ROCK 108 Morning Show - Cameron Homa / Mortimer Guitars

KFMW Waterloo

Cedar

Falls Cedar Rapids

So I not have just friend of the show Tom Garland friend of the show Oliver Schmitz and new friend of the show Janice Chapman all in the house here today for our top five Tuesday

Tom you've got a show that's coming up here this weekend.

I do all three of us do we're

all all the friends on the show man It's at CSPS Hall that is in the new bow district in downtown Cedar Rapids, and it is Saturday night

That's the 27th this Saturday night.

You want to come out and see myself, Oliver Schmitz and Janice Chapman all doing stand up.

It's going to be a great show.

It's cheap to go.

I think tickets are $15 in advance.

You want to get tickets, you can go to my website, which is Tom Garland stand up dot com.

When's the last time, Oliver, that you think the three of you have been in the same room together?

Oh gosh, all three of us.

That would have been.

Nearly a decade probably

a decade ago really

yeah, no probably about about when I would have started I know that these two were you know in full swing when I started but just different places different times different You know Tom moved away to Vegas for a bit, but

With this, the top five today, Vegas is the home of UFC, but I hear that it's moving somewhere else, Tom.

Yeah, and that's actually how we all met, was in a cage fight.

He

actually wants some.

He was like, we were in full swing, Janice was just punching me in the head, and I was just like, oh,

help me.

I wasn't gonna mention that, because you know, you were looking pretty

rough.

Tag me, Oliver.

We don't see that very often.

A multi-person cage match, is that something that we're gonna see here coming up?

You know, you saw

this, maybe.

I don't know.

The White House is going to have a UFC match.

Good for them, gotta spend the money that we don't have somewhere, right?

And so.

Celebrate

America,

United States and

everything.

They're not

to fight.

They're gonna fight on the White House lawn.

And I know this is a ways out, but they released what it looks like on Twitter.

You can go to like the White House Twitter and see the photo.

It's like generated by AI, but it shows like 20 some thousand people on the White House lawn with big jumbo trons and stuff like that.

So I'm actually excited for it.

I do think it's a good idea.

I think it's gonna be fun.

but I think the best part of it is going to be the stuff the announcers

get to

say.

I mean, there's just so much fun to have, right?

While they're airing this.

So that's the top five for today.

These are the top five things the announcers will say at the White House UFC fight.

Number five, for once we get to see the government tell men what to do with their

bodies.

Put some regulation on the men.

Janice, wanna weigh in on that one?

Yeah, definitely excited to see someone else other than a woman getting her knocked out.

That was almost the Kimmel moment right

there.

The line just goes dead,

beep.

We'd be back a week

later.

All right, these are top five things the announcers are gonna say during the White House UFC fight.

Number four, the cage is built from leftover border wall steel.

Oh, okay.

That's just resourceful.

Recycling, it's winning.

That's why some of the joke is just true.

Yeah,

that's great.

Number three, it's the first ever fight where both fighters are going to take classified documents into the

ring.

Get a lose them at all.

Is it suddenly just up and smoke?

They

don't get lost.

They just they just get borrowed, you know, it's within immunity to borrow them and put them under your Corvette or in your bathroom or wherever.

Cover my face

right now.

Hide your face on the radio all you want, Brian.

It's still blasting out on that on the airwaves.

These are the top five things the announcers will say during the White House UFC fight.

Number two, both fighters are refusing to give up their tax returns.

There it is.

It won't do it.

No tax returns, no birth certificates, no nothing, right?

Nope.

No documents.

Just a just one gold

card.

One golden card that cost a million dollars.

Is

that what they're fighting

for?

Yeah, citizenship.

I just thought that this was going to replace elections and this is going to how we decided presidents from now on.

I love it.

Yeah.

I think I'd be fine with that, right?

Yeah, because then you don't have to go to the polls.

You don't have to waste a day.

You just watch this on TV and you

pick who your fighter is, right?

And then they go out into the ring and then all of a sudden they're like, oh, no, here comes the Electoral College.

Knock it everybody out.

You're like, I want to what happened to Bernie?

What happened to that guy?

Oh, no.

That's all right.

Give him his

gloves.

His gloves.

He had gloves on.

All right.

This is the number one.

These were top five things the announcers will say at the White House UFC fight.

And number one, tonight's winner will receive nuclear codes, the right to pardon themselves, and an endorsement deal from my pillow.

Where's the Ron Popeal food dehydrator?

I wish those said it and forget it.

All of this happening in June.

It is real folks.

You can check it out.

Tom Garland is here.

The show happening one more time.

Yeah, the real show you want to go see,

the real UFC fight of Comedy Man is happening this weekend with Janice Chapman, Oliver Schmitz, and myself, Tom Garland.

We're going to be at CSPS Hall that's in the downtown Newbo district here in Cedar Rapids.

It's an 8 p.m.

show this Saturday.

You want to get tickets, find them on my website.

It's Tom Garland, stand up.

Hang around for just a little bit Janice will be able to finally answer a question that I need to know why Do so many people like pumpkin spice Janice Chapman Oliver Schmitz Tom Garland all with us in you on the Rock

108 morning

show

Lincoln Park with faint on rock 108 to 906 got a special guest in for today's Marshall's Marketplace Cameron Mortimer guitars welcome aboard out of there.

Good to be here You know you reached out to me here.

What six?

It was like six or eight months ago

Yeah, I'm like that and you introduced yourself.

So are you a p1 by nature?

Are you you listen to rock 108 like all the time?

Is that that how you you reached out?

You knew what was going on or you like I like guitars.

Let's go

well

I've listened to Rockin' Away pretty consistently over the years and whatnot.

And yeah, I heard about the program and thought it'd be a fun thing to do to just come up and talk about it.

And especially to be able to give some traction to like Bob's guitars there in Cedar Falls where my guitars are hanging.

Yeah, it just seemed like the right thing to do, come hang out a little bit and talk about it.

Tell me the story about Mortimer guitars.

So Mortimer, there's a reason there's the name, right?

Correct,

yeah.

So basically,

about five years ago or so I was living in California and I moved back to Iowa to purchase my my late grandfather's home and he was a woodworker

He did paintings.

He was very, very talented, an architect, built the home.

Really?

Yeah.

Wow.

And where's the home?

In Jessup.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So just at the end of a cul-de-sac in Jessup, it's gorgeous.

I'm a fan still to this day.

Yeah.

But basically, he has a studio, wood workshop, and a garage, all of which I utilize in the design.

making and finishing of these guitars.

And it was in his likeness.

His name was Mort, Mort Donnelly.

And so that's why I called it Mortimer Guitars in his likeness from what his nickname was essentially derived from, Mort.

What would he think?

And what would he think about

you making guitars?

I think it's a perfect enough continuation of what he had going on.

I've been told.

pretty repeatedly that he'd be proud, and I hope that's the case.

I think he'd find that he'd be a fan.

So Mortimer guitars are made right here in Iowa in Jessup, yes?

Correct,

yeah.

Now everything is basically in-house.

I've taken all the processes that I have done elsewhere and have brought it all in-house, the painting, the laminating of the necks and the bodies together.

the machining of them because I use CNC technology.

I'm a CNC programmer as well as a machinist.

And basically just from, yeah, glued together boards, just manifested.

How much hard materials, how much does it weigh, you know, pre to what we get a Mortimer guitar?

I mean, to get actual, the body itself, I mean, it doesn't come from just like, here's a couple of pounds of wood, right?

Yeah, so essentially it's just a big,

like, you know, glued together a laminate of boards from Alder or Mahogany as the bodies and maple walnut laminates for the next.

And it starts off just as big blanks and they're shaved down.

And I think, I mean, maybe initially the blocks are like, you know, 12, 15 pounds or something like that.

I think in the end, they just become the normal weight of a guitar, which is about eight pounds or so.

And yeah, they're all comfortable.

I've got a model that's missing most of its stuff.

It's like a one pickup model, and it's headless.

And when you pick it up, it feels like a toy.

It's like four or five pounds.

But that's what headless guitars are.

They're compact, and they're lightweight like that.

We'll find out more about the Mortimer guitars made right here in Iowa.

And you can see them on display at Bob's Guitars in Cedar Falls.

Cameron will be joining us for Marshall's Marketplace, where he takes on Russ.

here today with three items from Facebook marketplace.

Here's a guitarist that you guys know and love.

How about the boys from AC DC mammoth?

That's the end new on rock 108 seems perfect to play when we have a guitar maker right here in house.

It's interesting to note that Trisha from Waverly chimed in and it's the blessing in the curse of working in small town Iowa.

She says, I met his grandfather Mort when I was little and lived in

Jessup.

Wow.

I was more surprised to learn that Jessup has a cul-de-sac.

To me, it's just like all farms as I drive through.

Where's the cul-de-sac?

There is one, I promise.

It's tucked

back there.

There is one.

Cameron's with Mortimer Guitars.

Mortimer is named after his grandfather.

That's right.

And you make those all in Jessup, and you have them at Bob's Guitar Cedar Falls.

When we talked last, before we kind of got things lined up for this,

you know six seven months ago you had made what four guitars in that

time frame yeah four or five guitars um and think we're up to uh somewhere around an even dozen now um it's at least they're all in progress or otherwise have been completed or sitting on a shelf uh specifically about did we did we ask if there's a website

Do you have them up anywhere?

Just Facebook and Instagram for now.

We're working on the website.

What's your Facebook?

It's Mortimer Guitars.

You can search for it and it'll be the clears day.

It's a black and white logo.

You can't miss it.

Nice.

Look big M logo.

And with that, I mean, who do you ideally think a Mortimer guitar fits in the hands of what type of band?

Honestly, just about anybody.

I've tried to be universal about some of my shapes.

Like the one that I brought in today is obviously the most oddest ball that you can possibly imagine as far as the guitar shape goes.

Russ, can you kind of describe that shape?

No, I

can't.

It's a geometric shape that has points on the top and one facing downward.

It's white.

It has a very strange headstock on it.

Yeah.

It's a headless guitar.

So the tuners are actually at the bottom rather than up at the top.

Oh, OK.

It's all flipped around.

Yeah.

Those were big in the 80s back in my era.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, with Steinberger initially.

Yeah.

And then a bunch of other guitar makers have taken off with that concept.

That's a cool looking guitar.

I enjoy it.

It's my favorite shape.

But I've got three others that are readily available.

And you could be the most virtuoso.

Metal player down to, you know, the classics, blues, whatever it may be.

Honestly, I have pickups in there that will make just about anything sing.

Do you do any with the extra string?

Do anything with the extra strings?

Oh, no, no.

That just straightened the trash.

Basically, if you put...

What's the seventh string for?

A lot of guitar players are playing seven.

Oh, yeah.

So it's all a lower range.

So basically it's just about taking a keyboard and pushing it a little more to the left.

You just get a bass to your notes, basically.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

It's seven, eight string.

You can, if you're with an eight string guitar, you can get down a full extra octave.

And you're, you know, you're, you're making, you're upsetting your bass players out there, but you know,

but then the bass player adds one more string to his guitar.

Exactly.

It's

just

an ongoing battle really.

At some point the bass guitar neck gets to be a little too fat.

And then, then what do you do?

Yeah.

have to

you learn how to play a coffee table

camera with Mortimer guitars he's gonna be taking on Russ in Marshall's marketplace and you can play along today it's just Cameron versus Russ well Russ you'll get the advantage because the player will join you it'll be two on one today worked out very well for me last week you beat the three of Lionheart right so three one nine two three four five three six nine

319-364-5369 to play Marshall's Marketplace on the line for you.

Not only a certificate suitable for framing, but a $40 gift card to the Barrel House in Corroville.

Win or lose.

Win or lose.

Win or lose.

But you're going to help out Russ today.

319-234-5369 Marshall's Marketplace.

Why don't you play along?

It's Marshall's Marketplace on the Rock One-Away Morning Show with

your

host, Brian

Marshall!

And a special guest in here today to take on Russ Cameron from Mortimer Guitars.

So you'll be facing Russ today, but we also have somebody for Russ.

Okay.

And that's Mike and Cedar Falls who's running a road grader right now.

Mike, you're on the air with us.

Sounds good.

Hey, Mike, you sound like a winner.

Are you a winner?

I always win.

Alright, I like that attitude.

I

like that attitude.

So three items today from Facebook Marketplace.

All of these items were found and you know, let's see what the price is going to be here today.

So nothing over $367.49.

Mike and Russ versus Cameron here today.

Alright, first item is a vintage

Mortimer snared Jim Beam decanter.

I was

going to bring up Mortimer snared, but I thought I would be the only one that knew who Mortimer snared was.

And here we are.

And here we are.

Rest to you.

Um, I remember Mortimer from my childhood.

He was a character of one of the comedians, like maybe Red Skelton.

Wow.

Do you know, do you know the character at all?

I do

not.

Yeah, you're

going to be an old geezer with me.

Um, vintage collectible Mortimer Snur, Jim Beam DeCanter, good on one of those downstairs bars with a room that's paneled with a Budweiser lamp hanging over the bar.

I could just smell it now.

It smells like cigarettes and bad decisions.

Smells like a place in Jessup.

On a cul-de-sac.

Not to buy it, so there is a place like that.

I mean, how much could they want for one?

Well,

ask Mike.

He's your he's

your partner.

Mike, what are you thinking?

I'm thinking $40.

$40.

I mean, if you said antique, I mean, I don't see it, but

yeah.

Okay, let's

go.

Go

ahead.

Might be a little high.

I don't know.

Let's go with $40.

Okay.

He's saying 40.

Okay.

Alright, so 40 is what they're setting the bar at Cameron.

Are you thinking higher or lower than that?

I think I think higher honestly.

I think this could be around 60 80 bucks shoot They're trying to be you know trying to sell some collector items and whatnot.

I can see it going for a little more I think about 80 bucks.

Maybe

okay, so you're saying higher yeah and higher Incorrect

you should listen to Mike when he casted his doubts

on you This one here

twenty five dollars so you said you wanted it this

is all right

so Mike and a rust leading

one to nothing and Mike pro tip don't tip off your decision to the competitors

next one this is a vintage hearing test booth in Washington

This one is 74 inches high, 29 inches wide, 38 inches deep.

It's neat, it's cool, it's heavy, rust to you.

I've spent a lot of time in these booths.

In fact, the cat took one of my pieces this morning.

I have no idea where it

is.

Oh

no!

I'm lurching to the right all day today because I only have one piece in.

These are soundproof booths, Mike.

There's a window in it and there's electronics because you have to get the signal in and out of there, the headphones and all that.

It's really, it's like a coffin.

Does it work?

Yeah, it works.

Does it

work?

Yeah, it works.

I'm going to say, what's the upper end today?

$367.49.

Mike what do you think they got to be looking at this still one more thing left they got to be looking for 200 or so what do you think?

I'm thinking 175.

We'll go with 175.

That

sounds like a good number Mike.

So 175 Cameron are you thinking higher or lower than that?

I'm just thinking because of how heavy and and how cool it is obviously.

I think I'm gonna go a little bit higher.

You're gonna go higher or a little bit higher?

Yeah, 200 is correct.

It's 200 on the nose?

Yeah, 200's

on the

nose.

Tied up.

One to one.

The rubber game of the match.

Happens to be a guitar.

Yeah, go figure.

Weird.

Silver tone Paul Stanley Kiss guitar with a hard case.

Yes, I did send it to Ned so you can see it.

This one in Waterloo.

Guitar has minor cosmetic flaws.

Electronics are in good working order includes a hard case.

Now, Mike, you may or may not know this, but I think

as somebody who used to shop Sears back in the day.

That's SilverTone.

SilverTone, I think, was the Sears brand of guitar.

Dude, would you agree with that or not?

I think that's correct.

I have no idea.

Okay.

I'm thinking it was.

I'm thinking SilverTone was Sears and this is a cheap ass guitar.

What do you think, Mike?

It's going to be over 200 bucks.

Oh, yep.

Between two and three sixty something you said

three sixty seven that's the high end three sixty seven forty nine No,

I don't think it's gonna be quite there I want to like three fifteen

315.

I think that's an awesome number.

315.

The pressure is on.

This one goes to Cameron, higher or lower than $315.

You know,

it's clean.

It's in a case.

It looks good.

I honestly, I'll even go a little higher.

There's a reason maybe you set that high bar.

So maybe 350 bucks is what I'm

gonna get.

350?

Yeah.

Okay, but you're saying higher, right?

Yeah, I'm saying higher.

And

higher is correct.

Oh no!

Woo!

The problem is for Mike and Russ that 315 was not far off because it's only $320 on.

See Mike, see

how this

works?

You could

be up, you could be up, but $5

is

still

loose.

If we go by prices right, we were closer because we didn't go over.

That's true.

We're not doing the showcase showdown though.

Mike, this was awesome.

Thank you so much for playing.

Hang on the line.

You will get the certificate suitable for framing saying that you

lost on Marshall's marketplace.

Get bastard, get off my lawn.

That's fine, but the $40 gift card to the Barrel House in Coralville.

More with Cameron, more with you, and POD's alive.

Spring on the Rock108 Morning Show, where you can always be a part of it.

319-234-5369, or send us a message through the app.

Nick did just that.

Yeah, Silver Tone guitars were sold by Sears.

This is Cameron's dad.

Thank you, Cameron's dad.

Cameron is with us from Mortimer Guitars, which are made right here in Iowa, specifically in Jessup by Cameron himself.

Sold at Bob's Guitars in Cedar Falls.

You have three models there right now, but what's the one that you have sitting in the studio with us

today?

So that is Scythe.

I have Scythe, Omni, Merritt, and Envy.

And this happens to be Scythe.

It's a headless model.

It comes with Seymour Duncan pickups, a locking output jack is what you're fiddling with everybody.

Yep.

So that if you're on stage and it can pull out.

Yeah.

I'd like to buy it.

Well, I only got three things.

We try to inhibit that behavior.

No, absolutely.

So stainless steel frets, gold hardware.

Well, I learned I went to the to the Facebook page, the Mortimer guitars Facebook page, a wealth of information, the gold.

is actual gold.

Yep, 100%.

That's embedded into the resin that you coat the electronics

with.

Correct, so I go get 24 karat gold foil and I mix it in with the resin, I pour it right in the

channels.

How cool, so it'll never, well gold doesn't tarnish, it'll never rub off.

Correct, yeah, and it's embedded, like it sits in there for life.

And the other thing I learned is while most people have, you know, you work out, you have lead days, you have chest days, sanding days.

Oh my God, endless sanding.

What day is that?

The worst day, that's

what

day is.

And I took a woodshop in seventh grade and the one thing I learned from woodshop is when you think you're done sanding, keep sanding.

Basically.

You had told me off the air Cameron that somebody that was within the Jessup School District had a profound impact on your life.

Yeah, I'm Mr. Rod Elson out there, my shop teacher basically.

So I can't thank the Jessup School System enough for influencing me properly.

We had the pleasure of having

Wood and metal shop there and and he was the reason that I got into machining and fabricating welding etc And then continuing to Hawkeye from there allowed me to pursue this later on and but yeah, if it wasn't for his initial influence What

was the first project you made for wood shop or metal shop?

You know what the funny thing is is that my I'll tell you about my senior year project in advanced tech was a guitar

and oh yeah and I had worked on it basically the entire year and the majority of the actual work got done in the last two weeks and it was an impassable degrade worthy piece of

wrap.

It immediately got graded and thrown into a dumpster after that, which is a mild regret.

But yeah, really, you should still have that somewhere.

But like, I didn't know I wasn't good.

I didn't know I was going to take this path eventually, but but I appreciate the passing grade there, Rod.

If it's funny, our first

metal shop project was a flathead screwdriver.

What really screwdriver?

Easy enough.

And we took the bus apart on the way home the day we got the screwdriver.

Yeah, there it is.

Had to prove they worked

I had to make the little pencil tray the the ones where you actually do like the spot welds and everything like that in

a shop Fold it.

I still have my like aluminum tray where it's like bent up welded together Yeah, yeah, I've got one of those

I was I was better in metal shop than I was in wood shop.

Yeah,

why why is

that?

Metal is this very predictable very like multiple multiple material I feel and wood is this material with a preference if you if you sneeze on it wrong it's gonna warp it's

funny

it's I honestly I was never a fan of wood until I started making guitars now I'm just like wow this is a beautiful material especially if you get the right stuff but Metal I feel is easier to manipulate.

I've always been a metal guy

in all aspects so

that's awesome more with Cameron Mortimer guitars made right in jessup available at Bob's guitar cedar falls for with him you me pop a roach next pop a roach their latest even if it kills me on rock 108 we've got Cameron from Mortimer guitars here named after his grandfather and not a ventriloquist dummy

Like

Mortimer T. Snurd.

Yeah, you found out something.

Well,

I definitely knew who Mortimer T. Snurd was and none of you bastards did because you're all like 13 years old.

Yeah.

But I thought it was like Red Skelton or one of the comedians from the 60s.

Way off.

Way off.

He was a dummy for Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy show.

1937.

Gang.

Dated.

1937.

1937.

I mean, look, you weren't even around then.

No.

How do you know Mortimer Snirred then?

I don't know.

Dad or Grandpa was talking about it, one of the two.

Yeah.

I don't know.

So your guitars, let's get back to this real quick here.

We talked about getting these in that these are very versatile that it's not maybe necessarily for metal guitarists

It could be

for anybody correct and tell me a little bit more about that

Yeah, so basically I just tried to use a really versatile pickup in it and a good in a guitar at least an electric guitar specifically The pickup that you put in it is about 90% of the sound that it produces.

It's just incredibly important to create the ideal Electromagnetic signal so basically it's

So versatile, it can make the cleanest, shimmeriest cleans that you can possibly imagine if you're into that.

And if you are a metal player, it can also be as aggressive and heavy as you can possibly imagine as well.

So it's just, I've created shapes that are not only very pointy, as I like a lot of my shapes to be, but there's also some nice rounded curves on there.

And I'll probably be creating something a little more accessible here in the future that I think

Or

you can buy these from Bob's guitar or could I contact you on your Facebook page and say I want to design one with you for me to purchase.

Absolutely.

I want to

pick my own pickups.

I want

everything.

Yeah.

It's any body shape, any pickup alteration.

Um, and like I've been talking with you, um, if you want a guitar body in the shape of a chicken, I can literally make that happen.

Um, or whatever, uh, whatever you might, I can accomplish it.

Nice.

So this is on your Facebook and you're also on Instagram as well.

What's the, uh, what's the ad on that one?

Yeah.

At Mortimer guitars.

Can't miss it.

Uh, black and white little M logo, uh, sitting up there right now.

I show some finished customs.

I show the process.

Um, come check it out.

That's for all- This has been a great time with you.

I appreciate you stopping

by and I

know we've been working on this one for just a little bit and we'll get some pictures of the- This is the Scythe, right?

Scythe, yep.

And the Scythe and Cameron and Russ maybe holding guitar.

That'd be kind of fun.

The ride of Jessup.

Mortimer guitars.

We'll have to have you back sometime.

Can do, man.

That'd be great.

Coming up, Bad Hair Friday with Russ.

He's got some poison lined up for you plus the full show coming up at noon today.

Thanks for having me.