OZ

Eastman guitars came across my radar as a cheaper (albeit still pricey, not a budget guitar) alternative to Gibson. In this case, it’s a handcrafted, beautifully relic’d, authentic, and amazingly resonant thinline hollowbody. I went into the famous Rudy’s Music of NY knowing they had this beauty in stock. I told them I was looking for a 330/casino style guitar, and without prompting they brought me over to the Eastman and said it had become one of their favorite guitars in the shop. Cheaper than a US Epiphone, Gibson reissue, or a Heritage (duh). But still handmade, and with unbeatable Lollar P90s. And honestly? Sounded better than any of those 3 either through a cranked Fender Princeton ‘68 (a la “I’ve Got a Feeling”). Can’t say it beats the Heritage for attention to detail but it definitely outclassed the Gibson/Epiphone models which both had a kind of cookie cutter chunky feel imo. And easily my favorite sounding of the bunch, personally. The neck is thin and playable but wide enough to be super precise when you get a little jazzy. No issues with holding a tune despite abusing the Bigsby, feedback is totally manageable despite it being a hollowbody. I’d recommend it without reservation. Eastman seemed like the underdog when I was doing my research but it was surprisingly both the best value and the best quality overall from my back to back tests in-store. It handles Small Stone phase really nicely, especially with a bit of tape delay and wobble. And when you put some OD on, crackling right at the edge of distortion, it really sings like something out of my Beatlesy dreams.