John Surh on dropping his name in "Guitar Stories" documentary

[Suhr]

Just before Christmas in 1984 Knopfler approached Jack with a problem. Hal Lindes, the guitarist who replaced David, had been fired and the group had a world tour coming up. Could Jack possibly see leaving the guitar store to join Dire Straits? Legend has it that Jack Sonni's head made a sizable indentation in Rudy's ceiling. And Rudy's has a high ceiling.

It's always fun to read things like that as if Mark had absolutely nothing to do with Hal Lindes being fired. I'm a huge fan of an old saying "there's no smoke without fire", so as much as I love Mark, I'm not on his side in this situation. Besides, if I were Rudy, and if he really doesn't build guitars himself, why on Earth he put his name on the guitar? It doesn't make any sense, like, if somebody gave Michelangelo the money to do The Pietà, that automatically means he can put his signature on it? I can understand Paul Reed Smith, because he's a master luthier. But Rudy?

I hope John would register on this forum to clear as much of confusion as possible.

Maybe late but what do you want to know ?
Only confusion for me could be which concert he played first, all I remember was that the goal was for it to be ready for the Mandella Concert but I got it finished as quickly as I could.  Rudy ran the shop and I worked for Rudy, maybe Rudy had built guitars but he never built any when I was there, he put a set of tuning gears on once but that's another story ;-), blueprints on napkins is not realistic and everything else I said is absolutely true.  Rudy was not happy I left and much ugliness followed I don't want to get in to but I needed a decent salary and I felt like things were going nowhere in NYC plus I grew to hate NYC. I just got married and was offered greener pastures and a partnership working with Bob Bradshaw. I believe I gave him 6 months notice and went to sunny CA. Funny enough Rudy and I still talk occasionally, are cordial and he asked me to build a custom run of 25 MK guitars as Pensa-Suhr probably 2 years ago.  He said he would talk to Mark and I never heard back.  He took me and the family out to lunch last time we were in NYC I believe just before the "Guitar Stories" youtube came out.  I just don't get it but as I said things got ugly regarding my name which he felt he owned and trademarked without my knowledge.  Sour grapes, even tried to complain when I worked at Fender.  I'm just amazed at the attempts to try and rewrite history and amazed Mark couldn't even take 10 minutes to say hi to me when I went to see him play locally.  I must have been painted as the devil and someone bought it hook line and sinker.  I started working at Rudy's in 82' and left March 91'

[border_reiver]

Very interesting read!

Welcome John!

[Love Expresso]

Sounds exactly like the Kind of story that MK would write a song about normally... ("Rudy and John")...

LE

[quizzaciously]

It's always great to get some insight from the actual heroes of the play. I don't know how many people associate MK with your MK1 guitar, John. People are constantly, "Ah, Knopfler's guitar is that yellow one, right?". And I be like, "No, he plays Strats, Les Pauls nowadays, etc.". But people loved that MK1 guitar!

Here's an insight from me. As a kid I remember watching "On The Night" concert and I thought that this particular guitar is the best guitar in the world, period. I sort of grew up with a picture of this guitar in my head and it's probably the only superstrat that I really like.

With that being said, dropping of the name and altering the history is some serious s*** whatever might be the cause.

But I'm sure we will get the answers sooner or later.

[Tobben]

Only thing I care about is that the MK1 sounds and look awesome.. You should be proud John!

[Eddie Fox]

Perhaps Mark and Rudy did have the conversation and John didn't know about it? In the end it sounds like Rudy desperately wanted to promote himself and Mark went with the flow to help his mate out.

Sounds dodgy though. Never good to hide the truth.

[Eddie Fox]

Does anyone know who builds those new MK Pensa models?

[Pottel]

best suhr bit, imho (and yes John, one hell of a legacy!)
Paris:

Munich:

and then the polished version (but still, boy that sound...)
(too bad there is no vid online of the official on the night release)
Welcome on here Mr. Suhr!