share with us the ax you lust after and why, no need to restrain yourself to the merely plausible, let your fantasies out.
Having said that my dream guitar is entirely plausible. Last summer, while nuturing a burst of enthusiasim for music I was searching for a new guitar of decent quality. While comparing models I happened to put my hands on a Gretsch Nashville classic, their only model with a 1 3/4" and it was good, like the fingerboard disappeared under my hands good. So I bought it for WAY more than my original budget and it was good.
fastfoward to last month, i’m in new york cruising the music row and i pick up an avalon nylon sting that got me totally wet. i’d been looking for a new nylon with a narrow neck and a radiused fretboard, but this one was a work of art. I simply can’t afford 2 high end guitars, and frankly don’t play well enough to justify 1.
but oh muse, sing to me of rare woods, sculpted by loving hands stained with oil, that sing warm tropical tones rich and full bodied . blur for me the bondary between player and played that I may disappear within the music. spin for me a world of syncopations and altered dominants so that all is obscured by clouds, and rare perfume.
As a complete guitar geek - with a history of collecting stuff that has been applied ot guitars on a limited basis - I am so the wrong person to ask this question…
Let’s just say I could make a case for many, many guitars that I would truly enjoy and play the heck out of…
I’ll just give my “go to any well-stocked music store and buy something from their current selection” choice, not my “collectors model in mint condition from a few decades back” fantasies.
Can it be a magic guitar that channels any guitar legend I think of and permanently imbues their skills to me? No? Damn. I’ll settle for a pretty basic tobacco sunburst stratocaster then. I’m not skilled enough to play anything exotic.
I want one like the Fender my friend sold me and that I sold back. (My friend said it was like the one Roy Buchanan played.) Why? I like the way it looks, and if I’m going to get an electric guitar it may as well be an American-made Fender.
Roy Buchanan’s guitar was “Nancy” - a 1953 Fender Telecaster - a non-celebrity example would bring well over $50,000 now - I wouldn’t even guess how much Roy’s is worth, but he is highly, highly respected. You can get a '52 Reissue made recently for about $1,200 - great guitars. Or you can get a reissue “nocaster” - made when Fender had to stop calling the guitar the “Broadcaster” and before they had anointed the guitar the “Telecaster” - so they left off the name entirely - for a bit more. The Nocaster has a bigger neck and is really well made…
What I’ve actually got is an Epiphone Les Paul Jr. Special - the look is similar, and the SG is slimmer and all but having played both, I don’t think the difference is that huge.
I mis-identified the one I had as a Stratocaster. It was a Telecaster. One point two kilobucks is a little to much for that kind of toy for me. I have other things on my list.
I assume that the use of the singular “guitar” instead of the plural was just an oversight . . . .
Since I don’t play the ones I have enough to justify having them, it’d be silly for me to go for some exotic vintage axes costing thousands, even if that were no object – they’d be better off in someone else’s hands. I would sort of like to round out a collection of Silvertone/Harmony stuff from the same era as my mid-sixties Silvertone solid-body (see the other thread that inspired this one). So . . .
A triple-pickup hollowbody in the Harmony Rocket family, like number 1 (top left) in this 1967 Sears Catalog page (yeah, it’s got a Bigsby) – (my Silvertone 1478 is the second from the top (number 10) in the right column). Would also sort of like to have the bass at the bottom of the right column (number 16), as it’s sort of a companion piece to my guitar – same body shape, color, etc., though I’m pretty sure it was made by Danelectro/Coral, not Harmony.
What I really want, though, is one of the semi-hollow Rickenbacker-style electrics Harmony made in the late sixties and early seventies – models H81 & H82. Sears doesn’t seem to have been very taken with it, as there are only intermittent appearances of Silvertone versions, though this one looks pretty nice. It’s hard to resist the appeal of the later avocado-green-burst H82s , though, with the slider pots instead of knobs and all.
oh, my friend - given your discerning musical taste (no sarcasm whatsoever - I mean that seriously) I am telling you that there is a huge difference, if you are willing to explore it a bit…
Bless you - that’s spot on. I beat the heck out of my guitars even though some are worth quite a bit. In guitar circles, there is talk of “furniture guitars” - ones with pretty grain and finishes you can’t touch. But how can you coax the sounds out of them you need to if you have to be careful???
I appreciate the compliment. I’m definitely not a gearhead and I shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place - but I’m curious if you’d like to let me in on the differences.
I can go into it here, but you are welcome to email for the geeky gory details. Bottom line is that I suspect what you have is not really a Special - sure, it is an Epi Special - with a tune-o-matic bridge + tailpiece and 2 humbuckers - but that isn’t a Special. A Les Paul Special has 2 P-90 Soapbar pickups and a 1-piece wraparound bridge/tailpiece. A nasty, obnoxious guitar with bite. An Epi Special is a 'bucker Les Paul knockoff that doesn’t really approach the real deal - I am sorry if this comes off like I am a wine-snob; the differences are obvious when played. The SG you are linking to in this thread is different, but depending on the construction might either sound like the Epi - i.e., not all that great - or like a real SG, i.e., Pete Townsend or Angus Young. Gibsons are ALL over the map…
