I would for sure never get the rainbow finish but the other ones maybe.
It would be cool if it was a very, very limited edition, but knowing that a whole bunch of teenagers are going to get them for Christmas kind of knocks down the appeal a notch.
Feh. It’s likely a good guitar. Gibson makes some fine ones and there’s no reason to think different about this one.
But I wouldn’t get the finish. I dig the classics.
I like it. It’s a little flashy, but it’s different. The black and natural one would probably be my first choice, but I like the rainbow too. And the red and blue one.
I like SG’s in general – I have an old (1965) SG Jr. and I’d like an SG.
Look, I am a total Gibson guy - I own and play vintage Gibsons, newer Gibsons - 4.5 out of 7 current guitars are Gibsons (one’s a replica). But they have their hits and misses, and quality control is often a problem - lots of inconsistency.
In this case, bottom line? I think they are trying to turn a liability into a strength - this is a laminated-body guitar - basically fancy plywood - that they can likely produce for a lot cheaper vs. a true solidbody guitar. Making the plies colorful and taking advantage of the carved body to fan them out is kind of like putting lipstick on a pig: those plywood layers are going to stand out; if we want to charge $2,000 for the guitar instead of $499 (as Martin does with its acoustic with a laminated neck - good guitar) we better gussy up the colors.
And apparently the body is well over 5 lbs - that means it will end up a 9.5+ lb. guitar - heavy.
Don’t get me wrong - solidbody guitars can be made of any number of materials and sound great - this could be a cool-sounding guitar. But it really looks like a marketing gambit more than anything…
Kinda cool, but I’d stick with my piano black finish if I had to repurchase my SG today.
Never really been a huge fan of the SG style (hate the double cutaway look for some reason) and this is just horrid. But then, I’m more of a jazzbox kind of guy, anyway - the only Gibsons I love are the 335/355.
But I’m sure they’ll sell well. Shagadelic, baby!
Well I wouldn’t turn it down as a gift but I’d be voting for a different SG with my wallet. Its only appeal to me is that it’s naked (no pick guard).
Ohhh, ugly! I’m sure it sounds lovely…
What’s up with the the pickup selector between the two pots? That’s a odd place for it. The pickups look vaguely steam-punk to me; they’d look cool in one of BigShooter’s guitar builds.
And no fingerboard markers?? Finish and ridiculous price aside, this is an instant disqualifier in my book.
Zoot suits aren’t psychedelic, they’re from the '30s. Clapton’s Cream SG is psychedelic. 
In any case I mostly like the colors but I don’t care for the pattern.
Yeah - I assume the reference is to the bakelite plastic of stuff in the '30’s or something - the rainbow guitar kinda has that feel. But who am I to explain Gibson’s motives?
Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder; this oddity holds no beauty in my eye. Like squeegee, I think the lack of fretboard inlays is a minus. I think the SG looks best in one solid color.
Case produced a few knife styles in the 1950s with rainbow striped cellulose handles. They looked really tacky, and the cellulose wasn’t sturdy, but those knives are highly prized and very valuable today.
You never know. Maybe, 15 years from now, gonzo collectors in Bangalore will be bidding $25k for the Gibson Zoot in rainbow.
I can totally see Todd Rungren playing one at the upcoming “A Wizard/A True Star” concerts In Akron, OH and Stamford, CT.
Pocket knives, eh? When I was a kid I collected them with my dad - I had a bunch of Case’s - Buffalo, Kentucky Bicentennial, standard Barlow. Cool stuff. My dad had a bunch of the older ones, along with Remington’s and Winchester’s. We had a number of those rainbow models pass through our hands…
And yep - no idea how all this will play out. As the legend tells us: the Les Paul wasn’t all that popular which is why they switched from Goldtop to sunburst finish and ultimately to modifying the design to the SG style. It was only a decade later when it was clear how great LP’s were for rock and blues that they became desirable…
Which leads me to believe it’s actually a custom run of Rutland Plywood’s DymondWood (or maybe their Stratabond. Either way the layers look thicker than the DymondWood I’ve worked with, 'bout a fat 1/16").
Not fancy plywood, but super plywood. It’s not just glued together but impregnated with polyester(?) resin and compressed while it cures. I have an end cut that has some uncompressed layers, they start out almost twice as thick as the layers you see in the finished product, and you can see small beads of the resin that were forced out of the end grain of the wood in the middle of the layer.
Without going into the details of the raw material, most folks are going to think it’s just colored plywood, not a smart marketing move.
CMC fnord!
Fascinating - thanks for the insight. And yeah, if it is special material with certain tonal properties, they should flog it that way. No wonder those suckers are heavy…
That guitar makes me want to lickit. Fugly.
Slee
Oh, gosh. I’m in the minority. Design-wise, I love it, although I would say the look is more like a gobstopper than Skittles. I think An Arky is on point though – it’s awesome as something you don’t see every day, but the thought of a whole bunch of teens running around with them definitely drags the appeal way, way down.