The Bojotar is a new stringed instrument developed by guitarist Bow Thayer in collaboration with Joey Leone for Eastwood/Airline Guitars.
The instrument, which is demoed by Thayer in the video below, should be available December 15 and can be pre-ordered here.
The instrument has a chambered guitar body with a resonator, two pickups (a humbucker by the neck and a piezo under the resonator's biscuit) and a three-knob blending system that allows for many different varieties of tone.
Thayer removed the low E string of a standard guitar by cutting the neck down to the fifth fret and replacing it with a drone string like a banjo, leaving it with an extra-low note that a five-string banjo doesn't have.
This hybrid can be tuned to an open G, just like Keith Richards, or any other open tuning you want to explore. Thayer plays it with a flat pick and two finger picks on his middle and ring finger, but the sky is the limit.
The Bojotar can be played with a banjo roll, strummed or as a single note pick. Or with a blues finger style and a slide riff, all in one tune. Thayer also plans on adding a B-bender to, as he puts it, "get into the world of some pseudo-pedal steel licks."
Damian is Editor-in-Chief of Guitar World magazine. In past lives, he was GW’s managing editor and online managing editor. He's written liner notes for major-label releases, including Stevie Ray Vaughan's 'The Complete Epic Recordings Collection' (Sony Legacy) and has interviewed everyone from Yngwie Malmsteen to Kevin Bacon (with a few memorable Eric Clapton chats thrown into the mix). Damian, a former member of Brooklyn's The Gas House Gorillas, was the sole guitarist in Mister Neutron, a trio that toured the U.S. and released three albums. He now plays in two NYC-area bands.
