Out Of The Case: Jackson Machine Gun Guitar
It may have seemed like a great idea at the time… That’s the sentiment by many of us here at The Music Zoo when we were assaulted by this custom Jackson “Tommy Gun” guitar that we have around our office—another rare and unusual guitar owned by Zookeeper Tommy Colletti. Our Tommy Gun was built around 1984. According to shipping records that we’ve found online, Jackson built about four of these guitars.
The Tommy Gun was designed and built by Mike Shannon, the near-legendary Master Builder who’s been with Jackson since its beginnings around 1979. It was Shannon, by the way, who built the Randy Rhoads’ original Concorde V guitars. The Tommy Gun’s specs appear to be standard issue “Jackson” with maple neck through construction and poplar wings to imitate the grips and magazine. It has a rosewood board with no inlays, versus a traditional ebony board, we’re assuming to complete the look of typical firearm construction. The headstock also has a ‘sight’ which is a nice little detail. And of course it’s fun to see some familiarity, such as the brass vintage trem, knob, strap pins and back plates which are all OEM parts. Presumably Dan Lawrence completed the paint job, we’re hard pressed to find a graphic guitar Dan didn’t paint from the ’80s. These days though, strutting around with a guitar like this will get you arrested, or worse. Enjoy this photo set of our Jackson Machine Gun Guitar!
Contributors: Mike Bieber, Tim Reynolds
Photos by: Walter Bryant
