Guitar Info

OK, it's the 11th November 2011, that is 11/11/11, and as such today has been designated Nigel Tufnel Day. To celebrate this day of Maximum Elevenness, we here at Guitarz - for this day only - will be posting an unprecedented ELEVEN blog posts! So, keep tuned throughout the day for eleven weird and wonderful guitars!

"I've played dozens of these crude, downmarket '70s SGs over the years, hoping to find one that had potential. I found nothing but sadness and humility. They are bad guitars.

I say this as a huge fan of Melody Makers and pre-Japanese Epiphone solidbodies. It's not a snob thing. It's like, "Oh my God, this guitar feels like it's nailed together from leftover firewood and finished with slapped-on shellac. Uh, let's see how it sounds..."

That is where the sadness generally comes in. The humility has come from watching the numbers on the price tags rise from the moderate three-figures and move steadily toward a thousand dollars. Someone is buying these things, and it makes me feel like a cranky old guy who can't stop himself from wagging an index finger and telling 'back in my day' stories.

Because see here, back in my day, if you needed a guitar and were stuck with a hundred and fifty bucks in your pocket, you would step straight on top of one of those suck-Gibsons whilst making a straight path through the music store to the wall where the used Cort, Fernandez, Hagstrom, and/or Aria Pro II guitars were hanging.

These had no cachet or 'mojo' at all, but for God's sake, at least they freaking worked properly -- and at least they didn't make you feel shallow and vaguely dirty for playing a guitar purely because of the name painted on the headstock.

Seriously, these guitars suck. They have caused many people to experience pain and confusion. Not worth it -- really."

I won't deny that there is a certain wild beauty in this bass's crudeness, but guitars are still meant to be usable for music playing, aren't they?

Bertram


© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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Monstruobot - Presidente Electro from boxerinlove on Vimeo.

Miguel Cámara of Monstruobot writes:

Nobody has ever found out which guitar model I'm playing so I just thought it could be interesting for your blog. Guitarz is the only guitar blog I follow and I don't think this is useful for anybody else. I enjoy reading every single post, even when I dislike the picture, and I wonder what'd you say about this one.

I think it's quite easy to find out which was the original model (which was bought new and used in the band for many years before its modification).

Several guitars have been played in Monstruobot: from Fender with single coils to Gibson Firebird with mini humbuckers, but the sound of the guitar in this band is 100% effect pedals and the best result came out after accidentally a luthier in Tenerife helped me finding those pick ups, modifying the body and painting it white.

So don't miss the pedalboard which is cheaper and easier to carry than those heavy rockcases... I just put it into my skateboard bag and that's it :)

We will take these "things" to USA and Mexico after summer as Monstruobot has this 3-week tour from New York to Tijuana!

Best regards from the Canary Islands and congratulations for such a great blog!

Miguel.-
www.decaucho.com

Thanks for that, Miguel. Despite being a guitar enthuiast I am unashamedly a fan of electronic music, so Monstuobot certainly appeal to me musically.

Now the guitar. Obviously it's Gibson SG-inspired. I was trying to work out what brand it might be from the shape of the headstock and truss rod cover. I think Epiphone, although the obvious guess, is out of the question. I did wonder if it could be a VS6 from John Hornby Skewes' excellent Vintage brand, but the headsock shape is wrong. I think the same goes for Tanglewood's SG copies.

Would our other readers like to hazard a guess?

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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Here's a Gibson "The SG" from 1979 which at some point suffered some body damage so that the bass side of the body split away. The owner has stuck it back together again but reversed the top section for a certainly quite distinctly different look. You almost wonder why Gibson didn't think of it themselves, considering some of their recent design tweaks.

Gibson's "The SG" was a partner to "The Paul"; both were walnut-bodied budget-conscious versions of Gibson's two best-loved solidbody designs and were produced between 1978-1982.

Thanks to Colin Brown who suggested we look at this guitar via our Facebook page.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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We seem to have been having a bit of a SG fixation on this blog recently, don't we?

Do you think this refinished striped 1969 Gibson SG outdoes the silver glitter SG that Bertam posted about earlier? This one, again, would probably be best suited to a glam rock band. I have to confess I secretly quite like it. Hey, it's even complete with the Gibson Lyre vibrola.

Via Vince Gotera on our Facebook page.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

SG time! Sparkling SG! Glam for the people!

One out of 18 SGs by Gibson custom shop in silver sparkling finish, with 3 humbuckers and everything needed to fight the Emperor Ming on planet Mongo!

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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Here's a Gibson SG that has been painted in a psychedelic fashion to resemble Eric Clapton's "The Fool" SG that he played back in his Cream days. The original is now in the hands of Todd Rundgren, but along with George Harrison's "Rocky" and Jimi Hendrix's Monterey sacrificial Strat, hand painted replicas of varying levels of artistic competence regularly turn up for sale on eBay.

The example pictured here has a Buy It Now price of $1,199.99. For the Clapton fan who desires such a replica, a cheaper option would be to seek out the John Hornby Skewes Vintage-branded replica which we already looked at in my London Guitar Show 2008 review.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

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What the...?

I'll leave you to make you own comments!

(Thanks to Brad Olson who found this oddity on Craigslist).

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

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NB: There are a lot of blogs STEALING content and bandwidth. If you read this anywhere else but on guitarz.blogspot.com then you are reading a blog that STEALS content. Please support original bloggers!

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As Bertram stated in the previous post, we don't usually feature new product on this blog, but these particular guitars are wacky enough that I just couldn't ignore them.

This new SG Zoot Suit from Gibson is built from dyed pieces of multiple birch wood laminate which has been compressed and bonded to form a solid block of wood. The colours you see are of the actual dyed pieces of laminate - no paints are used - the guitar is finished in two coats of satin nitrocellulose lacquer.

Gibson claim that the guitar has enhanced sustain and resonance. So, does everything they've been telling us over the years about tonewoods go out the window? This is basically a laminated guitar, and at £1,999 it hardly comes cheap.

I confess that I do quite like the aesthetics of this guitar, although perhaps the slightly more sober-looking black and natural version (below) is more to my tastes.

Thanks to Alan P for the tip-off!

G L Wilson

NB: There are a lot of blogs STEALING content and bandwidth. If you read this anywhere else but on guitarz.blogspot.com then you are reading a blog that STEALS content. Please support original bloggers!

Question 2: in the same magazine there is a picture of Robb Flynn (Machine Head) with a Gibson Flying V and it's said somewhere that it's a baritone. Does such a thing exist or is it a mistake (never heard of a baritone Gibson Flying V, but it would be so cool)?

Thanks for your answers!
bertram

Here's a 1991 Gibson SG formerly owned by Jón þor (jónsi) Birgisson of the Icelandic band Sigur Ros, and which rather bizarrely has been upholstered in velvet fabric.

The funny thing is that the colour looks right on this Gibson which judging from the back of the neck looks like it was originally a cherry finish.

(Thanks again to Gary for bringing this wonderfully strange guitar to my attention).

On a related note, here's another fabric-covered guitar.

Here's what must likely be a rare Gibson SG. It features an extended pickguard recessed into the front of the body and which is made of perspex through which you can view the guitar's inner workings in all their glory! I'm guessing that the guitar must be a promotional model for sales shows, etc. Prospective buyers may like to know that the guitar comes with a second pickguard with a white marbled finish (and not at all transparent).

UPDATE: I'm told that it's a former Gibson "Guitar of the Month" limited edition on which someone has switched the pearloid scratchplate for one of clear acrylic.

The Mystery Guitar Identified... (sort of...)

Hey, you guys are great. Ask a question, and a couple of days later there comes the answer!

Another Guitarz reader, Paul Roub, very cunningly went straight to the source and asked the folks at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, and they told him that the SG with the Flying V headstock belongs to Tim Sult of Clutch.

The picture here shows the Gibson logo quite clearly on the head (note also the Les Paul style pickguard), but I still don't know if it's a one-off custom jobbie or a "frankenstein". Perhaps now we know whose guitar it is, a little more digging might answer some of these other questions.

Thanks, Paul! Nice one.

We Need Your Help: What Is This Mystery Guitar?

Guitarz reader Paul Alvarez has contacted me with a mystery, and it's one dilly of a pickle. It concerns a mystery guitar that he'd like identified. The photo to the left shows an exhibit at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

Please note, that the mystery guitar is NOT Kurt Cobain's Fender Mustang in the centre of the picture. That one we can identify.

No, the guitar we are interested in is the one on the right-hand side of the picture. It appears to be a Gibson SG equipped with a Bigsby and a Flying V neck - check that pointed headstock. Does anyone know the identity of this guitar and the story behind it? Is it a one-off, or was it part of a limited edition? Also, who played this guitar? Anyone we should know of? The fact that it's on display in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame would imply that it's a famous guitar or was at least owned by someone famous.

If anyone could tell us what the plaque beneath the guitar in the display cabinet actually says, we'd love to know! There must be a story about the guitar - look - it's got much more info on the plaque than Kurt's guitar has.

Is there anyone in Cleveland who can help, or perhaps someone who's recently visited the exhibit?

The History Of The SG: Sharp Points And Radical Departures: A potted history of Gibson's classic guitar from the folks at Epiphone. I notice they skip over details such as why it was renamed from Les Paul to SG (i.e. the man himself didn't like it).