The Sound
And of course, you want to hear what our guitars sound like. After all, it’s not only about good-looking instruments. So we put together a selection of clips that not only demonstrate their unmistakable character, but also cover the many genres our guitars are suited to — from blues and gypsy jazz to a little detour into Francisco Tárrega’s classic Lágrima.
These demos aren’t just recordings; they showcase the craftsmanship, soul, and playability built into every guitar we create.
For Sephora
Quite some time ago, the now-famous Vietnamese singer-songwriter Doãn Hoài Nam — by then my son’s guitar teacher — visited our workshop. After some conversation, he was eager to try out one of the first prototypes of our guitars. What struck me most was his passion for Django-style gypsy jazz, a genre not widely known in Vietnam, where Western music is often associated with names like ABBA or Boney M.
When I asked if he knew the classic For Sephora, written by my fellow Dutchman Stochelo Rosenberg, his eyes lit up — he did. We put on a backing track and after just ten minutes of rehearsal, we hit record — and the session spoke for itself.
Stormy Monday
Visiting music stores to present some prototypes of our guitars can be exhausting. But when one of the salesmen turns out to be an accomplished blues guitarist, all fatigue disappears. At Phuc An’s Music in Saigon, they pulled out some amps, handed me a Hohner Bluesharp, and the jam began.
Among the recordings we made, playing T-Bone Walker’s classic Stormy Monday was the highlight. We used the chord progression made famous by The Allman Brothers during their legendary 1971 Fillmore East concert. A modest homage to the late Duane Allman, who tragically passed away in a motorcycle crash shortly after that performance.
Lagrima
Classical music and oil-can guitars — it's a rather unlikely combination. Still, it seemed a challenging experiment to record "Lágrima", especially after I met Polish guitarist Paweł Kuźma, who teaches classical guitar here in Hanoi. I asked him to play this short masterpiece by Francisco Tárrega. And the result? Judge for yourself.
Dayton, Ohio - 1903
One of my favorite songs, written by Randy Newman: "Dayton, Ohio – 1903." It first appeared on his album Sail Away. For this version, we extracted Randy's vocals from his The Randy Newman Songbook recording and replaced the piano with our own oil can guitar. On Sail Away, the song was originally recorded in the key of G major, while this version is in the key of F. Although the guitar arrangement is in the key of E, instead of using a capo, we tuned the guitar up a semitone. We think the result sounds amazing. The photographs used are courtesy of the Facebook page History of the Daytonians.
Em ăn cơm chưa?
I actually considered it something of a youthful folly — the one‑man‑band version of a basic 12‑bar blues called “Em ăn cơm chưa?”. With two oil‑can guitars, an oil‑can bass guitar, a piano, and a blues harp, I put this song together. Its title comes from a Vietnamese phrase that literally means “Have you eaten rice already?” People here ask it all the time, even if they know you just came from KFC: “Have you eaten already?”
Recently I discovered there’s a Vietnamese rap song with the same title. Although rap is far from my favorite genre, I thought it would be fun to extract the vocals from that track and mix them with my song. So here it is: Em ăn cơm chưa? — Remix.