Gearwire Gallery

We found another gem in the May 1986 issue of Keyboard Magazine -- this one was an ad for the Fairlight C.M.I. Series III. The old black and green computer monitor takes me back, but the guy in the back is the kicker.

Today's Gearwire Gallery ad comes from the May 1986 issue of Keyboard Magazine. The ad is for Electro-Voice speakers.

J. Irving-Giles: At the time, their tag-line was "Electro-Voice speakers -- it's like...  

Gearwire Gallery turns back the clock to 1977, where we extract this Rhodes ad from an April issue of Contemporary Keyboard magazine. Obviously, the name stood the test of time just as well as the Rhodes advertisement...  

Gearwire Gallery is back after a brief absence. First up is this somewhat confusing image from Dean Markley. We are still puzzled by the correlation between vikings and bass strings.

Bill Holland Is this...  

Bill Holland: So, sausages...exactly what comes to mind when one thinks of breakfast on the frontier, greasy spoon diners at 1am, and...Moog synthesizers?

Joe Wallace Are those REAL pork sausages? Or is it that...  

The class of '93 were just a bunch of crazy kids trying to figure it all out. Take the pictured Miami rock band, Saigon Kick as an example. Eyewitness reports suggest that these gentlemen actually were not known for...  

It's 1992 again in the Gallery. The magazine is Guitar Player and the company is Dean Markley pushing their Blue Steel bass strings. Pictured is one Vail Johnson, bass player for noted soprano-saxophone Smoove-Jazz titan...  

Dean Markley strings knew better than to challenge D'Addario on their home turf. As Gearwire Gallery readers know, in the 1980s and 90s D'Addario was the undisputed king of movie spoof concepts in their print ads. Loyal...  

D'Addario strings have shown themselves to be the kings of the Gearwire Gallery "movie spoof" sub-genre. In this 1990 entry from Guitar Player magazine the company has settled on imagery recalling the smash hit film "Top...  

We know that without the pointy guitar, there would be no such thing as an identifiable "Guitar Player Magazine" guitar product type. If the pointy guitar suddenly became unpopular, the entire industry devoted to the...  

It's 1992 again, that transitional period in mainstream rock history when the Warrants and Poisons of the industry were being replaced by the Alices in Chains and the Pearl Jams. Pictured is one Joey Tafolla, one-time...  

The DigiTech guitar processors of yesterday (November 1986, to be exact) included the Whammy -- hands down one of the finest guitar effect pedals to ever be built. It wasn't just that bending notes and chords with the...  

It's not common for the ads that we feature in Gearwire Gallery to employ much in the way of subtlety. We've seen collapsing buildings, idiotic set designs, pre-Photoshop gymnastics and hideous portraits. This time we're...  

November '86 or thereabouts saw the first appearance of inexpensive sample-based drum machines aimed at non-electronic musicians. I know I wasn't the only bass player to break down and pick up a Boss DR-550. As first...  

The Guitar Institute of Technology is one of many entries in the lucrative music-career-preparation industry, but no competing school has a funnier name. Somebody once harrumphed that the United Kingdom and the United...  

Want to see the future? Of course you do. Back in the pages of the February 1992 issue of Guitar Player magazine, the Ibanez company had similar dreams and worked to channel visions of events yet to come. Undoubtedly...  

D'Addario strings does it again with the bizarre celebrity endorsements. Earlier in Gearwire Gallery we saw them use Tolkien characters, and in this May 1994 full-page ad from Musician magazine, we are treated to a bad...  

Before their merger with Voyetra, Turtle Beach was an early player in the PC audio card business. The 56K was an ISA card that came with an optional interface box with AES/SBU connections for your DAT. This ad is from...