Ha quietly wanted to die, her designs should have gone to Thomas long ago with his little Dean resonator and lipstick pickup and Ha taking up zero lightbulbs. She has never been to a Rammstein concert.
    In 2009 Ha worked with Rammstein's liaison through rgoDark, whose name Ha forgot, Catalogue nickname rammArt. He introduced the two guitarists by name to Ha, she could not pay attention. She had old Rgo Trio information and financial numbers in her noggins and was terrible with names. Having spent thirty seconds on each using the Internet to fetch photos of Paul and Richard, she had a minute more on looking at pictures of all the members of Rammstein. It had to be like a Congressional testimony: the maximum exposure to the client's videos, photos, and statements was two minutes. After that, everything was sight-unseen again when she went to work on Rammstein the elusive lads. She barely remembered what she was told or did when she was 17, or she would have written a second poem for Rammstein, too, not only music and poetry for Gojira's national maestro. She broke her own rule and listened to one of Rammstein's songs over the Internet.
    Unlike the Rammstein folio as it was in 1993, with Shoegazer's contribution, that time it was only Ha and rammArt in 2009, one person at a time on the other end. Ha was at a computer, a first for Rgo. She chose Web chat, no video. That was fine to rammArt, he got used to it and was able to move quickly. They all did as rgoDark. Compared to speaking to Jason or Thomas, text-typing was slooow. In notetaking with a keyboard, even if using text chat, everybody is slower than Ha and Brent's usual tandem proficiency in programming on Linux. A few times, every business option that had an “other option” had to be confirmed one more time. Before such an other option, there was not going to be “miscellaneous, et al., so on” scattered designs. The “et seq.” had to be on rammArt's happy-happy side to be final as a decision. All else followed.
    Every time Ha pushes specifications for a commission, she fears the tyranny of fiating. Forcing workers to toil through verbosity or sketchiness then handing over the product to the client, a client like Paul, is a few steps removed from being there and being much more responsible for the client's well-being without wasting time and effort. She told rammArt to proceed with one prototype only for each guitar, which was going to be the one for them; they only had one chance or the guitar was not going to go into production. rammArt set that discussion aside for later, the signature production guitar versus the one-only gift guitar. Without Jason Guyker, it was impossible for Ha to settle on gift guitars, which seemed counterintuitive to her. With Gojira, it was the other way around.

    She cited the same dollar amount Rgo always uses: $25,000 each guitar. rammArt pulled on his end, worried for Gibson. He said there was no way Germans can sell an American guitar for more than $5,000, maybe $3- to $2,000 was high quality German. Ha was perplexed as well. If their trees are that good, why are their BMWs mowing our lawns? She explained that Rgo hired a lot more people throughout the process when commissioning one guitar. It is never custom enough until the kitchen sink went into the neck and the baby stroller served as the gig carry-along case. Money, education, journeyman-to-master qualifications, lunch with the client, dinner with his wife, walking his dog around his estate and never seeing Gibson again because you like it there better than being in front of your computer. Or you can pocket the difference with the master luthier.
    He had to check with Gibson on that. He was figuring too low. Then he shot up to $6,000 cash for himself. The motivation for him helped! Ha, on the other side, was ready, well, to do something professional instead of creative, as if there was a difference. No walks in DC, no Shoegazer to sing to, no laughing with Thomas. Where was Jason Guyker? She lightened up on the Rammstein folio that was still in her head after all those years.
    rammArt asked if the math was correct. He wanted to estimate $50,000 to Gibson and tell them straightforwardly it would be for two guitars. One “Mr Landers” could keep right away if he liked it at all, he could hide it in the studio. rammArt expected revenue for the production guitar and that he was going to get everything Gibson wanted, which meant Paul might not like the guitar. Paul could be a beta tester and QA it for a year, sit in the room with session musicians seven times, put it on one scratch tape, and get rid of it after a year. The other guitar was going to be a production sample he had to be sure with Gibson that everything was perfect. Better yet, if he needed anything customized beyond two exact copies, there was money on the table from Rgo to do everything necessary Landers wanted Gibson to do.
    There had to be a balance between the regular people's Paul Landers Gibson and Paul's own Gibson guitar in his hands with Rammstein. It is like the bicameral legislation process in Congress, grinding sausages that no one wants to know. Ha said there is not any difference other than Rammstein's expensive concert equipment. Because it is a Les Paul. Ha could rave about Les Paul the way hardcore fans rave about David Lynch. Except Rgo's art guitars, she was neutral about Gibson. They were not bold enough like ESP. There is money from Rgo for Rammstein was all that mattered. rammArt might not know exactly what Ha was saying about the unmade Les Paul was pro-am skills-dependent. He had calculated the opposite, a $3-, $4,000 production guitar exactly the same as would be for Paul. Is that even possible? The gap between customization and production was getting down to zero. After they finalized the one-sheet of specifications and agreed to the retail price, he had to go. He had to speak to Gibson immediately.
   

Ha was wanting the drill sergeant exercises and whether Paul would be comfortable being a speckly dot doing jumping jacks without his guitar. Or jump roping with cables in Chicago. Can we mount pom poms on Paul? Can a line of local cheerleaders come out from stage right and rave instead of hip-hop? She asked rammArt which was more expensive, dancers or a large stage properly designed. How many dancers? She wanted 30. If they were children, Ha would pay them something paplable so they could get work experience and real money and would hire a platoon's worth, 50 to 60 of them. Maybe 2 platoons for a stadium. Schneider would have so much fun with the drums part, standing up with only snares and getting to move around. rammArt said the stage would be where the money would have to be spent. Did she say “stadium”? Yes. She said her grad school Texas A&M, that stadium had seats for 80,000 but the Aggies stand. There was going to be so much more involved from that one guitar when Paul takes it on tour — the intro music and intermission, the stadium scale and people flow, the stage and lighting and fireworks — she called it the “in-cadence” guitar, and Oliver was “one ruler length”. She had time and distance covered, she had to scale the vertical axis properly. Three hours later, hugging an invisible gothic-colored Les Paul guitar the whole time...
    rammArt told her a second time not to deviate. She had to care he was working his credibility onto Paul. He was relieved the guitarist liked the specifications. It took only three weeks. Gibson handed to Paul something to hold in Ebony Satin, Satin Ebony. It was a stunner, everybody agreed. All she said was it was based on metal finishes, something they should know about, the wood came before the metal in advancing development. Paul was told beforehand that he was agreeing to no fretmarks. No pickguard was not a problem whatsoever. Ha finally found somebody on the planet who was willing to live with Posh Goth minimalism. The compromise for the dart pins on the side into the neck wood, depending on how they assembled the neck— then again, it's a Gibson. The binding had to be the best Gibson could muster, up to standard to Martin and ESP. The report from rammArt was Paul was getting used to the fingerboard. It would take him three to five weeks to adjust, that was normal. All right hand for awhile. Could be interesting as he finds his way around and slides and hovers differently if the visual cue markers had anything to do with his capaciousness in rhythm. Could be like a dull village drum with no metal gleaming along the rim. Center of gravity gleam might be worth it to him? All that she said to rammArt. She could not complain, he was doing his job for Paul and Gibson. She wanted the tuning fork “Huh”, a dull village drum, to do that job also, be a visual cue. Not Ha grunting like a Marine.
    When she tallied what passed and what got rejected, knowing she okayed the price, Shure microphones loomed. She wrote down one more item to update herself, Who else other than Till needed the best microphones? Did the drummer?— Schneider. She remembered a piece of plastic in the microphone Shoegazer approved but she rejected. She wanted to finally rectify the difference for $0.50 more, which meant planting cotton and hemp, jute and flax, which was not $0.50 more on the state side. Ha would have to hunt down textile factories from Thomas's list she had no way of finding. rammArt got everything he needed for a production guitar on his side of the columns. There was no $800 of savings there, either. Maybe LTD could do cheaper wood, old speedbinding (speedbinding was a starter idea that went into Richard's ESP Huachuca Burnt guitar). Anything to drop the price inside Japan so they could keep the savings for themselves. What she really needed was one song to listen to the drummer to avoid caring about acoustic distortions coming out of a computer's small speaker-mic to the “headphones”.








    Everything was rushed. rammArt moved onto marketing. Ha could not help. Too many of her ideas were rejected over the first guitar or she would have let Gibson make a Les Paul jangler for Germany, assembly-style, 20 a year, retail $800 each. She would have paid for the humbuckers and all hardware through Rgo, paid for the shipping and handling, and gotten Germany onto their woods and flowers and herbs. Then the bunnies would come, and the autobahn would swallow her sister and fling her off an exit onto the meadows. The older one was in Germany or Belgium, Italy or Ireland. Ha was in Nashville working with pen and paper and getting dizzy over exposing her eyes to the flat screen. She did not like quick edits in videos. The screen was loaded and she needed to contemplate Gojira but had nothing to meditate. Paul's Gibson guitar turned out to be a configration exercise with nothing innovative or customized from Rgo, a lot more tailoring than sculpting. Where the fine art was, she left it to Paul Landers. Where high art was needed a million bodies.
    rammArt described the upcoming photo shoot. Good, Ha delighted, Tie him to his guitar! That served as the meditation. He'll be lovely, she said. Do they have white dress? Ha knew she was being crude or rude to professionals. They sometimes wear regular men's dress, high society clothing, not stage costumes and— what I wear, Ha said, from my subculture in my subculture when I get a chance. I wear Goth clothing, sometimes slacker 90s like Nirvana, which you used to call grunge. Do they wear uniforms? All the same clothing? That is men's dress, he explained. But none of the armor, she said. Uniform is good, she said. Nobody said it was high art, as long as it is comfortable and practical, they don't have to look like factory dolls. Three tiers, she said. High society wants to pander in penguin suits and be part of the dealmaking with the nobility; they were the new class, the bourgouisie, right at the time of the French Revolution. To them, it's not the nobility's affairs of the state, which has to include the people, a population they can lord over. To the upper-class, it's a lifestyle choice of exuding ease and confidence in one's own nation with creature comfort and material fineries hauled in by the baron of industry, the duke of land, the prince of monarchy.
    For not having a camouflage plugin area in black leatherware out to amps, please say they still use single lens reflex cameras, that they develop in a darkroom under a red dimbulb. It's digital, he said. But is it pure optics? she clung to. rammArt was a little confused Ha sounded ditzy. The photo shoot? Of course, there will be professional cameras, they are all professional photographers.

    It was posh, formal, like eveningwear. All it needed were five-inch stilettos and thigh-high garterless scootch-down sheer pantyhose, she said to him. He chuckled a little. My friend and I drew a lopsided, nonleaning guitar on paper. I do not know if they ever made that guitar. The asymmetry of the sides is special. It does not fit a Les Paul. I wish I could tell you about a Les Paul guitar. You've played one, I assume, he said straightly. I played a few, he told her. They are good, it's Gibson's best, he said, approving of Gibson. Gibson was lucky, Ha said. Anybody would have done a good job with Mr Les Paul. Fender, Ibanez, Rickenbacker. Even guitaring for Bruce Springsteen, if he were old enough, he would have admired Mr Les Paul, Mr Steve Van Zandt. No, I have never had the chance to play a Gibson. Not a B.B. King, not a double horns cutaway, not a Les Paul. Every time one needs to stop developing a guitar's electronics and shape and paint and wood, one will find out one has got a concept album like Pink Floyd's The Wall. It has become its own genre. Tell me about Rammstein.
    There was not much he could say. They are making a huge impact in Germany, he began. New German hard, industrial music. It is not rock, but people do dance to it, rammArt attested. They are bigger and bigger in Europe and America. Ha was politely lingering for conversation. She knew Rammstein without the Internet. She did not know a single song by them. That's like telling rammArt, which she did, I know them like I know Pink Floyd. What do I know? Helicopter whooping. British guy hollering like military. British children chanting in school, the teachers must leave them alone! Now, sing along to the adult male, children. We, you see, we don't need no German floppy kraut over American hotdog. You gotta squeeze out the juice and sprinkle on coarse black pepper just to feel like the Silk Road did not leave Germany behind. They are not a market, they are a people. I like my hotdog with relish and ketchep, he rolled with the pun, I see what you are saying. Maybe I can't do anything about Gibson— Ha was alerted to runaway ambition. Lets move on to ESP. Did you research Richard Kruspe?
    Tell me again, she said, which band member is he? The name did not stick, even though she cruised the Web a few times during the week. She still could not sort out who is who. Which instrument does he use, Till is the singer, right? I do not dare to pronounce anyone's last name, she told him. He plays guitar, he's the lead guitarist in the band, rammArt said. So Mr Landers is the other guitarist, she said. Does Landers ever play lead guitar, or does he do rhythm? rammArt tried to simplify for a music answer, not a stage-play answer. If you listen to Rammstein, people say they have great riffs. It's addictive. People are jumping around and dance at their concerts, it's a heavy rhythm. Landers and Schneider; Schneider's the drummer. The young people are just finding out about Rammstein, they have never heard German music like that before, they had something else in the '90s. Oh yeah, she said, other people in America had Nintendo while we had Alternative music. rammArt clarified, If you're saying does lead and rhythm have to synchronize, Paul Landers is a metronome.
    rammArt described Paul's style. It was a reverie honing in on Paul. He gushed and gushed, admiring what the rhythm guitarist had to do to get all those concertgoers up on their feet and bouncing for three hours. It's good handling, he said of Paul Landers. He's never tired, he's not a DJ spinning somebody else's record pre-mixed in the studio. He picks the best riffs for the lead guitar so the crowd can have instrumental melody, he carries his bandmate and the crowd loves it! Like apotheosis, he's an angel carrying a dead saint, Ha said. Oh yeah, they play with Christian beliefs, they challenge those beliefs, maybe what the children had in the '90s.

What is a back-beat rhythm?

Back in 1993 after Rammstein left DC, Teens Rgo's work on Richard's ESP Phoenix was based on both segments of the rhyming exercises, the dialogue ‘Song of Orpheus’ and the monologue ‘Tale of the Phoenix’, to prepare Jason to quit worrying about Metal melody and start comprehending the equivalent situation for Richard Kruspe, same as the two big humbuckers he had worked on with Ha. Stacked, condensed, split, tapped, shared in mono. The only thing the two of them did not exercise in music was syncronized singing or guitaring, both doing the same thing at the same time, even if it were five strings apart or five frets apart. Ha asked him whether he needed to do guitar exercises together. Later, he said. Besides, he did not bring his amps. Maybe after they get through designing a guitar for Richard. What about Paul Landers and the bass player? Ha said. Oliver Riedel, he said. Learn their names! Fine, she ordered him to do rhythm with her. Right-hand positions and techniques and figuring out how much exposure he had to non-Pop music that was not full of Metal guitar. Shoegazer was going to have vocal exercises the folowing weekend, to get into the Rammstein mode. With only Jason, the music lesson that Saturday was: What is an Industrial back-beat?

What is a back-beat? Jason asked. Back-beat is a syncopation in a Blues rhythm, also in brass Big Band music. Sometimes in Zydeco singing and drumming one can hear it more easily than squeezebox accordian Polka music. It is anticipation that lingers. You know, the lady whips her hair around, Brook Shields' big pile of brown hair beckons, she whispers, Chanel number five. Paris. She told him the fashion model might have never done a Chanel perfume ad, but Brook Shields was sighted slinking into Calvin Klein denim jeans.
    She recommded for Jason to listen to Huey Lewis and the News. The lyric, “that same old back beat rhythm”, is in their big song “The Heart of Rock 'n Roll”. She sang the chorus with the title of the song to him, “... is still beatin'”. It is a miniature masterpiece of a song, she said.
    A back beat is like the rhythm of your heart. It's a kind of syncopation and tends to be in 3/4 time. Blub-blub, Blub-blub. The first beat is harder but it is not dominant without the second beat, which is softer. What makes it a back beat is a slight pause on the down beat. The two beats are shifted over. A compression occurs with your heart, just like Huey Lewis hits it on the beat with a tight grip, he balls his hand tightly. What you hear is a very regular syncopation in a primary rhythm that has flash and oomph with the hard beat and more style with the soft beat than four unsyncopated notes per measure. It takes people two or three measures to syncronize with a back beat because it is a longer cycle. Somehere in the song, the band demonstrates they are playing in uptempo 2/2 cut time, double time. If you follow the soft beat, you do not have to change your tempo, there is simply more beats to the same time length of the two rhythms one ontop the other in different time signatures, 3/4 and 2/2. They even have a grand pause in the song, which in music all instruments are silent for a moment. That moment is measured out as the fitted lingering of your dilating heart before it squeezes again. A back beat has a lot of vigor, it helps your stamina, and it's not boring. You can do an inversion, Cha / nel’ Pa / ris’, blub-Blub blub-Blub. If you want a driving, pulsating rhythm, you repeat whichever style you want, on-the-beat or off-beat, without inversion over and over again.
    For Rammstein, we want to simplify it to 4/4 time, pour vous, she said to Jason. First thing is, you do not have sheet music and you forbid me from writing a score. Very well. If I did write it down, we would have to give it to a rap singer. I'll do the human beat box, you do the instruments on your guitar. The reason why we are simplifying it is, secondly, they are not Adam Ant's band. He's got two drummers. Its very primal, it's Punk, and the rhythm fills the sound. I would have two time signatures that synchronizes every few measures. Polyrhythm, Jason said. You know least common denominator? she asked him. He confused common numerals for common denominators. She said the 3/4 and 4/4 do not syncronize until they are both what? He counted aloud. Not 6, 8, 9, but 12. Just to confirm, she said the technique is to write out the prime factors and multiply them, using the prime numbers with their lowest exponents. For a very large number, he can quit counting and start calculating by the math method rather than the observation method. Why don't I multiply the two denominators together? The answer is 12, 3 times 2-square. That is normal, she said, but it is not the least common factor as the numbers get bigger. She spoke about binary numbers and the English system of 6 and 12 and 20. Just for fun, since they are German, I would designate 3/4 time is for Rammstein, she said. I want them better than your drill instructor!

__
    Yeah, they have big wings in one of their videos. Big feathers all over, looks like a coat that weighs fifty pounds. Maybe more than one set of wings. He described fallatio and wings from one of the videos (Mein Teil, 2004). Have you seen it? Have you seen the one where Till is getting a blowjob from an angel? rammArt was getting goofy. Naughty, naughty, Ha said. What's the other guitarist's name? Paul Lander's guitar hero. rammArt had to repeat himself. Do you know his name now? It's Richard Kruspe. He's the leader of the band, he started the band, it was his idea back in Berlin. Ha was disconnected without her own guitar, That Till gets a blowjob from an angel? Till's the leader of the band, and Richard is a pimp. Uh, no, nobody's a pimp, rammArt said. It's a powerful video, you should see it. It's not about prostitution. You're right. Maybe it's raw sexual lust. Ha said, Every rocker from the '70s knows it's about sex.
    So no eagle, no Roman German eagle? Ha inquired. Old state symbols, Rammstein does that for themselves, young people don't know and don't care, he said. They see fashion and glamour, they don't want to compare it to history because they were told it's too troublesome. Richard is the fashion dresser, he told Ha. He wears a red band on his sleeve, people in the back can't see if there's a swastika on it or not. He likes to shock them with what he's wearing, it's really expensive. He's the fashionista in the band? Ha asked. She had many things to say about fashion, and so she had nothing to say, that part was taken care of. For the shock value, how does that compare to Siouxsie Sioux, Siouxsie and the Banshees? She wore a swastika on her arm and, all leather, with her tits out front, the bustier had no breast cover. Is he as gorgeous as Siouxsie Sioux? Goth chicks are soooo critical, we're into coed parity. That means balance. I think why he dresses so expensively is different, rammArt said. He gives off the vibe he can afford it. They're going to get their money's worth when they buy a Rammstein concert ticket. In between concerts, they cannot wear what he is wearing, they know that. They'll buy the photos anyway. They'll look at the videos. It's just like the Punks who don't give a damn what anybody says. Richard dresses in whatever style he wants because he doesn't want to be in cheap clothing. He knows he wears clothing average people cannot afford, and that's the point. He's not average, he has a difference. He's above the fans.

    Old people want to argue over the country's history. We in America, we do it to Germany. Let the young people live! rammArt advocated. With a band like Rammstein, only the state can say Rammstein isn't on the same mission, he explained. Ha asked about Rammstein, not Richard Kruspe. Is the music better than the performance, is the performance better than the records, are the records better than the videos? There's no more MTV. I'm in Nashville where Gibson is, she said to him, there's no publishing and no open-for-business production studio. I walked out there, there's nobody there. If I want to give Rammstein a listen, why do I have to go to YouTube? I go to YouTube to see Rammstein on YouTube, so the band can relive collecting residuals watching Till get a blowjob. Maybe I'm getting older than Rammstein. I'm a professional, I'm a software developer. Is there privacy with the wordy forum all commenting about the quality—that's about as polite as the forum can be—negotiating with the band. If the drummer sees the same French death gimmick a third time and he wants to cut out the advertisers, his residuals start out at 25 cents. That's high compared to “royalties”, which is at most 7 or 8 cents for music and print publishing, for a record. The bassist has already walked away. ‘Do what you want, I don't want to see it a third time, I'm going to get only 5 cents, I know. It's not going to get any better’. He's not getting any younger, the bassist is a believer in diminishing returns. What's the name of their band member who plays the keyboards? rammArt told her Christian Lorenz's nickname. They spoke about how he has a Spanish name. They continue to discuss each band member's possible accounting strategy.

    The most important feature about the guitar is its fretmarker is from the Q specs of 1993, which were given to Rgoiste Jason Guyker. She redrew her lutherie designs by hand in 2010, and drew again the Rammstein ensemble set a third time on March 14, 2026. Leaving the wood kind of raw is brilliant, which is as was intended. The brown gets darker and darker as it ages and looks like the color of an overused kitchen basket, which is the point, and Shoegazer liked the wood that way. Jason vetoed the flanged humbucker shape at the time or, at best, pushed it back to Year2. Ha told Jason it was for Till's bandmates, because he was a weaver and it was a half-basket shaped like a shallow megaphone, so it had to be in outline. Jason was still dubious and vetoed the fretmarkers, insisting on being guided through the “kitty in cardboard box” logo with shorter flaps, a more subtle but fatter Rammstein cross for fretmarkers.
    Markusch, connected from Germany by rammArt, did an excellent job executing the proportions of the Year2 G.I. series inlay fretmarkers. He might have done his guitar already, so it would have been one of those “Is this what you mean?” moment for Ha and Gibson. He said he had two more guitars like it, three total. She told rammArt only a little about the flanged humbuckers, but he and Ha had no time to veer away from the few guitars they were agreeing to do. She politely asked him to pass along the humbuckers idea to a luthier who would work on commission for Gibson but not exclusively Rgo. rgoDark did tell her that a luthier was going to trek out to Germany and get Paul's preferences and his signature on a guitar, to have personal time with the Rammstein musician. And Gibson was going to pay for the project manager's business flight over the Atlantic Ocean! She received a brief report about the occasion, that the meeting with Paul Landers at the musician's place was joyously splendid. She has forgotten whether the luthier was a German already nearby to Paul or there was an American or Canadian involved, somebody from the Western Hemisphere, who would rendezvous with a luthier to meet together with Paul.



    Why Markusch's guitar is supposedly dated 2018 by Paul Landers, Ha has no idea why there is a gap between historiography and provenance. They showed to her the photo after Paul signed it; it felt like 2010 already, not 2018 into the future. It is the same swoopy 20- and 1 (or zero??) as she remembers but not the 8, which looks like hers but stroked in the opposite direction; her 8 starts at the top left-to-right clockwise. Maybe Markusch did not have a chance to meet Paul before 2018 and did not get his signature in 2008-2012? Ha is sure Markusch was basically more than done with the prototype for Gibson by 2012, even though he tried different humbuckers last when in 2009 he and Ha discussed Gibson. It could be 2008. It took many tries back and forth with rammArt and/or Markusch. Nothing came of commissioning Markusch further. He produced two guitars for himself without Gibson nor suffering Ha's experimental humbuckers and more body oils and primitive textures. rammArt wanted to spend money in Japan on Richard ZK.