marzo 22, 2024
"Tienda de guitarras en California preferida por Taylor Swift - Conoce sus mejores instrumentos"

“Tienda de guitarras en California preferida por Taylor Swift – Conoce sus mejores instrumentos”

Taylor Swift, la cantante pop más exitosa de los últimos tiempos, ha revelado en una entrevista que su tienda de guitarras favorita se encuentra en California. Se trata de una tienda especializada en guitarras que cuenta con un amplio inventario de modelos y marcas cuidadosamente seleccionados. La artista ha confesado que ha visitado esta tienda en varias ocasiones y ha encontrado allí la guitarra de sus sueños. La exquisitez en el trato y la calidad del servicio son algunas de las características que han convertido a esta tienda en una de las preferidas por músicos y amantes de la guitarra en todo el mundo. ¿Quieres descubrir más sobre esta tienda de guitarras y su historia? Continúa leyendo en Guitarralia.

If you’re looking hard enough, chances are you’ll spot one or two on stage next month at Coachella. At Outside Lands in August, you may hear one echo through the crowded meadows of Golden Gate Park. If you were skillful enough to lock down a date with Taylor Swift at Levi’s Stadium in July, hers will likely attend as a plus one. Phoebe Bridgers doesn’t leave home without hers. Neither do folk-art-rock-punk icons Carrie Brownstein, Jeff Tweedy and Jackson Browne.

It’s a guitar.

Though it’s not just any guitar. It’s an Old Style Guitar Shop guitar. To the naked eye, it looks like something left for dead in the corner of a thrift store or pawn shop, the instrument abandoned at the ex’s house during a hasty break-up. 

It’s the what-ever-happened-to-my-guitar guitar. 


FILE – In this June 22, 2018, file photo, singer Taylor Swift performs on stage in concert at Wembley Stadium in London. ABC will air the one-hour concert special “Taylor Swift City of Lover Concert” at 10 p.m. EDT. It was filmed last September at L’Olympia Theater in Paris. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP, File)
Joel C Ryan/Associated Press

Phoebe Bridgers rehearses on stage during the 33nd Annual Tibet House US Benefit Concert & Gala on February 26, 2020 in New York City. (Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Tibet House/TNS)
Phoebe Bridgers rehearses on stage during the 33nd Annual Tibet House US Benefit Concert & Gala on February 26, 2020 in New York City. (Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Tibet House/TNS)
Ilya S. Savenok for Tibet House/TNS


Left, file photo of Taylor Swift; right, file photo of Phoebe Bridgers (Joel C Ryan/ Associated Press/Ilya S. Savenok For Tibet House, TNS)

But a lucky handful of these forgotten hollow wooden vessels are somehow rescued from the flotsam of flea markets and swap meets and placed in the hands of one man, luthier Reuben Cox, who fulfills their ultimate destiny. 

Cox works his brand of magic in their refurbishment and sends his creations back out into the world, new again — sounding different, feeling different — to make the tracks we love.

So how does he do it? 

‘I’ll start very small’

Cox’s story is as unlikely as the instruments he somehow wills back to life and into the hands of the most talented on the planet. Raised in a log cabin in the North Carolina woods, Cox got into a science and math-focused public boarding school in nearby Durham as a teen, only to decide that math and science weren’t his jam. 

Instead, he found himself living in the school’s darkroom and wood shop. 

Guitarmaker Reuben Cox talks about the inspirations behind his custom creations at Old Style Guitar Shop in Los Angeles. 

Guitarmaker Reuben Cox talks about the inspirations behind his custom creations at Old Style Guitar Shop in Los Angeles. 

Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE

“I was a terribly shy kid and I always did well in school because I was terrified by being called on by the teacher,” he told SFGATE during a recent sit-down in his store, Old Style Guitar Shop, a whitewashed converted single-story bungalow with black trim on the edge of LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood. “As a teenager, I was like a skate punk, who was into music and art, and, you know, felt like there was something more out there and trying to get out into the world any way I could.

“I had access to the art department, they’d give you supplies. It was always unlocked. You could use it whenever — that’s what I did.”

After high school, Cox attended Cooper Union, a private science and art college in Manhattan. It was there he honed his film photography skills, and graduated with the idea that he’d be a professional art photographer.

“Photography, if you’re practicing it as an art form, doing analog, even digital — it’s all very materials cost-heavy,” he said. “I would run dark rooms, pick up adjunct jobs when I could. I figured it out and learned the ethos: The artist lifestyle is working so you don’t have to work so you can work.”

Reuben Cox considers the analog nature of his work at Old Style Guitar Shop in Los Angeles. 

Reuben Cox considers the analog nature of his work at Old Style Guitar Shop in Los Angeles. 


Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE

Guitar maker Reuben Cox shows off one of his creations at his shop Old Style Guitar Shop in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. 

Guitar maker Reuben Cox shows off one of his creations at his shop Old Style Guitar Shop in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. 


Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE


Left, Reuben Cox considers the analog nature of his work at Old Style Guitar Shop; right, one of Reuben Cox’s creations at his shop. (Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE)

To supplement his income, Cox did editorial shoots for the New Yorker and New York Times Magazine, but still found himself back in the wood shop, always tinkering, making things with his hands — though not quite knowing what to do with it.

It took a cross-country move for him to put it all together. He and his then-wife moved from New York to LA in 2009. Suddenly, the opportunities to make a living as a non-paparazzo photographer seemed to dissipate. It was time for something new. 

“I was married at the time, my wife was working at a record label, and they asked her to open an office here in Los Angeles, and I was the tag-along spouse,” he said. “It required me to give up everything. I felt like I would be put out to pasture anyways unless I switched to digital [photography], plus I was tired of schools and politics and lazy students.

“I had started to work on guitars, so I decided I’ll start a guitar shop. I’ll start very small and if I crash and burn, I’ll go back to working at art schools.”

‘It was extremely stressful for a few years’

Cox sits among dozens of his creations, relaxed, speaking clearly and thoughtfully, in the moment like someone who has all their loose ends tied up. Every now and then, he selects one of his instruments and gives an illustrative strum.

His initial learning curve was “pretty intense.” He made and fixed guitars through trial and error, watching YouTube. Eventually, he started to carve out a little name for himself. 

The nondescript front of Old Style Guitar Shop in L.A.'s Silver Lake neighorhood. 

The nondescript front of Old Style Guitar Shop in L.A.’s Silver Lake neighorhood. 


Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE

Custom-built guitars hang from the walls waiting for a new owner at Old Style Guitar Shop in Los Angeles. 

Custom-built guitars hang from the walls waiting for a new owner at Old Style Guitar Shop in Los Angeles. 


Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE


Old Style Guitar Shop in LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood. (Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE)

“I’d never done repairs, and I just opened up the shop and people started slowly bringing in stuff for me to fix,” he said. “I mean, I had woodworking skills and I can transpose basic woodworking skills to guitars. I can use tools and stuff like that. But a lot of it, the beginning, was me, you know, nervously watching videos. 

“People bringing their personal property for me to work on — it was extremely stressful for a few years. That, and just learning how to run a business.”

Cox said he was able to turn basic guitar repairs around in a few days rather than the standard two weeks of bigger shops in the area. Because he was conveniently located near Highway 101, some noteworthy folks started to file into his shop and become regulars, then friends. 

But his creations didn’t have a signature sound, until one day he was invited to a recording studio — and it happened. 



‘It ended up being a bull’s-eye’

Singer-songwriter-whistler extraordinaire Andrew Bird was working on what would become 2016’s “Are You Serious,” with musician Blake Mills and producer Tony Berg at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys. 

Since 1969, Sound City has famously cranked out gold and platinum records for musical giants like Elton John, Bob Dylan and Metallica. And Cox — putting his photographer hat back on — offered to come out and shoot Bird’s sessions as a ruse to get into the studio.

“It’s the place where Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ was recorded,” he said, “Tom Petty’s albums. … So, I was like, I got to get in there.

“You know, I love going to recording studios because I’m such a huge music fan, and am mystified by the recording process, and the black art of making records and all that.”

While there, Mills showed Cox an electric banjo from the 1950s that both agreed made an incredible, almost haunted sound. 

“I was like, ‘What’s going on with this?’” Cox recalls. “So I went to see if I can adapt that to a six-string guitar.”

Vintage instruments and amps line the walls at Old Style Guitar Shop in Los Angeles. 

Vintage instruments and amps line the walls at Old Style Guitar Shop in Los Angeles. 

Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE

From the session, Cox headed straight to his workshop to try to recreate the banjo’s sound. He said he cobbled together some loose parts and replaced the bridge of an old guitar with a custom rubber one. “It was just something that I threw together in like two hours or less,” he recalls. “But somehow it ended up being a bull’s-eye.”

Cox drove to Mills’ house and handed him the guitar. “I think he’s used that first one in everything he’s worked on since,” he said.

In late 2015, Mills — whose production credits also include albums by Perfume Genius, John Legend and Alabama Shakes — posted a video of himself riffing on one of Cox’s guitars. It helped solidify Old Style’s reputation: “Can already tell this guitar from @oldstyleguitarshop is going to see MUCH use. Thanks Reuben!!”

A ‘funny kind of dead sound’

Over the past half-decade, Cox’s custom guitars — which make what he describes as a “funny kind of dead sound” — have caught on. 

“It deadens the strings and it sounds a lot like a pizzicato electric violin,” Mills told Vulture in February, confirming that he used the guitar on Perfume Genius’ song “Slip Away” in 2017 and has used it “on every record I’ve worked on since.”

Perfume Genius performs at Day For Night at Post HTX in Downtown Houston on Dec. 16, 2017.

Perfume Genius performs at Day For Night at Post HTX in Downtown Houston on Dec. 16, 2017.

j.vince photography Jamaal Ellis/For the Chronicle

Cox’s guitars have inspired more than just musicians. Last year, director Alice Gu (“The Donut King”) made a documentary about Cox, his instruments and his process. It’s called “Really Good Rejects,” and it features testimony to the luthier’s deft touch from some of today’s favorites, from Andrew Bird to Phoebe Bridgers.

“One of the curiosities that I leaned into with the film is the idea that whether we’re all in a Metaverse or Google Glass and Oculus and whatnot, we’re still these cave people at our core,” Gu told Guitar World last April. “I was hoping the takeaway from this film was that despite people’s worries about bills and if they get enough likes, they can get lost for 90 minutes and get in touch with their own human-ness.”

‘I just squirted the glue and squeezed the clamp’

The connection with the tactile and the analog seems to be the plum line through Cox’s professional life.

From a career as a film photographer to a luthier who refuses to sell anything outside his shop (Old Style has no online store), to being a dad whose greatest delight is working in his basement workshop with his 13-year-old son building shelves, Cox seems to have stumbled upon some kind of tech counternarrative built out of discarded instruments and miscellaneous parts that were hanging around.

“People say, ‘What you do, it’s magic’,” he said. “I tell them, ‘No, I just squirted the glue and squeezed the clamp.’”

Guitar maker Reuben Cox displays a guitar that he custom-refurbished in his Los Angeles shop. 

Guitar maker Reuben Cox displays a guitar that he custom-refurbished in his Los Angeles shop. 


Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE

Some of the treasures found on display at Old Style Guitar Shop in L.A.'s Silver Lake neighborhood.

Some of the treasures found on display at Old Style Guitar Shop in L.A.’s Silver Lake neighborhood.


Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE

Guitars and even an old banjo wait to be plucked off the wall of Old Style Guitar Shop in Los Angeles. 

Guitars and even an old banjo wait to be plucked off the wall of Old Style Guitar Shop in Los Angeles. 


Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE


Old Style Guitar Shop in LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood. (Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE)

In accordance with this narrative, Cox’s shop feels like at once a glimpse into the past and maybe something from the not-too-distant future. It’s a small yet airy space, with a chaotic but somehow orderly arrangement of guitars, strings, and accessories. It’s got creaky floors that seem to reverberate each note from the instruments. In the back corner, there’s a non-operational fireplace where Cox keeps his workbench slash desk, riddled with tools and loose paperwork. 

Taking inventory of the instruments around him, Cox says his guitars are built to be used, not stuck under glass in a museum or a billionaire’s office. And now, among certain rarefied circles of artists, they seem to show up on an album or on stage often.

“On any given day at Old Style, you might bump into producers, songwriters, and session musicians looking for Reuben’s bespoke sound. That’s how it ended up on Phoebe Bridgers’s Punisher and on Swift’s folklore and evermore (via the National’s Aaron Dessner),” the Vulture article noted. 

“It’s nice when people are like, ‘Oh yeah, this guitar, I love it,’” Cox said. “But when they actually use it on their record that must mean that the thing you made has some redeeming qualities.”

‘Everyone wants things quick’

But the real reward, Cox said, isn’t the famous hands who’ve strummed his creations. Because the starting point for his work is often cheap or discarded instruments, Cox described one of his most important jobs as the ability to eliminate a barrier to entry that he, as a kid coming from the North Carolina woods with few resources, little money, and no connections once faced.

Professional musicians, producers and those just getting started are often found congregating among the custom creations of Old Style Guitar Shop in Los Angeles.  

Professional musicians, producers and those just getting started are often found congregating among the custom creations of Old Style Guitar Shop in Los Angeles.  

Andrew Pridgen/SFGATE

“It’s nice to sell an expensive guitar and make a buck,” he said. “But sometimes the most interesting people who you’re trying to help get along in their career, they don’t have any money, and I want to help that, I want to be a part of that.

“It’s exciting to me when parents and their 13-year-old daughter come in and I have a guitar I fixed up and it’s $300 or something like that,” he continues. “Once that scenario with a teenage girl happened: The parents and their daughter were here looking and Kim Gordon came in, and I’m like, that’s auspicious — you buy your first guitar as a teenager, and Kim Gordon walks in.”

FILE - Kim Gordon performs on stage during a concert at the Astra on June 7, 2022, in Berlin, Germany.

FILE – Kim Gordon performs on stage during a concert at the Astra on June 7, 2022, in Berlin, Germany.

Jana Legler/Redferns

As long as he’s around and there’s a need, Old Style, he says, will be a place to come and play an instrument, and then be able to ponder it for a while before purchase. Selecting a guitar is a highly personal decision, Cox admits, and that’s why every single instrument he produces sounds a little different and resonates a little differently with every individual.

And once the choice is made, it will be an affordable one; some of his creations starting in the $300 range. 

Cox admits in the post-production process an engineer can “make a guitar sound like a tuba.” But his instruments, the sounds they make, and the loyalty that musicians have to them, are what make his endeavor a worthwhile one — one that’s nearly impossible to replicate, much less automate.

“Because of the Amazon Primification of the world, everyone wants things quick,” he concluded. “But some things — the things really worthwhile — they take a little time.”


¡Y así, amigos guitarreros, llegamos al final de otra historia fascinante en el mundo de la guitarra! Esperamos que hayan disfrutado de este artículo sobre la tienda de guitarras favorita de la magnífica Taylor Swift, ubicada en la soleada California. Siempre es un placer compartir con ustedes las últimas noticias, curiosidades y descubrimientos sobre nuestro instrumento favorito. ¡Nos vemos pronto en Guitarralia!

Deja una respuesta

Tu dirección de correo electrónico no será publicada. Los campos obligatorios están marcados con *