Oh! Gizmo

By David Ponce

There’s a long way to go from this to any sort of consumer electronic, though we certainly believe that anything that’s so granola, so anti-war in a musical Frankensteinian sort of way wouldn’t fail to interest our readers. The instrument you see in the picture is called a “Escopetarra”, a fusion of gun and guitar, in Spanish. They’re the creation of one Cesar Lopez, from Colombia, who got the inspiration for the device while standing outside a bombed Bogota social club three years ago, when he noted some similarity between his guitar and a soldier?s rifle.

He partnered up with musical instrument craftsman, Luis Alberto Paredes, and has been creating the instruments ever since. Initially made out of Winchester rifles, they are now made mostly from everyone’s favorite Cold War assault rifle, the AK47. We’re can’t vouch for their acoustic qualities, but we’re hearing that people like Paul McCartney might have used them to make some sort of point or other (no surprises there).

News of the Escopetarras is not exactly, you know, new. But it’s doing the rounds once more, and we felt you should know about it.

[Reuters Article] VIA [Treehugger]