There are any number of legendary musicians who are intimately associated with the guitar. Eric Clapton. Jimi Hendrix. Chet Atkins. It’s time to add another name to the list, that of “Uncle Filip”. He traveled a different road to fame than the others; specifically, he died in a car accident more than two decades ago.
Filip (last name unknown) had decided to donate his body for scientific research after death, and that’s what happened to his remains. Uncle Filip’s skeleton was assembled and sent to a college in Greece.
Nothing lasts forever. Eventually, the college decided that it no longer needed a twenty-year-old skeleton and a question arose of what to do with it. With local officials frowning on cremation and the costs of burial prohibitive for a medical skeleton, faculty members hit upon the idea of simply returning the bones to Filip’s family.
Human remains are special things, and require a sheaf of paperwork and authorizations to legally transfer. Still, after considerable effort, the bones were returned to the family, and that’s when Filip’s nephew comes into the picture. The young man challenged himself to find the best resting place for his uncle… burial and cremation both seemed too mundane and sedate for the raucous and beloved uncle, while just storing the bones away in an attic seemed disrespectful.
The nephew is a musician who operates under the name of “Prince Midnight”, and he gained his love of music in part from his heavy metal guitarist uncle. He decided that the best possible tribute would be to use Filip’s bones to construct a working instrument, one which he would call the “Filip Skelecaster”.
It’s taken him months of careful work, but he’s completed his creation.
In another circumstance, this could be an ultimate show of disrespect. Instead, it’s a bizarre demonstration of deep affection decades after someone’s passing.
Question of the night: Is there an instrument you wish you knew how to play?
