Yesterday i found out about a wonderful place called Knighton Music Centre, in a little town in wales called, believe it or not, Knighton! It's a great landscape, with the evergreen trees lining the vast mountains in the not so distant distance. And the guitar shop itself is even better - who would've thought a small independantly run shop at the bottom of a welsh valley would have so many 1970s gibsons?!? It was heaven i tell ya - there was even an infamous Moderne hanging on the wall.
The guy who runs it has the best attitude towards guitars and customers - they are there to be played, and he welcomes you to try out anything he has in there, when i said "i'm just interested in playing some vintage gibsons" he was straight out of his seat to get the les pauls down off the wall. I do actually have a genuine interest in purchasing a vintage les paul at some point in my life, and it was very helpful to have someone hand me various les paul deluxe and custom models - and my god they were heavy!
I first played a 1972 wine red les paul deluxe featuring the original mini-humbuckers - as far as cosmetics go it was in poor condition - the headstock had been snapped off, repaired, and refinished, and then the finish had been scratched away at the top of the headstock to reveal the serial number that would've been hidden away beneath the new finish. The poor thing was covered in dents and scratches and the bridge was more or less rusted. the neck had an interesting slim taper reminiscent of the '60s profile, however it gradually widened out to a '50s profile as it got to the heel. The frets were wide but very flat, probably worn down, and the guitar was so heavy - i believe this is something to do with the 'pancake' body? But my god did it play and sound fantastic, like nothing i've ever heard in my life! a little snappier than yer' average LP, more cutting due to the epiphone mini humbuckers. but so warm and bluesy on the neck pickup.. perhaps a little helped by the rivera combo it was plugged into (the guy who runs this place sure does know his stuff, as most other shops would've probably plugged it into a marshall MG or something) but i could tell this was a brilliant guitar, and fortunately it's physical condition means it will be played, and not collected! And as for the sustain.. i felt like nigel tufnel!
Then i was given a modded deluxe from 1973 with a slight volute at the bottom of the headstock. This one wasn't without its charm - the neck was dead on perfect for my hands. This one was refinished in an interesting natural top/cherry back combination and a lot of the cherry finish had made its way onto the binding in little splatters, and fitted with P-90s. The sound was smooth and lush, and it played even better. However there was something unsettling about the way the neck pickup was missing a mounting screw and the bridge pickup sat at an almost 45 degree angle pointing away from the bridge.. character, i guess!
The guy whose name i didn't catch then handed me another Les Paul deluxe, this time in the traditional sunburst finish - this one was modded (somewhat sloppily) to include full size humbuckers. The guitar wasn't in particularly nice condition, again, as there were visible gaps where the P-90 width routing had been covered over by the humbucker mounts, there were telltale signs that this guitar had been fitted with many mini-toggles to match the '70s fads like phase cancellation and coil splitting, as there were many circles revealing where the wood had been filled in, dotted around the control knobs. the pickup selector worked backwards, so the 'up' position marked 'rhythm' actually used the bridge pickup and 'treble' used the neck pickup - an interesting quirk which i quite liked. It had an enormous volute on the back of the headstock which did seem rather odd for a gibson but reassuring nonetheless, there was some belt-buckle-rash on the back, and the frets had worn down to more or less nothing but still served their purpose as good as ever. Anyway, i plugged it in, strummed an open A.. and the sound that came out was simply HEAVENLY! This guitar ticked all the right boxes, and the flattened frets actually worked really well!
Other notable guitars were the shop owner's custom historic '58 reissue which had the best sustain ever, which actually lasted about a minute even on a lower gain setting on the amp, and another '58 reissue for sale which had an unusual reedy tone which i quite liked. But i could go on for days, weeks, months, even years, about these guitars i played, and i will definitely return to Knighton Music Centre!
I think in conclusion i now agree that gibson aren't what they used to be and have indeed gone downhill in recent years. While my Les Paul studio VM only slightly falls short of most of these vintage gibsons as far as being a good guitar goes, it just doesn't have the same vibe and many new gibsons don't have any of this magic mojo at all - infact some new gibsons are just bland, generic, and far from worth what you pay for them.
Uploaded 2 pics of my Rickenbacker bass, just in case people didn't believe the little message in my signature on the forums. Also pics of my Epiphones, just because i happened to find those pics
Just an update on my profile - I've added some gear that I'd either not bothered to add before or didn't have last time I edited my profile.
Pictures have been requested, i'll do them soon. When I do please excuse the fact that my house is very cluttered. My Squiers, apart from the Standard Telecaster which i'm completely satisfied with, all stock, are due for modifications as soon as I've saved up enough cash for the spare parts, so unless it takes me as long to take the time to take photos as it does to mod them, pictures of these will be added later. I may upload photos of them for before/after anyway, even though i'm a little ashamed of the state my custom tele is in at the moment - crappy shop sold it to me for half price knowing it was shoddy (because i pointed it out) saying they'd repair it for free, then charged me another £20 just for them to replace the stock 500k ohm volume pot with an even worse quality, plastic-shafted 470k pot... they didn't say they were going to charge until after they'd done it
I may be bored now, but this time yesterday I was on my way to Cardiff to see Matchbox 20. They were great! I was 3rd from the front, and not even these annoying girls stomping on my toes with stiletto heels while dancing intrusively close and singing out of tune in screechy voices right in my ears could ruin it
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Blompcube's blogs, last updated : July 1, 2009
