So who the fuck is this guy and what's the deal with his guitars?
Esteban is actually Stephen Paul from Pittsburgh, PA.
He is the...ahem..."guitar master" (cough..cough..bullshit...cough..cough) that can be found from time-to-time peeking from beneath his black leather hat dressed up like fucking Zorro, on late night infomercials and on Home Shopping Network, trying to sell his crappy guitars.
So how did Stephen become Esteban?
Legend has it that he was given the name from none other than Andres Segovia who he claims to have studied with.
In reality the only thing that's for certain is that Esteban did meet with Segovia at least once and he autographed a book for him...something he did probably thousands of times for thousands of fans.
I think it's prudent that this be known. Segovia had died before he could be questioned about Esteban. Esteban's self-proclaimed skill learned from Segovia cannot be verified since Segovia can't actually speak for himself.
According to his Wikipedia page he also studied music at Carnegie Mellon University, was involved in a car crash that left him unable to play guitar for ten years and was ultimately playing at a Hyatt Regency when he released his first album in 1991.
So what about the guitars he sells on HSN? I'll let the reviews speak for themselves.
These are actual reviews from actual people who bought actual Esteban Guitars:
Complete and utter crap I wouldn't wish on anyone.
First, this thing was made in China. What a crock! It was basically glued together. They claimed this had a rosewood neck and on and on...no! This is basically particleboard. It's not a good guitar. It looks like crap. This wasn't solid at all. The tuners didn't do anything, more or less. The body was flimsy. What junk!
This guitar was not set up at all, buzzing strings, frets popped up. Binding was fake, plastic, possibly even taped on. The wood looked like crap and the fret board was cardboard/particle board. How can people get away with selling people this crap. It makes no sense.
Not reliable at all. I'm embarrassed to play it in front of family or friends because of the sound and the dead frets. This Esteban guitar has no durability since it started breaking down after only 3 months of owning it, and I played it gently, having a suspicion that it wasn't made well to start with. As reliable as a dead beat dad.
The power lines in my front yard are lower than the action on this guitar...but it was the first acoustic i owned ,,now i can play anything,since my hands become a rough and concrete...most everything on this guitar is flawed
cut my fingers on the frets. I had to spend Christmas morning in the emergency room getting stitches. The doctors looked at me like I was a complete lunatic, since I was covered in blood and paint from the fretboard, and screaming about how Esteban ruined my Christmas.
My daughter bought it. She played it for a couple weeks. Then one day I arrived home from work and there it was hanging from a tree limb minus strings. She got so ticked off that she decided to turn it into a bird house. So far after 6 weeks in the tree no birds have moved in, but there is bird crap all over it
I returned the entire package. They refunded me for two payments, but now they are using my Visa to take money out of my bank account again
So this thieving hack claims his guitar to be just as good as a Martin. Better actually, because his guitar has a built in pickup (gasp!) and the 5,000 dollar Martin that it is compared to.......doesn't!
These infomercials are aimed at the poor, innocent, naive, people who don't know shit about guitars. Unfortunate people who haven't yet been taught the lesson "you get what you pay for."
So do yourselves a favor, instead of buying an Esteban Guitar, go to your local music store and buy the cheapest guitar there because I guarantee it will be better than the Esteban Guitar.
No comments:
Post a Comment