I first met Mario Desio in the early days of the Bazaar Cafe, which was, and is, one of the better venues in San Francisco for accomplished and developing songwriters. Mario represented the former, and once I heard his song “Cry” I became a fan. That status doubled when I saw his spirited band Mario Speedwagon, whose material is as hilarious as his solo acoustic songs are heartfelt. Now putting as much care and attention into building guitars as playing them, Mario answered some questions about his life in music and what makes a guitar sound great.
Q: You just said your life is based on winging it. Would you say that’s true? For music? For everything?
Mario Desio: I just try what I want to do. Once in a while I run into a wall, and go OK, better go take some lessons or get a teacher or go get a book. But a lot of times, I have a base knowledge, and I think ‘I can do that,’ and do it.
Q: Why did you first start playing the guitar?
MD: Because of the Beatles. My aunt sat me down and made me watch them on TV. It was ’63 or ’64 when they were on the Ed Sullivan show. Which makes me 5 years old. My aunt was 11 years older than me. She was like a big sister.
Q: The cool aunt… then when did you get the guitar?
MD: I think I was 9. My grandparents gave me the guitar and the guitar teacher…who I didn’t like and so I stopped playing. We were doing scales and really bad songs. I didn’t like it and stopped guitar until I was 15 when friend came over and saw my guitars. I had two guitars, an acoustic and electric. He pulled the electric out and, I’m embarrassed to say he played “Smoke on the Water,” I was like “how did you do that? Show me how to do that!” He showed me and I was hooked. I liked to draw and I used to sit home and draw and listen to music. But then I put drawing aside and started playing guitar. I didn’t get another teacher. I bought books and taught myself how to play and then had people show me licks.
Q: Fast-forward, you’ve been in multiple bands in San Francisco over the years…
MD: I came to the city and played folk, songwriter stuff. I met all these people at The Owl and Monkey Cafe and played there. That was the hippie, folksy side, and then I met all the, the darker side of San Francisco… the drunks, the heroin addicts, the wise guys, the assholes, and the people who played rock. I met them at a place called The Albion on the other side of the town. The Owl and Monkey was very safe. But when you went to The Albion lots of things happened. But it was a great scene; it was packed, full of people. I remember a guy who was reading poetry in the back room get everyone to follow him into the bar. He got up on the bar and started undressing while he was reading poetry. He got down to his boxers and everyone yelled take ’em off and he did and kept reading poetry naked. I thought ‘wow, this is different than the folkies on the other side of town.”
Q How did that inform your music?
MD I spent a lot of time playing folksy stuff. I was really influenced by Neil Young and James Taylor and people like that but I loved rock because I loved the Beatles. I was listening to Chuck Berry, The Who and Jim Hendrix, Johnny Winter, Santana… I love Carlos Santana. There was always this part of me that wanted to play electric guitar. Then this guy at the Albion asked me to join his band playing electric guitar. The next thing I know I’m in this theater band. So I got to play electric guitar with a drummer and bass player. It was loud and crazy and screaming. I remember playing my guitar and rolling on the floor. It was great, so different. Songwriter stuff can be so polite and couched so it was good to vent that stuff out. Then I got into another band, kind of ska and mariachi. I had one kind of hard-core band for a while. Then I went back to [being] a singer songwriter.
Q: When did Mario Speedwagon start?
MD: That was ’89 or ’90. I was at the Albion and “Spike” had come out by Elvis Costello. He had a tuba on that and horns and it was kooky and cool. I thought it would be so cool to have a band with a tuba player in it. Then I was at The Owl and Monkey and we’d go out for pizza after the open mic and I heard one of the guys at the table played tuba. So Professor Bill [tuba player and astronomy professor Bill Pezzaglia] entered my life! And I said we have to play, so we started a band.
Q: Over this time, you’ve not only become more proficient at guitar, you’ve collected guitars…
MD: Yeah, to an extant.
Q: What do you think makes a good guitar? What draws you to them?
MD: Acoustic or electric or both? …I always wanted a Martin, probably because a lot of people I liked played them. I thought they sounded great, and were expensive as all. I had a Takamine for the longest time that was a copy of a Martin. Then I was playing a Takamine that was a copy of a Guild. So I was playing copies for a long time. Then I finally got enough money together and went to Guitar Solo and was going to buy a D35 then there was a used D41 hanging on the way that had just come in. I picked it up, started playing and was mesmerized. I wrote the guy a bad check to hold it for me. Then I ran to work to get an advance to cover it. Two weeks later I got the rest of the money and bought it. $2500. My favorite part of that story is I told my ex-wife I’d just spent $2500 on a guitar and she said “Are you crazy, you could buy a truck for that money!” And I was like “yeah, this is why we aren’t married anymore! You do not know who I am do you?” We weren’t on bad terms but it was just so clear….
Q: And now you have a truck and a whole lot of guitars….
MD: Now I have a truck, guitars and a guitar and truck song! All the bases are covered now!
Q: Life as art, art as life….
MD: I loved the Martin. It was so bassy and warm and full …and all the abalone along the edge. It was just a gorgeous guitar. This one had the big abalone fret markers…. I played that for the longest time. David [Sobel] and I used to have a big Martin-Gibson rivalry. I was like ‘ah, you guys are all mid-range, you have no bass, no fullness to your guitar’ and then as time went by, I realized the Gibson have a great sound. All the Rolling Stones have Gibsons on them, and Beatles songs have those Gibson acoustics. So I went and bought a Gibson. …. I got into sound. All the different sounds. I wanted more sounds to play with. Especially with electrics. That’s when I started going crazy. Then I got a Strat, then I got a better Strat, then I thought I had to have a Gretsch because they have unique pick ups. I had a Telecaster. …Then I had to have a Les Paul. That’s an amazing guitar. Then I realized you can have the guitar but there are the different pick-ups on it, so I had to have a Les Paul with all the different pick-ups; Humbuckers, P90’s….
Q: If there’s one guitar you can take to a desert island…
MD: Forget about it.
Q: OK, two guitars, one electric, one acoustic.
MD: Slitting your throat an option? It would probably be the Martin D41 and the new Flame top burst Les Paul electric I made. I probably like that better than all my other guitars.
Q: Which leads us to…. after dozens of guitars. …Guitars in the living room, guitars in the truck, guitars under the bed—This is my scenario for you—behind the couch, hanging from the wall, loaned out to friends…suddenly…?
MD: My wife said no more guitars….
Q: The wife that understood the guitars said no guitars?
MD: Yeah, after 28-29 guitars, she said ‘that’s enough.’ And I have a son now so it was getting kind of expensive. What started it was I wanted a 12-string electric. I have a 12-string acoustic and I don’t have a 12-string electric and I started liking Rickenbacker’s. And there was no way I was going to get one when they cost $2500 and I had a 2-year-old son running around the house.
So the part of me that wings it started looking at guitars and finding out how they were made on the Internet. I do construction and used to work on furniture so I know a little bit about wood. I bought a premade neck—I didn’t think I could do that yet— and a big chunk of maple — and I started filling the backyard with wood shavings… I realized this is my loophole: I can’t buy anymore guitars but I can make them! There’s still some cost but there’s the fun of making it. Once you make one yourself, there’s no turning back. Now I’m bemoaning that I didn’t start this earlier.
Q: So how many guitars have you made now?
MD: there’s the Ric 12 string 340 and I’ve made two Les Paul’s from the ground up and now I’m working on a Rickenbacker 620. I’d say 2 ½ with another one on the way.
Q: I’ve a feeling that his hobby may wing it a little further?
MD: Yes. You spend a lot of time on it. You wrestle with the material. Sometimes you have to compromise and do what it wants to do. Then sometimes you have a blemish and you have to accept the blemish.
Q: So you will or won’t accept commissions?
MD: I don’t know. I need to get better at it… I have two friends who are interested in me making them something. I think I should make two at a time, sell one and keep the other ’cause it’s so hard to think about parting with one.
Q: So you’d always have twins…
MD: That’s an interesting idea given that I’m a twin…. and so are you!
Q: …yeah it’s deep! …A different interview!
MD: Back to guitars… I plan to make a few more electrics then an acoustic because it’s very hard. There’s the bending of the wood. You have to take this fragile box that you make that’s able to withstand the strength of the strings.
Q: Would you think of apprenticing with anybody?
MD: Yes. It’s kind of a big thing. In the Old World they do this but here… It’s hard to find some one… hence the winging it. Actually Alan [Perlman] got me started because I took that Gibson to him when I first got it because it needed a fret job and a new bridge. He fixed it wonderful and I told him I’d like to build a guitar and he showed me his workshop and all the woods. He said ‘you understand wood, you can do it.’ I thought maybe in 30 years, but then the winging it took over. I’m driving everyone crazy in the house. At 1 o’clock in the morning you hear filing going on. …. It’s probably more fulfilling that playing music right now. You know when you write a song and you can get easily tired it? There’s a magic thing to writing a song when it captures what you feel at that time or how you see some things at that time and it’s this golden child. Then after a while it loses its luster…I don’t think making guitars is going to do it. They’re such things of beauty. Sometimes, they’re your heroes guitars and then you really love it because that’s your connection to that other world, that magical mystical land where you’re playing music to thousands of people…. but it’s this gorgeous thing.
Q: So what are the plans for the acoustic?
MD: I want to copy a Gibson J45. I bought plans and I bought some black walnut. There’s been this walnut sitting around the house because I was planning to do it a while ago. I got this other walnut and I put together a neck. The blank is all glued up and ground down. I’ve been looking at spruce. Even though I’m copying a Gibson, Kenny [Dinkin] helped me design a headstock a couple weeks ago and I’m kind of tempted to use that design for this. I can’t wait to do that. It’s the next level. If it’s playable it will be the guitar I carry everywhere with me. It will far outweigh a ’69 Gibson or that beautiful Martin. If it’s not playable, I’ll hang it on the wall and make one that is. Either way it will be a good experience.
Mario can be reached for guitar inquiries at mariodesio@gmail.com. Cath him live with his project “The Secret Identities” (with Kenny Dinkin) at Great American Music Hall at the Farewell to Jimmy Sweetwater show, July 22, 2010 at 8pm. and with Mario Speedwagon Bazaar Cafe Saturday, July 24.
Deborah Crooks (www.DeborahCrooks.com) is a writer, performing songwriter and recording artist based in San Francisco whose lyric driven and soul-wise music has drawn comparison to Lucinda Williams, Chrissie Hynde and Natalie Merchant.
Singing about faith, love and loss, her lyrics are honed by a lifetime of writing and world travel while her music draws on folk, rock, Americana and the blues. She released her first EP “5 Acres” in 2003 produced by Roberta Donnay, which caught the attention of Rocker Girl Magazine, selecting it for the RockerGirl Discoveries Cd. In 2007, she teamed up with local producer Ben Bernstein to complete “Turn It All Red” Ep, followed by 2008’s “Adding Water to the Ashes” CD, and a second full-length CD “2010. She’s currently working on a third CD to be released in 2013.
Deborah’s many performance credits include an appearance at the 2006 Millennium Music Conference, the RockerGirl Magazine Music Convention, IndieGrrl, at several of the Annual Invasion of the GoGirls at SXSW in Austin, TX, the Harmony Festival and 2009’s California Music Fest, MacWorld 2010, Far West Fest and many other venues and events. She toured the Northwest as part “Indie Abundance Music, Money & Mindfulness” (2009) with two other Bay Area artists, and followed up with “The Great Idea Tour of the Southwest in March 2010 with Jean Mazzei.
