Dweezil playing Ed's old "Rasta" guitar.

[Diamondjimi]

Dweezil Zappa playing Ed's old "Rasta" guitar that was gifted to Dweez years ago. Seen here jamming Crazy Train with Tenacious D on some TV show.

Dweezil and "Rasta" guitar...

[VAiN]

Damn that's sweet!!! What I'd do to get my hands on one of those old guitars.. I bet they're just collecting dust over at the mountain...

[indeedido]

From that site:

This guitar is one of my personal favorites. I remember the first time I ever saw the guitar was in a photo from Life Magazine. They followed Edward on the road around the time of the Fair Warning and Diver Down tours. That is my favorite Van Halen album by the way. Anyhow, as you may or may not know Edward built a lot of his own guitars. He was backstage with a bunch of them and this one kind of in the middle as I vaguely recall. It really stood out to me. (If anyone has that photo please post it!) It was the only guitar he had that had any green on it. I like green so it stuck in my head for years. A decade later I went to Edward's 5150 recording studio for a recording session. He played a few amazing solos on my as yet unfinished magnum opus - What The Hell Was I Thinking? (Started working on it in the early 90's so it's soon to be 20 years in the making)

Anyway the "Rasta" guitar - That's what Edward called it - He also referred to it as UBAB - was sitting in the corner. The neck was off. I said, "Hey that's the guitar from Life Magazine" and he replied, "Oh yeah, I hate that guitar... it's too heavy. Do you want it?" "Yes please" was my immediate response. It came replete with actual dried vomit in the neck joint and a little left on the guitar as well. It's still there...BRUTAL Cologna...

[lesfunk]

I love K.G. with the Panties on his face LOL

[chefcraig]

This has been posted in the past, but fits the thread well. Here, Dweezil tells a charming story about his infatuation with Eddie Van Halen, then plays "Eruption" on a VH II era copy guitar.

[Diamondjimi]

Dweezil plays Ed better than Ed...

[jhale667]

Cool story about the EVH call, and him showing up in THE jumpsuit...lol

[Diamondjimi]

Cool story about the EVH call, and him showing up in THE jumpsuit...lol

To a teenage EVH freak (pre Meth era) that would be mindblowing!

[jhale667]

To a teenage EVH freak (pre Meth era) that would be mindblowing!

Totally, can you imagine? At 12?
IIRC as legend goes, Eddie actually gave him a few more lessons...and cool that he'd let a kid hang out and witness his (then complete) awesomeness.

I also love that Dweezil's still got Frank's Hendrix Strat...



(I want to relic out a Sunburst body that badly and put a black pickguard on it... )

[Diamondjimi]

Could be simple and fun at the same time!

+ =

[chefcraig]

Here is a clip from a few years ago featuring the guitar and Dweezil's involvement in the restoration. It's quite a story.



This is a video featuring a fellow named Stewmade64, who built his own copy of the guitar.

[Diamondjimi]

I have the LR Baggs bridge in my strat. It pwns any other piezo bridge I've tried..

[jhale667]

Could be simple and fun at the same time!

+ =

Exactly, exactly.

[degüello]

Is that GearMannDude on vocals!?

[jhale667]

Here's something I didn't know...supposedly the Rasta guitar is the Unchained guitar repainted...which is kinda sad in a way, the Unchained graphic looked killer! Always imagined it was hanging on the wall or in a stand somewhere in EVH's house...

This became this? Boo!

One wonders, does the puke in the neck pocket add extra mojo?

[Diamondjimi]

I'd heard that . But on closer inspection it looks like he did a complete repaint before the green,yellow and red based on the positioning of the black reveals...
Never seen the pic. of the body by itself. Great find bro!

[Diamondjimi]

One wonders, does the puke in the neck pocket add extra mojo?

Puke= +

[jhale667]

Classic!

[Diamondjimi]

[GAR]

Hmm.. if the Rasta is truly the Unchained guitar, Dweezil's sitting on not one million-dollar guitar but TWO.

I kinda pick out some vague stripes approximating the Unchained. If this is really the case, the Rasta finish could be sanded down to the original Unchained.

It can be done. Back in the 80s when I used to go hang out at the North Hollywood Gibson West Coast custom shop, there was this mysterious "black-over burst" '59 Flamey Les Paul that the director was painstakingly wetsanding down to the original burst finish. I saw it when he had about 20percent revealed.

(It was found in South Africa, then made its way to the NoHo shop for resto..)

Now back then, an original 59 would go for 10 or 15 thousand, so that kind of meticulous work was worth it.

If the Unchained finish was block-sanded, wetsanded and polished back to original, todays' price might rake in a quarter mil.. but if Dweez could beg a neck off Ed to go with it just the private offers alone over 1mil would come nonstop.

Nobody cares about the Rasta finish. True, it makes a distinctive claim "two VH color themes in 1 piece of guitar memorabilia" but the second-famous EVH color theme from the second-most favorite VH tune of just about any VH fan you ask on the street is what makes the guitar.

The Rasta finish is totally negligible and obstructs the true potential of this guitar, the only way we've known of it is from a couple backstage photos published in a guitar magazine in 1982. Was it Hit Parader I think?

[Diamondjimi]

Lemme guess, you've had this one in your hands too. Except it had better tone before he repainted it...

I'm truely surprised you haven't done a road trip to Arlington Tx. and dug up Dimebag to nick Ed's original "Bumble Bee". Hey, I'm sure you could make a few bucks by wetsanding and polishing up Dime's KI$$ Casket®... Dumbass!

[GAR]

Lemme guess, you've had this one in your hands too.

Not that 1 no.

[Diamondjimi]

There ya go. Just wanted round off your "groaned at" count to an even 1600...