Most budget guitars were cheap entry level instruments for players who wanted to get on the guitar ladder but weren't able to pay for the bells and whistles that the higher end models had. I personally think Fender got it wrong with their student short scale series for shorter statured strummers such as the Musicmaster and Duo Sonic. Better than that with their law of unintended design consequences, the Wizards of Kalamazoo produced Ladees and Gennulmen I give you the Gibson Les Paul Junior!
Lets not forget dear readers however, that that the Gibson Les Paul Junior was the bottom of the range Les Paul Model in the 1950's. But what a bottom of the range, unfussy design, all Mahogany body single P90, wrapover bridge...pure awesome simplicity. I have coveted one of these from a distance for some time, it being the "one that got away" in my guitar trading life but that's another story! Gibson's No Frills approach however, resulted in a cool as you like instrument that was as awesome and as much fun as a stripped down hot rod racer.Those thoughts popped into my head the other day when a friend rang me to look over a guitar he had recently bought cheap in a trade in. He was ready to sell and I might like it, or so he said on the phone! When I got round there later in the day, not only had he changed his mind but had the hugest grin on his face! This he said was the most fun he's had with his clothes on since Blackburn Rovers won the Premiership.
He had a Tokai replica of a Les Paul Junior in a very close approximation of TV yellow and he thought had had the pickup changed. Then he plugged it in to a Fender Twin and all hell broke loose! The punky racket that poured from the speaker was pure bliss to my ears used to listening to expensive hi fi at home and in the car. It took me back 25 years to sweaty gigs in cellars in Manchester. It was the Buzzcocks, The Clash and every other stunning punk noise outfit in a £10 gigbag! He paid £250 for this instrument of pleasure. Neither of us know what the pickup in it is...it might be original or a cheap replacement but it's a monster. Turn up the one volume control and hear it start to resonate and pop and give off that lovely sub feedback shimmer, before you accidently touch the strings and time stands on its head you know like in the De Lorean in Back to The Future. Keep turning the control up to 10 and just thrash it! Add in a body of some sort of mahogany or mahogany lite and a bone nut and away you go punk rock riffola or champagne tone for the price of coca cola! What is there NOT to enjoy here?
Pistols riffs, Clash chord chugging, even that one from Blur that goes "wooooo hoooo"! It coped with them all and still came back for more. Every home should have one! I am now counting what is left of my dwindling share portfolio and wondering should I buy myself a slice of six string happiness before the world goes to hell in a financial handcart! A Gibson reissue would do, and if the gods of lottery island shine on Mrs Modern Guitars an original '59 would be very high on the list alongside a house in the country and a renovated Mark II Jaguar (car not guitar, dear readers!) But nothing I think would come close to this beast from the East, chugging away it just literally kept on keeping on dudes! So my quest for a kerry green reissue Gibson Firebird is temporarily at least, very much on hold!
Tune in next time String Shaking Sisters and Cool Rocking Daddies for the next instalment of Moderne Geetar Heaven!
No comments:
Post a Comment