Guitars.

The bench matters.

Some of these instruments have spent time on Dave Onorato’s workbench at Dojo Guitar Repair. We go back to the early ’90s music-store days. I looked up to Dave because he was a real musician — out there doing it — and he remains a monster player and one of the repair techs I trust most. Back then I was fascinated by band names. Dave played in the Plastic Daddies, and I always thought that was a particularly cool one. More than thirty years later I still occasionally call him Plastic Daddy. I’m not claiming Dave has encouraged this.

A little time capsule.

I bought this 1960s Victoria denim case from a guy in San Francisco — home to Levi Strauss and the city synonymous with the Haight-Ashbury movement. That matters because this case feels like it was born from that exact place, time and material language.

Denim, age, hardware, wear — the whole thing feels less like an accessory and more like a surviving piece of the era. It is a time capsule and an all-around amazing piece of history. The other cases protect guitars. This one deserves to be looked at on its own.

The cowboy tooling doesn’t need a separate story. It has simply become a recurring theme around here.