David ‘Doc’ Pittillo—formal name: the Guitar Doctor—would likely get an honorary PhD if Guitarology was actually a course of study at an accredited academic institution. Whether it’s a setup on a $100 beginner’s Christmas present or a $250,000 original 1959 Gibson Les Paul, Doc’s your man.
You go by Doc and your business is called Guitar Doctor. What’s the story?
I got named that when I was six months old by my dad. Nobody knows why or how, but most of my relatives don’t even know my real name. I’ve always been called that.
How does one become a guitar doctor?
I apprenticed for a guy who originally was in aerospace, a really eclectic, crazy old engineer. This guy designed guidance systems for Apollo. He turned into a psychedelified hippy when the astronauts got killed in the ‘60s and 33,000 people got laid off in one fell swoop. He went from that to being a model-builder guitar guy. I apprenticed for him for five years.
So aside from repair work you’re a luthier? What’s that?
That would be a guitar builder. I’ve been designing guitars for years. My thing is semi-hollow electric guitars that are very linear at high volumes and very tone-y like a lot of the old guitars people are paying huge dollars for.
Ever get much irreparable stuff to work on?
It happens all the time. People bring me guitars from the turn of the century that their great grandfather owned and it’s been banging around the family forever. They’re falling apart and the realization comes that in order to restore a guitar like that you have to disassemble it, reassemble it and go through a process that’s just not cost effective. If it happens to be a guitar that’s worth $10,000 or $15,000, sure, but that’s not the norm. There were a lot of decent but relatively inexpensive guitars from major companies that some eclectic players used. They’re cool and they do a specific thing, but the fact is they were never great guitars and they’re not worth spending thousands of dollars to restore . . . although I’ve had people do it.
Do new guitars need work?
Almost always. The fact is that no matter what you buy . . . I’ve got guys walking in with $5000 Custom Shop Les Pauls that play terrible because they’ve done what every guitar does: they’ve settled out, they’ve responded to temperature and humidity, and none of the manufacturers—even the high end ones—get seasoned wood anymore. So, new guitars change a tremendous amount.
Do you have a personal favorite guitar?
My personal favorite is a ’61 Dot neck 335. Some guy in the ‘60s sanded the finish off, carved a marijuana leaf on the front of it. That guitar would be worth at least $20,000 if it hadn’t been messed with. I wouldn’t sell it for love or money. The guy got in a car accident in 1970 and became a quadriplegic. The guitar was in the car. I fixed the guitar. He lived another 25 years; he passed away five years ago. Some guys happened to see the guitar sitting in a studio in Costa Mesa and they brought it over and said, “Hey, we thought he would have wanted you to have it.” I thought it was a wonderful gesture. I started playing the damned thing and I realized how magic this particular guitar was.
So two of the same type of guitar might be different?
Absolutely. It’s the wood, it’s the way that particular pickup happened to be wound, the way it’s aged—it’s all of that. That’s the unseen factor. That’s the kind of thing I’ve studied over the years. That’s why the stuff that I build sounds good. That’s the one thing I was taught to do—observe. Observe the idiosyncrasies more than the sameness. That’s why I think I build a little better mousetrap. The stuff that comes out of this shop is the stuff that players want.
THE GUITAR DOCTOR IS LOCATED AT 18171 EUCLID ST., FOUNTAIN VALLEY, (714) 437-9607.
