Kiesel Guitars has unveiled its latest signature guitar for Jason Becker, the JBYY Jason Becker Yin Yang Tribute Guitar.
Where Becker's previous Kiesel signature electric, the JB24 Numbers, took inspiration from a pre-school child's toy, this adopts the ancient Chinese philosophical concept of dualism for the aesthetic.
As Becker explains, the Yin Yang look was very much inspired by a his recollections of watching Eric Clapton play his “Blackie Strat“ with Robbie Robertson in The Last Waltz – the concert movie of the Canadian-American supergroup's legendary 1976 Thanksgiving performance in San Francisco.
“This yin yang design of mine was meant to capture the look of Clapton's Blackie,“ he said. “To me, every line and curve is beautiful. I worked really hard on getting the perfect balance of black and white and artistic movement.“
As for the spec, the JBYY has a mahogany body with a bolt-on hard rock maple neck that's carved into a similar profile to Becker's “Bluey“ model. There is a zebra-coil M12SD bridge humbucker and a white Mark's Singles single-coil pickup at the neck, with controls for volume, tone and a five-way pickup selector.
The fingerboard is a work of art; a piece of roasted flame maple with 24 jumbo stainless steel frets and Yin Yang dot inlays. Along the outside of the 'board you'll find black-ring Luminlay Super Blue side dots.
And on hand for some whammy bar stunt guitar, you've got a double-locking Floyd Rose vibrato. The high-ratio locking tuners on the reverse headstock and carbon-fibre reinforcement rods in neck help to keep everything roadworthy.
The Jason Becker Yin Yang Tribute guitar is available to order direct from Kiesel at an introductory price of $1,999. Head over to Kiesel for more info or to order.
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