![]() ![]() ![]() The Riverhead Unicorns were promoted in 1984 and ’85, so they were around at least in that time frame, probably 1983-85 or ’86 at the latest. Still, you’d look pretty darned cool in your orange and black Starship Trooper jumpsuit, eh?! For such a high tech looking axe, it’s actually pretty basic, with a simple threeway select, one volume and two tone controls. The heavy duty cast adjustable bridge/tuner assembly is very similar to a Steinberger, though I’m sure it was Headway’s own innovation. Their advertising in late 1984 touted the fact that the pickups were mounted directly on top of the body for maximum tone. These were probably a unibody construction, with a mahogany core, though the wings might have been added on. Designed somewhat after the fashion of the Burns Flyte guitars, Unicorns came with either two single-coil or, as here, two humbuckers. by a company called Prime, Inc., of Marlboro, MA, the same outfit that imported those curious Quest guitars. Riverhead’s Unicorn Series was distributed in the U.S. Certainly its guitars had many unique and innovative features, like vibratos designed to pivot two ways. Another source suggests that Headway made all (or most) of its own components. Unlike the Bacchus copies, Riverheads seem to have been Headway’s “high tech” line. Online sources (which seem credible) suggest that Headway experienced two factory fires in 1983, which ended in the construction of the Asuka electric guitar factory in Matsumoto in 1983, coincidental with the launch of the Riverhead brand. ![]() It’s in the context of those New Wavey guitars of the early 1980s that this rather fetching Riverhead belongs. I have one that I used to be able to cram on top of the family’s shore supplies when we vacationed. Cort in Korea licensed the design and produced a number of brands popular in the early 1980s. It was, of course, Ned Steinberger (and his principal disciple, as it were, Andy Summers of The Police) who codified the headless guitar concept right around the end of the 1970s. Dave rather brilliantly stripped the guitar down to its essence, then appended all these removable pods and appendages (including detachable head), making it truly a Starship Enterprise! I don’t know exactly when New York guitarist Alan Gittler began his experiments on minimalist guitars, but I think it was after Bunker. Whether or not you buy that argument, probably the first headless guitar I’m aware of was Dave Bunker’s appropriately named Astral Series Sunstar, which debuted in around 1966. You even orient to them in a different way that kind of negates the idea of a head. Oh, like all guitars they need some basic structural components and they need some sort of tuning mechanism, but they kind of reduce the guitar to a plank with strings. You can probably justifiably consider certain lap steel guitar designs to be the forerunners of the headless guitar. Vintage 1984 Riverhead Unicorn Electric Guitar ![]()
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