Why I Love My… Ezra Furman & her Hanson Chicagoan

1. I love my…

“It’s a white Hanson Chicagoan semi-hollow electric guitar.”

2. How I got it…

“My previous guitar, a beloved black and white Italia Mondial, was starting to fall apart. My friend Nick Tremulis, a great Chicago musician, told me he knew how to get a discount at Hanson Guitars. You need to know the secret code phrase and say it to the person at the front desk at Hanson HQ. The catch is that you have to swear never to tell anyone – you can only give hints. So Nick began leaving a series of cryptic notes and objects on the front porch of my house.

One every day for four days. It took some thought but I finally figured out the code word. I came into the Hanson place and gave them what I was sure was the code word. They looked at me like I was crazy. I told them Nick Tremulis had sent me and I knew the code word. They said, ‘He’s definitely just fucking with you… we can give you a discount on a guitar, though!’ The code phrase was, ‘mint chocolate chip dildo’.”

3. It’s special because…

“I think it’s the pickups that make it sound so good to me. I don’t know that much about that kind of thing. And the build of it, how wide the body is I guess, makes it feel good to play. It just feels and sounds and looks right to me.”

4. It’s perfect for…

“It’s really good for opening walnuts. You kind of rest it on your knee with the walnuts on the floor next to you so that it easily swings down to crack the nut, and then bounces back up and falls down again slowly enough that you can aim for the next nut. It’s preferable to have it plugged into an amp while doing this, and tuned to a really fucked-up sounding chord.”

5. It sounds best with…

“When I pair it with a Vox AC15 amplifier it sounds like a hot greasy frying pan. That’s my favourite thing for a guitar to sound like.”

6. Hear it on…

“You can hear the Hanson in action on our track Halley’s Comet, which is from our 2016 EP, Big Fugitive Life.”