Blogging » Guitars, blues, rock, jazz and the music biz
I’m in London for two weeks, living in a great corporate apartment in Kensington High Street neighborhood, just across the road from posh South Ken. So my first spot of tourism was to hightail it over to the guitar stores on Denmark Street, not far from Piccadilly Circus and next to Tin Pan Alley. This unassuming and small street is the analog to our 48th Street in NYC.
I hopped out of a taxi at one end of Denmark Street and walked from store to store. My window shopping spree included looking around the following stores:
Not surprisingly, I found many of them to be simple and decent shops, small and mainly stocked with inexpensively to mid-range priced guitars. I really did not see many guitars that were compelling except for the stock in two stores, Vintage and Rare Guitars and Westside M.I.
I also had a blast walking into Rockers, and watching a portly, balding, pasty-faced, business-attired Brit wailing with a Strat and a Marshall stack! The staff and I were duly impressed with the playing ability and the visual image of this guy attacking the axe with his large belly and working stiff demeanor.
With no proof other than personal experience, I’ve found that if the guitar store stocks an expensive or vintage range of guitars in addition to decent inexpensive guitars, then the staff is knowledgeable and treats you like a fellow guitar player versus potential client.
Before I even walked into Vintage and Rare Guitars, I was eyeing the beautiful tweed-style amp in the window (note it at lower left of store window above and pictured to the right). American-made, hand-built, tube amp from Swart Amplifiers based in North Carolina. Inside I was greeted with a raft of sweet, vintage guitars. Custom Strats and Teles, vintage axes from every decade; and that’s just the Fender collection; they were awash with all the great brand names. What specifically caught my eye, in addition to the amp, was beautiful 1969 Thinline Fender Telecaster, only 8,900 British Pounds. 
Well, not wanting to walk that beast home, I instead bought a second-hand pedal, a sweet-sounding overdrive from T-Rex, the Mudhoney. Hah, and they let me try the box on the $1300 Swart amp with the $15K Thinline Tele. Way nice.
The other store that caught my eye, Westside, had a collection of Tom Anderson guitars, and I’ve had my eye on these for a while. They currently carry about five of his unique and near-custom guitars. I’ll be going back there to try those out soon.
All in all, fun was had. The guitars and their siren calls will sing to me again this week, and I’ll take another quick fly through.
This week, in advance of traveling for nearly a month, I plunked down $699 for my first Gibson axe in my guitar collection. It’s a stripped down, natural finish, sweet-sounding and smooth-playing SG. The Gibson SG Special Faded. Here’s a picture of my new one.
I’ve been trying some of these SGs at Guitar Center, and I loved the neck profile (rounded) and the playability. The ones at the two GC’s I visited had been played many times, and they had only the one guitar at each store. I’ve ordered from Sweetwater.com before, and loved their personalized service. I have a “sales engineer” assigned to me, very nice, knowledgeable guy names Alan Miller. So went online, found the guitar, noted that they had two in stock and sent an email to Alan.
Here’s what he did, he pulled the brown and the cherry models from his inventory and sent me an email appraisal. I’d been jonesing for the brown finish, but was not sure. He confirmed to me that the cherry finish was not as nice. He also found out from a friend that many of the Gibson workers love this model and get it for themselves. Alan is a guitar player himself and has been a teacher for many years, so the personalized service made a huge difference. Bravo Sweetwater.
Getting it in the mail is sooo much fun. I can track the package so I know where it is, and once it is here it is a huge kick to pull out a factory inspected, not really touched-before guitar. And Sweetwater sends candy in every shipment with your invoice in a Thank You folder. Easy peasy Lemony Squeezy (an inside joke for our friends across the pond).
My unmodded Epiphone ES-339
Band practice has taken priority over blogging last few weeks, need to rectify that, starting now.
It’s not easy to find info about modding specific guitars, and I recall searching for info on what pups to use from a forum thread on 335s and 339s. And my original post generated comments from others searching for info (thanks for commenting, btw!!).
Well, the experiment worked very well. As noted in the earlier post, here are the mods:
What a difference in tone — creamy, strong, edgy when you need it, especially with two volume knobs, you can crank the treble and the volume does not go up to much if the bass stays where it was, sweet.
Not sure what difference the bridge makes, but the techs say it is huge. Same with the nut. Then two weeks ago, in a fit of laziness, and because I’m inept at changing strings, I had Guitar Center take the Grover tuners out and put in self-locking tunes from Planet Waves. Whew, a relief.
Overall, I’m loving the Epi 339 with the mods. Makes it feel like a unique guitar of sorts.
Not sure how much was spent on all the mods, but I think it was an extra grand so it tripled the cost of the ES 339. The guitar has now become a part of my new band’s act. Easier to bring two guitars than try to change tunings, so I use the red 339 for one song only, tune it to open G, use a capo at the fourth fret and wail on Thorn in My Pride (Black Crowes)!
New Gotoh bridge
My good friend, Roy, is having a guitar made by a young new luthier from New Paltz, who is not yet known, but is breaking in at night and weekends by designing and building guitars for his friends. We shall keep him nameless as this passion is being executed while he holds his day job.
Roy is a flat picking acoustic jazz guitar player, when not on his day job. He got me re-started on my playing career when we became close friends four to five years ago. He’s been looking for a new acoustic, for many months. He did decide on buying a great Taylor, not surprising to me as he loves the Taylor neck design. But wanted more — and by chance knew this luthier who was willing to work for cost.
Roy met this luthier through his family. He’s an advertising agency type, in his early 30′s with a passion for woodworking and guitars. Together, Roy and he picked out the woods, body type neck shape, style, etc. The gallery above shows a multitude of build photos. The luthier lives near this vantage point, and regularly climbs near New Paltz, so his headstock logo takes the shape from the local out-jutting rock.
Ah, May. Oh, Jeez, this post is late; June is here in two days. Ah, June!
Last few Summers, I convinced myself to buy new guitars. Trying to abstain this summer. LOL. Regardless, we can dream, and in that vein, let’s look at the world of May guitar mags here and across the pond. You’ve heard it here before, “we read ‘em so you don’t have to.”
Digitech iStomp
Guitar & Bass
Feature story this month is an informative and visually appealing jaunt through the history of the single-coil pickup and how it is maintained its place in the pantheon of iconic guitar tones even though being passed by technologically by humbuckers and other innovations.
Other features include reviews of two new Gretsch electrics and a Gretsch junior Jet Bass; interviews with Steve Morse and Walter Trout; and a review of new Digitech iStomp pedal released at NAMM 2012. This looks like a smart and interesting play for pedal lovers: buy this pedal, which is housed and built like your other stomp boxes, but load in digital pedal effects so you can try out many different stompbox tones. You get two effects free and the rest you have to purchase for $7-8 apiece on iTunes, letting you experiment with different sounds before buying a new $100+ pedal. It goes on your pedal board, part of the signal chain like the rest. Innovative idea.
The single-coil feature has the main theme of noting that the pickup made popular and eventually iconic by Fender, is old tech, but still maintains a place in modern guitar tones. The history and the basics of single-coil pickups is covered thoroughly, starting with the technical explanations and diagrams showing the six Alnico polepieces and how the wires wound around each.
Great images and overview from the 1932 Rickenbacker Frying Pan lap steel guitar – ‘world’s first usable production electric,’ including the 1936 Charlie Christian single-coil pup part of his revolutionary electric sound, the pups designed in the 40s such as Leo Fender’s first, Walter Fuller-designed Gibson P90 and others, leading up to the early 50s and the pickups in the Fender Broadcaster, Telecaster, and Stratocaster. A goodly amount of info in a strong article.
Rickenbacker Frying Pan • Charlie Christian pups • Vintage single-coils
Guitarist
Rory’s Glories is the cover story, a long feature on Irish blues-rocker Rory Gallagher, celebrating the 40th anniversary of his solo career. Interesting feature, good detail and great shots of his iconic strat and also of his other gear used over the years. Focuses on key years from his short career, 1971 – 1974.
Nice historical article on the talents and collaboration of an incredible pair of guitarists, Lonnie Johnson and Eddie Lang, star musicians from the 1920s:
They challenged racial prejudice to work together as a team, fusing Lonnie’s bluesy licks with Lang’s jazz virtuosity, [and] they made guitar into an instrument that would dominate music for the next 90 years.
This in-depth feature happens to be written by Denny Illet, a great blues jazz guitarist in his own right, and it covers the ground smoothly. From Lonnie Johnson’s roots to his becoming a big recording star for Okeh records in 1920s. Eddie Lang, ‘godfather of jazz guitar,’ was busy recording and touring, eventually joining Paul Whiteman Orchestra and later as Bing Crosby’s main accompanist in the early 1930s.
The author notes that on 15 November 1928, Johnson found himself backing blues singer Texas Alexander, and the guitarist found himself sitting next to Eddie Lang. A few days after this the two guitar legends recorded sessions together, including the nuggets Two Tone Stomp and How To Change Keys To Play These Blues.
The course guitar music took from that point on is largely to do with what Johnson and Lang played that day in the Texas Alexander session.
Mound City Blue Blowers
Who waxed the first guitar solo, Lonnie or Lang? Illet lays down the accepted wisdom. At once widely believed to be the first record to feature a single-string guitar solo, Lonnie’s Mr. Johnson Blues, recorded November of 1925. This was preceded by Lang’s Deep Second Street Blues, cut in December of 1924 with the Mound City Blue Blowers. Turns out they were both trumped by ‘now-forgotten’ Nick Lucas who recorded tracks in July of 1922, Pickin’ The Guitar and Teasing The Frets.
Guitar Player
Hendrix at 70 is the theme of the cover feature this month. GP gathered remembrances and commentary from luminaries such as: pickup maker Seymour Duncan, amp master Jim Marshall, pedal inventor Roger Mayer, engineer Andy Johns, Electro-Harmonix founder Mike Mathews, and 20+ notable guitarists. Good reading.
My guitar teacher, Jake Hertzog, has his Hey Jazz Guy column this month on transcribing solos. And his Hey Jazz Guy blog relaunched and looks snazzy, check it out.
Other notable features:
Suhr Shiba LE Overdrive
Surfed the web this morning, boy, remember that term, guess that dates me! So does my recent high school reunion. Hah!
Here’s what’s going on in the gear and guitar blogosphere today, from my faves and, in part II, a few newcomers.
Guitar Noize
Consistently a strong guitar, gear and music blog, Guitar Noize reviews a new Suhr overdrive pedal;
…very transparent and adds a nice level of sustain to an already overdriven tone or creates a very natural overdrive tone on the clean channel… works well in series with other drive pedals to create your own cascading gain… [this is] a limited edition version in Black called the Suhr Shiba Drive LE.
Fernandes Ravelle Deluxe Bass (top), Music Man Bongo Bass
I’d like to own a Suhr Guthrie Govan Modern, would be cool to try out this stomp box as well. Read more about this pedal at Guitar Noize…
I Heart Guitar
This guy is my new hero. A prodigious blogger and columnist, Peter Hodgson writes for guitar and music mags down under and for Gibson, and has a way popular blog noted here and on our blogroll. This week he reviews two fine and eclectic electric basses, the Fernandes Ravelle Bass Deluxe, and the Ernie Ball Music Man Bongo Bass.
Also reviewed is a new Epiphone Les Paul Standard Ultra II, and this review shows his attention to detail and solid copywriting prowess:
Epiphone Les Paul Ultra II
The mahogany body (chambered for resonance and lightness) supports a quilted maple cap, while a mahogany slim-taper glued-in neck sports a satin finish, a rosewood fretboard and 22 medium jumbo frets on a flattish 12” radius. The scale length is your classic 24.75”. Hardware includes a LockTone Tune-o-Matic bridge and LockTone Stopbar…Electronics consist of two Alnico Classic pickups with individual volume pots for each; a master tone…; a volume control for the NanoMag sitting where the bridge pickup tone control would be. There’s a 3-way pickup selector switch in the usual place and, ‘round back, treble, bass and gain controls for the NanoMag pickup. But wait, I don’t see any wires poking out of the bridge. So where is this mysterious NanoMag pickup? Oh wait, there it is, set into the neck between the 22nd fret and the rhythm position humbucker. Crafty! This little wonder seeks to do away with the quackiness inherent in conventional piezo pickup designs, and instead it uses good old-fashioned magnetic means to capture the sound, strategically placed at a sweet spot where you’ll get the maximum fullness and tone.
These features offer you the added tonal variety of getting acoustic sounds out of your electric. I’d like to try that and compare it to the James Tyler Variax or the Roland Strat G-5.
We read ‘em, so you don’t have to, that’s our monthly motto. It’s mid-April, again I’m buying May mags so here’s what happened in print publishing land this current month. Some interesting features for your reading pleasure.
Guitarist
Great cover story, “Son of a Burst.’ This feature compares a 1959 Gibson goldtop Les Paul original owned by rocker Bernie Marsden and worth $475,000 with the new Gibson Les Paul Classic Custom ($2,225, American-made) and the new PRS SE Bernie Marsden ($460, Korean-made). Check out the great A/B video above, showing Bernie playing the Beast and its Korean signature copy.
Peter Eggle Guitars - Berlin Evo '50
It’s fascinating in that it takes apart all three (to some degree), shows you the inside of the ’59, named the “Beast,” and gives you a rundown on the Classic Custom and the PRS SE BM. Hands down, no surprise, the original surpasses. And the Classic Custom is a nice guitar, tried one yesterday, very sweet appointments and tones. The review of the PRS SE in this article has it sounding more like the ’59 beast than the more expensive new Les Paul. That said the new Les Paul, at more than 5X the cost of the PRS, is likely the better overall guitar of the two new ones. But tone-wise, according to Bernie and the editors, nice job Paul Reed Smith and the PRS team. Glad they overturned that 2001 lawsuit Gibson filed in 2005.
Also on tap, review of Flying Colors release and interview with Steve Morse; review of the PRS Stripped 58, review of beautiful Patrick Eggle Guitars Berlin Evo Legend ’50, only $5,000! – a Brit luthier who came up with his own version of the PRS Custom 24 20 years ago. Boy, I crave a quilted and figured top like this one.
Premier Guitar
This mag is consistently thorough with long-form articles and eye-candy intermingled in a balanced manner. My fave U.S. guitar magazine I find. This month has a unique feature, part of their Studio Legends series on Iconic Engineers, on Alan Parsons and his recording of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. If you don’t know him from his hits in the ’70s from the Alan Parsons Project (Eye in the Sky, anybody?), his first work as a 19-year-old assistant engineer at Abbey Road was to track Let It Be and Abbey Road, the last two from The Beatles. Wow, that’s the way to learn the ropes.
Alan Parsons at Abbey Road Studios
He was promoted to full engineer and recorded the Pink Floyd magnum opus, Dark Side of the Moon. It took nearly a year of recording, hit the charts in March 1973, made the top of the charts within a week and grew to one of the best-selling albums of all time. Interesting series from PG, Insights from Iconic Engineers, and Parsons sure qualifies. Noteworthy tidbits from an engineer who has recorded the guitar tones of David Gilmour and George Harrison, to name just a few (ok, The Hollies, Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, and on and on):
Vox AC4C1-BL
Strong issue with great roundup of NAMM 2012, including mention of over 100 new models promoted at the winter 2011-2012 show this year. Included mention of an amp I pre-ordered from Sweetwater.com. It’s called the Vox AC4C1-BL and it came and sings beautifully to my ears, especially for $299. It’s a new version of my current AC4 with gain and mains knobs, bass and treble EQ, without the wattage attenuation of the AC4. Great tones.
Richard Thompson & his Danelectro
This issue has a solid three-page piece on Richard Thompson and the release of a new live Blu-Ray recording. Nice photo of RT and a cool baby blue Danelectro! Inset box memorable for this quote:
I think there is a time that as a songwriter you say: things are so bad I’m going to write a song that names names. You don’t hold back…you just say: things are shit, it’s time for the revolution, let’s kick out the despots…There is a time for that kind of song./ I think otherwise you’re better served by writing under a few veils with political songs, so you write political allegory, you write a political song as a love song, or as a kind of satire, where it’s a little softer and not so in your face. I think if you do that the songs have a longer shelf life.”
Gibson Novoselic RD Bass
And because, I have neglected to cover any magazine’s work covering the world of electric basses, for an online friend of mine in Georgia, there’s a review of a sweet looking new Gibson bass in this issue. It’s a reissue of the maple RD Artists model that Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic used on Nevermind, called the Gibson Novaselic RD Bass. Here’s the build specs: “Maple body, set maple neck with 20 medium nickel frets on an obeche fingerboard, Grover shamrock tuners and Gibson three-point string-through bridge with chrome hardware; passive pickups with one Seymour Duncan Basslines STK-Jn and one STK-Jb pickup; comes in black ebony only and weighs about 12 pounds with a 34″ scale. According to reviewer, its 12.2 lbs make it “one of the heaviest four-strings we’ve ever played.”
Last weekend, I decided to spring for a $500 dollar guitar that would be fun to own and one I could bring on Spring and Summer vacations, not worry too much if it got lost or beat up.
This week I purchased an Epiphone ES-339 Pro guitar in Cherry. Really enjoy playing it and looking at its spangly color and finish. I’m quite staggered at how much fun this low-cost guitar is to play. It sounds creamy, and has those ES-335 tones, even with their stock humbuckers.
My new un-modded Epiphone Es-339
Anyway, I have decided to mod this guitar with new pickups and hardware. And as I embarked on the process, I was relatively clueless as to what that would entail.
Starting on the premise that the stock pups needed upgrading (took me a while to realize that “pups” was short for “pickups,” D’oh.), I went online to surf the forums and see what other ES style guitars people owned and modified. My research affirmed that the guitar I had purchased was indeed a pretty good $400-$500 choice. Many people reviewed and talked about the Epiphone ES-339 Pro when it debuted in November of 2011. And it seemed to be sold out online, another good sign, whereas I found mine at Rudy’s Music on 48th Street.
At one forum many guitarists weighed in on what pups would be a good fit for an ES-339, and I came up with a short list:
The Gibson Classic ’57s are what Gibson uses in their own ES-339s, and, of course, Epiphone is a division of Gibson, so that means this is a good choice. The JB and Jazz set of pups is supposed to bring you a neck pup that mimics some of Jeff Beck’s tonality, the bridge pup gives you warmer, jazzier tone; this also sounded like a good choice.
Lastly, who is Seth Lover, why is his name on a pickup? Thrash metal guitarist? Shredder? Jazz player? Nope, Seth Lover is the inventor of the famed P.A.F. (‘patent applied for’) pickups first used in the Gibson Les Paul and their semi-hollow line, the ES guitars.
Seth Lover pictured with one of the first PAF pickups
Wikipedia notes that Lover is ‘most famous for inventing the humbucker or hum-cancelling electric stringed instrument pickup, most often used on the electric guitar.’ The iconic Fender Stratocaster has single coil pickups, and the construction of all single coil pups creates a certain humming feedback that is not desirable. Again, turning to Wikipedia:
First PAF (Patent Applied For) Pickup invented by Seth Lover
Before Lover, electric guitarists were forced to cope with the 60-cycle hum inherent in single coil pickups. It was in the mid-’50s, while working as an amplifier designer at Gibson Guitars, that Lover figured out how to wire two coils electrically out of phase and with reversed magnetic polarities. The effect was to cancel the hum before it reached the amp and the result was the birth of the humbucking pickup.
Lover applied for the patent on the humbucking pickup in 1955 and it was finally granted in 1959 (U.S. 2,896,491). During this five-year period, Gibson adhered a “Patent Applied For” sticker to the underside of their humbucker pickups. These “P.A.F.” pickups are the most collectable and desirable pickups today, fetching upwards of $1,000 each among vintage guitar collectors.
Seymour Duncan and Seth Lover
Seymour Duncan, renowned guitar pickup designer and manufacturer, considered Lover his ‘humbucker’ mentor and in 1994 he joined forces with Lover to release an authentic re-creation of the “Patent Applied For” humbucker. So after years of toiling without much recognition, the partnership brought him minor fame and acknowledgement.
After talking to the knowledgeable Jeremy and his colleague, Ullrich, at Rudy’s Music Repair Shop, I ended up purchasing a pair of these Seymour Duncan Seth Lover Humbuckers, $115 each. These are coming in the mail today from MacDaddy.com.
Next, I saw some mention of other mods, and realized it would be good to replace the nut, the tuners, and even the bridge. So in discussions with the Rudy’s repair team, I found out that they have tuners, either grovers or gotohs, and they make their own nuts. All I needed to do was purchase the right bridge.
Gotoh Bridge
Again in discussions with Jeremy and Ullrich from Rudy’s I purchased a Gotoh bridge with the specs that fit for an Epiphone ES-339. These are ordered and come in the mail tomorrow, then Friday I drop off the hardware and the guitar and hope to have it back next Monday. Sweet! I’m sure that after my efforts and expense, I’ll not want to lose or beat up this lady in red.
I’m on the PRS emailing list, so I saw the release of their new David Grissom model the other week, The PRS Private Stock Collection Series II DGT. Recent posts at great guitar blog Guitar Noize reminded me of how cool this guitar looks, and how sweet the specs are. The GN gang details the guitar and provides video link to a demo. This PRS guitar sparkles. I love the quilted top and the micro bursts.
PRS Private Stock Collection Series II DGT
I met Paul Reed Smith the other day, when he came to Rudy’s Music in NYC for a PRS Experience 2011 tour. Great experience, I must admit. He had his guitar tech take my Custom 24 to their factory for mods! (More on that later.) Got a chance to see David Grissom play and hold a guitar tone clinic that day. He was playing one of his DGT Standards.
David Grissom & Paul Reed Smith
This new guitar looks special, and at $15K, you would certainly expect so.
On the subject of custom guitars, this xmas got a book about the Fender Custom Shop. Beautiful coffee table book. Mouth watering. Went over to the Fender Custom Shop to drool today.
The Dream Factory by Tom Wheeler
Thinking a thinline masterbuilt telegretscher with bigsby would look and sound awfully nice, yes?
TeleGretscher - Fender Custom Shop
Thanks to Guitar World for posting this piece about guy who made a guitar with a Millennium Falcon shaped body. Bulky, but cool. Working lights and sounds and an R2-D2 headstock. This one is for all the adolescents and adultescents out there who dream of playing funky guitar in that bar in a land far, far away…
And on the subject, this band claims to be from “Mosh Eisley.” OMG!
