yanagi would be the one to do it.
Working from my rough sketch (more of a coloring-in job, really), Yanagi suggested a few options. I left the pickguard material and the finer shades of the finish up to him, and the result was wonderful. (Workshop photos courtesy of Yanagi.)
Then the workshop sent me this photo with the message I’d been waiting for: “Your guitar is finished.” From then until the day it arrived at my door…
I made it my iPhone wallpaper and looked at it every chance I got, counting the days. Even now that I have the guitar, seeing Anzu Cream when I get up in the morning still gives me a thrill.
I’d been neglecting this blog, so for the record, the guitar was finished in September 2022 and I made the video in 2023. The feeling is still as fresh as ever.
To hold my dream guitar in my hands… that dream finally came true.
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Now I just have to get the POLYGON HEAD name out there enough for someone to make me a signature model!
Besides “Anzu Cream,” I already have ideas for “Maccha Cream” and “Ume Cream” colorways (ha!). Thanks for your support!
Yugo Morikawa (POLYGON HEAD)
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