Los Angeles, California November 7, 1979
Photo by Jeffrey Mayer
For one reason or another Paul seems to have grown slightly dissatisfied with his PS10's as the Return of KISS Tour wore on. For the first few months his iconic shattered mirror PS10 and two "standard" PS10's were the guitars of choice. But sometime in October that changed. The shattered mirror PS10 was still the clear-cut first choice, but instead of the PS10 backups there appeared the Gibson Explorer II and then—come November—two custom Hamer Standards joined the ranks.
Hamer had been started by Paul Hamer and Jol Dantzig in the early 70's. Originally the pair started a regular music store, Northern Prairie Music which opened in 1973, that specialized in buying old guitars (and banjos) and restoring them for re-sale—for all intents and purposes a vintage guitar store. The pair ventured into guitar construction after seeing the prices that pre-Norlin Gibsons were fetching. "When we created Hamer, we created the high-end boutique guitar category, but we didn't intend it that way. We were seeing vintage '50s Les Pauls selling for $3,000. We thought we could make guitars just as good and sell them for a third of that price." (Vintage Guitar, June 2000)
According to Hamer (personal communication, 2007), all of Paul's Hamers were specifically built for him and comparing them to the regular models we see several things that differ. As seen in the pic here there were two small "indentations", one on the upper bout and one on the treble horn. Unlike the "standard" Standard, Paul's had a three-a-side headstock and in place of the tune-o-matic-style bridge was a Sustain Block bridge (usually used on the Hamer Sunburst). Binding of the neck—as seen on Paul's guitars—was an option of the Standard but the inlays were not. The inlays on Paul's custom Hamers, and this goes for all of them, were more or less a copy of the ones on the PS10 with a pearl square split by an abalone line in the center. The Hamer inlays only differed in the width of the abalone line which is narrower and the fact that the 12th fret inlay only featured one abalone split while the PS10 had two.
Last but not least, Paul's Standards had the toggle switch in the Les Paul position on the upper bout rather than on the treble horn. Construction-wise it's unlikely that the custom Standards differed much from Hamers usual woods since Paul was a fan of the classic mahogany body with a set mahogany neck (Hamer used British Honduras mahogany). According to the 1980 Sounds interview the custom Standards also featured "the heaviest frets I could get and an ebony fingerboard".
Judging by the available pics there were two custom Standards that showed up for the tail end of the Return of KISS Tour. They shared the same basic look—the custom shape, body and neck binding, Sustain Block bridge, split inlays, and three-a-side headstock—and only differed in the pickup rings. One had black pickup rings and the second one had chrome pickup rings. At least that's what it looks like to me. This "minor variation" trick with the pickup ring seems to have been the most recent way for Paul and his tech to easily tell guitars apart. Recall the pickup ring and lack thereof of the mirror pickguard Gibson Flying V's, the subtle differences in the PS10 prototypes, and the different tuning pegs of the backup PS10's earlier during this tour.
Right at the end of November—after he had tried them out in the Gibson Explorer II—Paul chose to swap the pickups for EMG. Note that there are no visible pole pieces in any of the photos below. That's the configuration that the custom Hamer Standards would have for the next couple of years.
For Eric's inaugural show at the Palladium on July 25 Paul used both custom Standards. The "second" custom Standard—the one with the chrome pickup rings—had gotten a modification in the shape of a custom flame-shaped mirror pickguard. About those EMG pickups, they were the original Overlend EMG with a relief logo. "When I tried some EMGs out, they really sounded good in the guitars I was using at that point, so I switched. I think the time I started using EMGs were in some Hamer guitars I had made, I'd say in the early '80s." (Vintage Guitar, March 1997) The EMG relief logo can not always be seen in photos but it is visible in several of the photos below.
During the first month or so of the European tour in support of Unmasked, Paul seemed to reach for the flame mirror pickguard Standard over the plain black one. Once October started that was reversed and the mirror pickguard Standard gets virtually no stage time (at least it's not really captured in photos). Since a picture is worth a thousand words we'll let them do the talking.
When the band ended the year with mass hysteria in Australia, Paul brought his Hamer Standards and the Hamer Vector with him, but we also got to see the Hamer Doubleneck for the first time.
When Paul was promoting (Music From) The Elder in 1981 he had gotten himself a new, white Hamer Vector that he was photographed with a lot. It was also used for most of the playback performances and the video shoots. That guitar was, for all intents and purposes, a large part of the new image the band presented. But when the time came to actually perform on TV Paul reached for his trusted custom Hamer Standard.
This is pure speculation but I think the band, and therefore Paul, were nervous. They had gotten some limited critical acclaim that they had coveted but in return album sales had plummeted. Tour plans were still in the works but the original budget from October 1981 was being reworked and finances looked less than promising. (KISS Alive Forever, p. 117) That made the Fridays performance much more important than it probably should have been since it became a kind of showcase for a prospective tour. And with the pressure of putting on a "good show" Paul might have felt that adding an unknown variable was a bit too much. It was probably much more comfortable to bring out a trusted guitar.
As we all know (Music From) The Elder was a commercial failure and after two attempts at putting together a budget for a tour the idea was scrapped in early 1982. Instead the band regrouped a little and recorded the new tracks for KISS Killers—a compilation that was a direct result of the band failing to deliver the previous album on time. And then, enter Creatures of the Night. For the 10th Anniversary Tour Paul got himself two new B.C. Rich Eagles, a B.C Rich Mockingbird, and had his Hamers re-finished with animal themes. The second custom Hamer Standard that had he flame mirror pickguard got a new tiger-ish finish and a new set of top-hat style knobs.
Alas, despite the snazzy new finish the custom Hamer Standard was not a favorite during this tour. The main duties were handled by the now zebra-striped Hamer Vector with the no. 1 B.C. Rich Eagle a close second. It doesn't show up on stage until halfway through the tour in mid-February. But once it does it gets a decent amount of action for the remaining month-and-a-half of the tour. In some high-resolution photos we can see that the pickups were still the relief logo Overlend EMG.
For the touring in support of Lick It Up Paul relied on the guitars he already had. The zebra Hamer Vector was the go-to with the main B.C. Rich Eagle as the main backup. The tiger Hamer Standard was still around, but it got comparatively little use as Paul seems to have reached for the B.C. Rich Mockingbird instead. Unlike the zebra Hamer Vector the Standard kept the old overlend EMG pickups throughout the tour
After the end of the Lick IT Up Tour both this tiger Hamer Standard and the zebra Hamer Vector were retired. Might seem a little odd considering that the next album was all about animal print imagery, but Paul had started endorsing B.C. Rich so it makes sense. (Until you realize that he got the custom Hamer Scarab in 1984...) The tiger Standard was part of the 1995 Convention Tourbook and it was also part of the museum part of the conventions. Both custom Hamer Standards were then auctioned off at Butterfields, the black one—without pickups—was lot 1136 and the tiger was lot 1599.
