Darrell Mann

It feels really odd starting the who’s-who story with myself, because without a doubt I’m the least important part of the ACS story. I’m an aerospace engineer that just happens to love guitars. It turns out I’m better at collecting them than playing them, but, such fortunate happenstance means I’ve developed a pretty good eye for what works and what doesn’t. Over the past way-too-many  years I’ve had the privilege to own and play several hundred guitars. Bringing my jet-engine precision view of the world to the world of guitars has too often left me massively disappointed. How can it be so difficult to set a guitar up properly before it leaves the factory? I found myself pondering. It’s not rocket science. Except, it turns out, it is. You can never step in the same river twice when it comes to guitars. As soon as a decision gets made to use natural materials to construct a guitar, you know that there can be no such thing as a ‘production line’. If you ever want to prove it to yourself, go visit a guitar shop big enough to have several of the same model in stock. Try each one for a few minutes. None of them feel the same, none of them sound the same. A pickup that works in one guitar, sounds completely wrong in another guitar that is supposedly identical. There had to be a better way. It took me a good few years to work it out. The answer is working with people that care, have a keen feel for quality, a good eye for aesthetics, and a great ear for what sounds right and what doesn’t. My job in ACS is simple: source good guitars and then make sure they feel, look and sound right before they leave the door.

John Grierson

John is the real powerhouse behind ACS. I came across his work through ebay. Someone was selling a Rory Gallagher Strat replica and, even though the photos made it look like a very good replica,  no-one was bidding. So I got it for what I now know is a complete steal. When it arrived, not only did the guitar look the part, it felt great, and played even better. The more I played it, the more if felt like the bargain of the century. The effect shot to a whole other level when I had the chance to pick up and play an actual Fender Custom Shop Rory-replica. Talk about chalk-and-cheese. John’s work put Fender to shame on every level. I had to get in touch with him. I had to have more of his work. The more I saw, the more I thought the world needs to see John’s work. There are many ‘relic’ers’ out there in the world, probably too many. I’ve spent the last decade checking them all out. The more of them I see, the more I realise John is head and shoulders above them all. If we’re lucky in life, we find something we’re really, really good at. John is really, really good at relic’ing and setting up guitars.

He’s a guitar player, he loves guitars, the love shows in all of his work.

Kif Wood

Kif, for me, is without a shadow of a doubt the best, most innovative, luthier in the country. I first came across his work when I saw a fellow-leftie selling a Kif guitar on ebay. Doing my due diligence, I saw that several musicians I admire (and Johnny Depp) owned one of his guitars. I won the auction, and the rest as they say is history. I now own several guitars that I designed with Kif – including an amazing parlour-size travel guitar that proved to be so good, I daredn’t take it out of the house, making it the world’s least travelled travel guitar. He’s also done some truly astonishing conversion work for me. A Gibson Marauder – try finding one of those in a lefthanded version! – turned out so well, I was tempted to go back to Gibson to encourage them to use Kif to show them how to set their guitars up. When we acquire an orphan guitar that needs some TLC, Kif is our go-to luthier.

Kif has been building and guitars for over 30 years now. He’s good at it.

You should check out his other work at www.kifguitars.com

Blandine Anderson

After completing her Fine Art Ceramics (BA Hons) at Exeter College of Art and Design, Blandine taught for five years at colleges in Somerset before setting up her first ceramic studio in Devon in 1988. Through a combination of consummate skill and her unique vision of the natural world, Blandine has not only established her reputation as an artist intent on pushing creative boundaries, but has also gained an enthusiastic following for her hugely collectable one-off sculptural works.

We asked Blandine to create a range of ceramic plaques based on the Andraste theme, and she’s done us proud by making each plaque completely unique. Each plaque not only carries a unique serial number, but also a unique design.

We think Blandine is the finest ceramicist working in the country today.

You should check out her other work at www.blandineanderson.com