Introducing my Guitar

A Gretsch Electromatic Jet Baritone. Now I should play something, I guess. Let’s see how I can do that with the existing equipment. Can I plug the preamp into camera mic-in? Guess not, don’t want to wreck it. I will have to record it separately. Difficult to synchronise. I suddenly understand where the idea for these film-clapperboards came from: You have a sound and the pieces of wood banging together indicate exactly the moment it has to be synchronised with.

What to play? For now, a try with something fifties-like should be appropriate. I believe the 1953 Gretsch Jets were the third mass-produced modern solidbody electric guitars ever, after Fender Telecaster (around 1950) and Gibson's Les Paul (1952) and before in 1954 the modern e-guitars really went like a rocket, including the Rickenbacker Combos, Danelectro-guitars the same year for example and most important Fender’s Stratocaster of course.

There’s a nice anecdote Ted McCarty, Gibson boss from 1948 to 1966, told in an interview:

When we introduced the Les Paul at the trade show, Fred Gretsch, a personal friend of mine, said, "How could you do this? Why and how could you do that for Gibson?" We were good friends, and I said Fred, somebody’s got to stop this guy Fender, he’s just about trying to take over. He said, "Ted, anybody with a bandsaw and a router can make a solidbody guitar. But for Gibson to do it, I just couldn’t believe it."
(source)

Fred Gretsch was surely proud of the art of creating acoustic masterpieces from fragile strips of wood. But, apparently on the advice of his friend Ted McCarty from Gibson, he soon did decide to also make such a new-fangled guitar from a massive piece of board. Though, in the end, it seems he couldn’t do it to actually use just a profane chunk of wood, as these Jets where then produced with hidden hollow chambers inside, to reduce weight.