Other Guitar Strap Manufacturers
If you’re online right now shopping for the best guitar strap, we’re gonna make it easy for you by showing you your other choices. Granted we’re biased and maybe even a little mean, but this is your hard earned money we’re talking about here and we’re here to help you spend it wisely!
ACTION STRAPS If you’re looking for a $275 guitar strap made out of Cobra Belly, Python or Deer Suede, these guys appear to have the market cornered.
STRAP KING This is one of my favorite lame guitar straps sites! The best part is their “punk, indie, emo” page where they feature the infamous “flaming strap” , the intimidating “police line do not cross” strap, complemented only by the 9/11- Cash-In on American Flag Special. What’s next, a guitar strap with a picture of George Bush on it? If for some reason though you decide you really do want one of these straps, bypass their site and go straight to Ebay because you see ‘em sold for trinkets there by the dozens daily.
VEGAN WARES Not a bad guitar strap from this Australian company, only they use the cheap nylon webbing instead of seat belt material. Plus, I don’t know about their end tabs because you can’t see ‘em in the tiny picture and I’m not about to order one to find out because they cost $40 Australian dollars (about $28 US) plus shipping, and then have to wait who knows how long for it to get here from Australia. All for a guitar strap that doesn’t compare to our $20 plain seat belt rocker! Sorry guys, try again.
KEPUR I Love this place because it makes me laugh! Someone tell Kepur that the mullet died around the turn of the century with trucker hats. Not that they ever knew it anyway because they were too busy silkscreening all the Beavis and Butthead-approved images over their “patented” thick plastic guitar straps: skulls, black widows, flames, even a big corporate sponsored anarchy symbol worn by the guy in Disturbed! Darby Crash is rolling over in his grave as we type. I don’t know if they still have it up, but when I first checked out their site, their claim to fame was the guy from Slipknot was using their stuff. Slipknot! You know, the band your little brother dressed up as for Halloween to show he was dark and scary. Nothing here is dark or scary though, trust us. You can find their stuff EVERYWHERE, ALL OVER THE WEB, at all big box Music Retailers, and on the shoulders of mulletheads playing Queensryche covers in guitar shred competitions across America. Rock on Garth! Next stop for these guys…..Wal Mart next to the Vienna Sausages.
BUILT BY WENDY Built By Wendy rules! Lotsa hipsters and rock stars sport her guitar straps and look great doing so. We actually bought one of her custom made New York City straps years ago for $40 (ouch!). Its looks good, but what they don’t show you on the web site is the straps really are kinda cheaply made. They basically take the cheap nylon webbing you find on those $6 guitar straps and then sew the shiny plastic on top. It’s not so bad, but what’s worse is not only are they not vegan, but then they use this cheap thin leather as an end tab that stretches and tears easily. At least it did on us. (Click here for a picture.) That said, if you’re filthy rich and have forty dollars to blow, you WOULD look good on stage for a short while, while it lasts. Better yet, buy your guitar strap here, and some of her Wrangler inspired clothing line there. It seems she’s getting more into clothing than guitar stuff anyway so she won’t mind. Oh yeah, and the other problem is they’re custom made so they take FOREVER to arrive at your door (4-6 weeks or something). P.S. If you are that rich though, send US forty dollars, because we’d like to buy another one of her strap, too!
SPARKLECRAFT Like Built By Wendy, we confess to actually really kinda liking Sparklecraft’s stuff, plus they do make their stuff vegan. Like B.B.W., mostly girls stuff here, though. We love their “sassy lady” straps with vintage cartoon images of 70’s fashion models. The only thing is, if you look at the pictures on their site, notice that they never show you the whole guitar strap so you never get to see their vegan end tabs. They appear to be made kinda cheaply for a guitar strap that costs $40 plus $5 shipping fees. Plus, like Built By Wendy, they just sew their fabrics onto that same old cheap black nylon webbing we keep talking about that the $6 music store guitar straps are made of, and then make you wait 4-6 custom-made-weeks for the pleasure. That said, they do look good so if you’re a girl and are filthy rich with money to blow we recommend these guys.
The “Lets Copy Couch” Hall of Fame
Look, we didn’t invent the racing stripe that’s for sure, but it’s pretty disconcerting to see other manufacturers all of the sudden come up with what we see as cheap, half-baked imitations of the Couch racing stripe strap. We want you to get the best for your hard earned money, but when these guys photograph their imitations and show them on-line, the poor strap shopper can’t always tell that these copy cat designers, in our opinion, not only lack originality, but lack quality and attention to detail too. Sorry guys, you are exposed. Please come up with something original next time:
JODI HEAD You can find Jodi Head straps in practically every big box music retailer shop across the nation. These very-common-and-easy-to-find mostly leather straps have been around probably long before Couch, so it was funny last year to show up at the big NAMM music trade show to see they had all of a sudden come up with a “Paw Prints” line of VEGAN RACING STRIPE STRAPS where a portion of the leather-strap-maker’s proceeds on this strap go to animal shelters or something. Hmmmmm……what?! Apparently they like cats here, but hate cows? Anyway, you can find these straps on her site. They cost more than ours, and in our opinion, are not nearly as well made. They basically sew material onto the back of that cheap nylon webbing we always talk about. You can’t see this in the pictures though so….. buyer beware. Save yourself the trouble, save yourself the money, and get the original version at Couch and know you are rocking the real thing.
REBEL These dudes are from “bro-dude capitol of the world”, Huntington Beach, California. This place has more per capita lovers of Limp Bizkit and Stained than perhaps any other city in the world. Before they copied our racing stripe strap, the Rebel claim to fame was the China-Sweatshop-made leather “skull bottle opener strap” or something, we forget. It was really expensive too and I don’t think they were being ironic, it was like Spinal Tap but serious if you get our drift. Anyway, they too unveiled their version of the racing stripe strap at the NAMM show. This one made of “vintage automotive vinyl” or something like that………hmmmmm……it honestly appears to be a cheap Chinese knock off of the Couch Racing Stripe Strap. Only instead of our meticulous 3-layer folder over method of making straps, these guys just sew two layers of cheap vinyl together with raw edges, have the stripe in the middle (racing stripes by definition are offset) and then get Chinese people to sew ‘em together for you. They photograph well, but check one out in real life first to make sure the keyholes are lined up as we’ve seen some in person that didn’t look so good. Packaged like socks with a paper wrapper and hanging on a rack, these are a great $20 gift item for a friend you either don’t like, or who doesn’t really play guitar.
EASTWOOD Really guys? You make such cool guitars we even have your stickers on some of the bins we carry our straps into stores with. We were even thinking of buying one of your versions of our favorite vintage Mosrite Guitar. Did you have to do it? Did you have to make a racing stripe strap that, at a glance, looks just like ours when photographed on-line, but is actually cheaply made by sewing material onto the back of cheap nylon webbing like so many other strap makers do, and then charging more than us for it? Did you have to?
