About.

Hi, I’m mackie, the owner of this site.
6120.jp is run from Miyakojima City, Okinawa.

Looking back, it all started when I was ten. An older kid in my neighborhood played me the Stray Cats’ “Rock This Town,” and it blew me away.
I listened to it almost every day — so much that the cassette tape stretched.

Rockabilly culture was close at hand where I grew up, and my classmates got hooked on the same music.

Time went by, and at 16 I started a band.
A Stray Cats cover band, of course.

My first guitar was a hand-me-down Greco Stratocaster.
But the more I pored over the liner notes of my Stray Cats CDs, the more I wanted a Gretsch 6120.

Then, at 17, I got my first Gretsch.
The model was a 6120-60.

I called almost every music store listed in Guitar Magazine at the time and bought it from the one selling it for the lowest price.

I still clearly remember the excitement when it arrived.

From then on, I spent my days practicing.

At the same time, I couldn’t stop thinking about the differences between my 6120 and Brian Setzer’s.

I swapped in dice knobs right away.
Even tracking down Sperzel tuners took a lot of effort.

As I recall, back then Tom Holmes was about the only option for Filter’Trons.
I replaced the rear pickup first, then saved up again and replaced the front.

I also moved the pickup selector and the master tone switch, and changed the knobs, including the volume knob, to silver.

Only much later did I learn that the “silver” was really just the original gold plating worn away.

I really modified it in every way I could.

I even broke the neck once.

After playing in all kinds of bands over many years, I finally got my hands on a 1959 Gretsch 6120.

That’s when one thought came to me.

I want to build an archive that records Gretsch 6120s from all over the world.

Thanks to social media, we can now see far more amazing 6120s than ever before.

But there are things photos alone can’t tell you.

When and where did that 6120 change hands, who played it, what music did it make, and what kind of time has it lived through?

Every single guitar surely has a story all its own.

The 6120s played by famous artists.
The 6120s that someone has cherished and played for years.

Each of them has its own history, just the same.

That’s why I want to gather the stories of each 6120 and its owner from around the world, and pass them on to the future.

That’s how 6120.jp began.

I hope this site becomes a place where people who love the 6120 connect, discover guitars they never knew, and learn new stories.

And someday, I hope it will become

a place where Gretsch 6120 owners from all over the world come together.

That is my wish.

mackie