Famous musicians who use tokai guitars?

Okidoki.
Ron Wood (Rolling Stones) used a natural finish Tokai TST in the early 80s, Bruce Watson (Big Country) used a TTE for slide on the 1984 Steeltown tour and recorded the slide part of Raindance on that guitar, the guitarist in the Blockheads uses Tokai TSTs, there was a rumour that Chris Rea used rebadged Tokais in the 80s as did quite a few prominant Strat players then.
It stands to reason that since (I believe) Dave Gilmour lent Tokai one f hisvintage Strats for measurements, that he would have been given one or two to try, so who knows - even if he had the logos changed?...

Alvin Lee


http://www.alvinlee.de/1987.htm

I remember reading an article where Tim Farriss talked about endorsing Tokai guitars and if IIRC he said something along the lines of Tokai sending him many guitars. He said most were given away to family and friends.

The Tele Tim plays in this TV performance is a Tokai and I can 100% confirm this as I've played the actual guitar about 4 days after he played it on TV.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BScc4YIRbZU

kennzo5150 said:

billy gibbons used a tokai strat on cheap sunglasses.

Click to expand...

Are you sure ? Where do youget thisinfo, please ?

:wink:

Looks like Joe played more than the red 100.....



One of 1981 J/W 100

Hi guys,
I tried to stay away from this thread....argghhh.
LS-100S OR - I know 2 members who have one each, both '82's. I was fortunate enough to buy it's twin brother ON from one of these members.

I met Joe Walsh and Waddy Watchel in Sydney, 1986 during their "Creatures from America" Tour. Joe had an LS-80 stolen and wanted a replacement. As he was a Tokai endorser, we supplied him a new one, straight off the shelf. For those Aussies out there, Joes drummer on the tour was Richard Harvey from the Divinyls.

Also adding to the Australian list
Jimmy Doyle RIP & Chris Brown (Ayers Rock), James Freud RIP & Shaun Kelly (Models), Mark Punch (Renee Geyer Band), Ray Brown ( The whispers) Tommy Emmanuel, Dave Faulkner (Hoodoo Gurus), Scotty Peters (Sunday Punch) Jim Kelly (Crossfire)

and Internationally endorers and/or users
Rick Neilson (Cheap Trick), Rick Danko & Earl Cate (The Band) Ian Hunter (Mott the Hoople), Mick Ronson ( David Bowie, Ian Hunter) Elvis Costello,
Bruce Springsteen, Rory Gallagher, Ace Frehley, Gene Parsons, Martin Barre (Jethro Tull), Johnny Winter, Wilko Johnson & Norman Watt Jnr(Blockheads)
Rick Derringer, Andy Summers,

We are in good company, Gentlemen.

In the Models filmclip 'Out of Mind, Out of Sight' James freud is playing a Talbo bass.

Cheers
Peter Mac

West Coast guitar hero Junior Watson plays an 80s Tokai Les Paul. It's one of his main guitars. He has replaced the pickups with vintage 50s P90s and he replaced the headstock veneer to a Gibson Les Paul logo because he says that the Tokai Logo somehow looked "wrong". I had a feeling that he just said it to keep people from stealing it but I talked to somebody who got to play it and he confirmed that it was a Tokai indeed

Nice to see him quietly playing guitar instead of cooking meth.

He also plays a Dillion goldtop (has/had an endorsement deal with them)

http://dillionguitars.com/reviews/juniorwatson.html

Igor Prado's Goldtop is a DIllion as well if I recall corectly


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHPT4Zi7QqM

Nile Rodgers used a Tokai Strat on Madonna's "Like a virgin".

"Nile, who played his Tokai guitar through a Music Man amp and a DI, was at the back of the room, to Bernard's right. Nile had an amazing guitar collection, but he loved his early Tokai, which had a mid-range dip in the controls and a really great sound."

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep07/articles/classictracks_0907.htm

Thanks to singemonkey for the info.

Diamond said:

Nile Rodgers used a Tokai Strat on Madonna's "Like a virgin".

Click to expand...

Tokais are defiled for all time ... just kidding

The guy I bought my Japanese Tokai from told me he recently sold one the same as mine, only in red instead of blue, to Tony Clarkin, who is the guitarist with an old Metal band called Magnum. He said that he uses it on a song, or two, on a recent live DVD.

Philip Sayce " I like a lot of the old Tokai's too, they're really cool. They're great frames ? you can really work with them, change out the pickups or whatever."

Source http://www.musicradar.com/guitarist/philip-sayce-interview-291496/

Nice! Love Sayce!!!!

PiL concert 1988

Lu Edmunds. 8) He left PiL and then came back a few years ago when PiL regrouped. Think he was in the Damned as well. The first version of PiL was the best, with Wobble and Keith Levene.

Pepe , Magnum is a fantastic band and I like Clarkinś guitar work on all the songs.
Good catch and welcome here!

I just read Ottis GRand had two ST from 80s one for his slide work and I recall talking great thing about his Tokais. One more for the road!

Peter, I am a big Scotty Peters fan you know

David Palau, a great spanish guitarist and who played for some of the high spanish stars has a ST with altered headstock(modified to his own taste) too altough he uses Ibanezes mainly.
http://www.davidpalau.com/index.php/es/todo-sobre-david/biografia

Oh Luis, you are the bomb. :lol:

This is a photo I took at the Tokai warehouse in 1983 of Tim Farriss from INXS with his new Talbo.



Tim, Garry Garry Beers, Kirk Pengilly and Andrew Farriss were huge endorsers of Tokai guitars and had some amazing instruments made for them.
In 1984-85, INXS albums 'The Swing' and 'KICK' outsold Michael Jacksons 'Thriller' and 'Bad' and were the biggest selling albums worldwide those years.

Not too shabby for Tokai players.

Alvin Lee again:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz-0dtYMn5I