I’ve been writing and talking about the Matsumoku Electras/Westones/Arias/Skylarks and the Golden Era of Japanese guitar-building quite a bit lately. In a way, it was a lot like the age of the dinosaurs; in the relatively short period between 1975 and 1986, the guitars became vastly more specialized, complex, and expensive. The earliest “Uncle Mat” guitars were Les Paul copies; the final ones arrived in a bewildering variety of colors, shapes, capabilities, and tonal possibilities. Then the meteor hit.
Among the spiky and multi-featured Cretaceous Matsumokus of 1986, the final-production Westone Spectrum FX, demoed above by my friend “Proendorser Mike”, is the Tyrannosaurus Rex.