Mark Bowden plays guitar for the Oregon-based duo, Miriam's Well, and he has some unusual instruments. Perhaps most interesting is his Strings & Things Bluescaster custom electric. When we told Bowden we thought Strings & Things was "just a store, he disabused us of this naive notion.

"Ahh,Strings And Things was more than just a music store. It was (and is) a Memphis institution for players in-the-know. The current store, known as The Music Mall, is located on Madison Ave. The original store was located on Union Ave. around the pawnshop area and a mile or so West of Sun Studios," says Bowden. "Started by Chris Lovell and Charlie Lawing, S&T was internationally known in the 70's/80's rock world for their guitar repair and customization work. They would print up catalogs of amazing guitar creations ranging from modified Fenders and Gibsons to outlandish hand-carved freakazoid one-of-a-kinds. These guys single handedly caused Gibson to start building 50's Les Paul flame top reissues. And they were the ones who created the original double cutaway Les Paul."

Bowden adds that in the 80s luthier Tom Keckler joined the company and was the man who got the guitar line up and running.

"Originally called S&T Customs, they included the Bluescaster, Bluesmaster, and Bluesking models. The Bluesmaster was a mash up of a Fender Telecaster (neck, and electronics - either single coils or humbuckers) and a Gibson Les Paul. The Bluescaster was a double cutaway version of the Bluesmaster that also offered an additional Stratocaster pickup layout option," says Bowden. "The Bluesking was much closer to a Fender Strat in look and feel (though with a bound top body). At some point during the history of this effort, the brand was re-labeled St. Blues. I believe the total 1980's production run of S&T Customs and St. Blues models was between 2000-3000. The S&T customers are the rarer breed and getting quite tough to find. In fact, I hesitate to tell this story as I'm still actively on the hunt for old S&T customs! I don't need the competition!"

Eric Clapton, according to Bowden, stopped by the store way back when and played one of the Bluesmasters and liked it. Eventually an Eric Clapton model was designed.

"Once that came out, all the players wanted one. Billy Squire had S&T build him a hot pink Bluesmaster Custom!" he says. "I had become aware of the store and their custom work through their amazing catalogs and, quite unaware of their own guitar line, had made plans to visit the store when in Memphis. My opportunity came in the late 80's on a trip to the city. I cab'd it over to Union Ave. and poked my head in the shop. Hanging on the wall and staring me straight in the face was a beautiful Mary Kay white Bluesmaster with dual humbuckers (with pull pot coil splits), a rosewood board and Tele electronics."

Bowden says he has a peculiar guitar "thing." He loves Gibsons but always plays Fenders live. He has owned virtually all the Gibsons you can think of but prefers a single coil when playing live.

"And I love Blond Tele's. Here was the guitar of my dreams! It was a Les Paul, a Tele, both humbucking and single coil and Mary Kay white. Perfection! I grabbed it off the rack for about $500 and change. And then sold it 6 years later to pay off, shall we say, debts." he says.

But he was not done with S& T. In the late 90s he found, in a two month period, two tobacco burst Bluescasters online and bought both of them.

"One had a Strat style pickup arrangement, the other a dual humbucker setup with a Floyd Rose tremolo. In all other aspects, they were identical," says Bowden. "Their serial numbers were in the low thousands and only a few double digits apart. I passed the humbucker version on to a friend of mine who still has it."

He does not play the original Bluescaster live. Too risky and it is a studio and "local show only" guitar.

"The sound of this particular guitar is quite unique. The overall feel is like a gritty, organic, Clapton style Tele thing but with a bit more meat. With the control options and depending on where I pick the strings (it is very sensitive to picking location)," he says. "I can do Richard Thompson out-of-phase, Jimmy Page and Keith Richards Tele, and Mark Knopfler Strat. If I set the controls just right, I can get it to sound like the Clavinet in Stevie Wonder's Superstition and Higher Ground. I've used this trick on a number of soul/R&B tracks and when you sit it in the mix you can't tell that it's a guitar! You think it's a Clav!"

If he had to compare this guitar to a more common one (and for our purposes he does). He says it is most like an old school medium output Tele with a three piece bridge. But he is quick to add that the S&T guitar is its own thing.

"The body is an unusual cross between a three quarter Les Paul and a bound top Telecaster. It's a double cutaway style with a bolt on, Tele style hard-v maple, skunk-stripe neck," he says. "The action is low and fast without being buzzy. The double cutaway offers an unusual amount of access to the top register on the neck. More than I've seen in any other guitar. Yet, it has amazing stability. It holds a setup forever."

The guitar is made of Swamp Ash, used in Teles, with a bound top and back. The top is book matched flame maple and the neck is likewise maple.

"Overall the guitar has been well played and has taken on a beautiful honeyed patina from all the smoky gin joints I imagine it's been in," says Bowden. "The pickups are either DiMarzio or Seymour Duncan as that was what Keckler was using at the time. My instincts tell me they are most likely Seymour Duncan."

This is a guitar with character and one that requires some thought as to what you want to play it through.

"I reach for this guitar when I need character. Maybe some edge, some grit or swamp. The pickups are medium gain so a Marshall JCM800 or Mesa Triple Rec is not really going to be its friend. I play it through Vox style EL84 combos and Fender Super/Deluxe/Vibrolux 6V6/6L6 style combos," he says. "I can get clean/crunch mixtures without too much saturation. To me, saturation robs character. Long notes at the expense of unique notes. And this guitar loves a good wah pedal! In the studio, I use a Roger Mayer Vision Wah quite a bit and I can get a great old school Stax/Motown/Muscle Shoals thing going. Put the wah on with out-of-phase settings and its instant Clavinet."

As to the type of guitarist who would most appreciate it?

"I would say the Blues/Classic Rock/R&B players are going to love these instruments. Anything except Metal/Hard Rock," says Bowden. "I'm very interested in trying out the new models to see how they stack up against the vintage ones. The 61 South, with the P90's, sounds like a great idea. Especially for a Ry Cooder kind of slide thing."

He has had a few issues with the guitar and made some minor changes.

"The only changes I've made to the instrument are the wiring mods, the replacement of the original saddles with new graphite saddles and extra springs on the tremolo bridge," he says. "The original saddles are pretty corroded so I've placed them aside for safekeeping. The bridge is a classic Strat style, whammy bar bridge. The original bar was long gone when I got the guitar so I added two more springs to bring the count to five and turn it into a hard tail bridge."

Like many older instruments, although it is usually less true of electric guitars, there are sometimes issues. The Bluescaster "faults" are also its strength.

"The trickiest thing about this guitar is its best feature. It can get bright and crisp when I need it to but it's very sensitive to electrical noise and can be microphonic at high gain," he says. "It works well in a good studio with good amps and clean balanced power. I use ferrites on my cables to help block any broadcast RF trying to creep in and that helps a bit. Noise is part of the deal with this guitar."

Miriam's Well's latest release,Indians and Clowns, is out now.