Recent content by Aloha_Mark

This is the cheapest conversion candidate on the web. http://www.gbase.com/gear/gibson-les-paul-1952-goldtop-6 $12,000, from a dealer called South Carolina Guitars. Chrome bridge and tailpiece. All you have to do is to rout for humbuckers, if desired. Is this a deal worth considering?

To me, Joe Bonamassa is one of the closest young musicians we have to American Royalty, and though he will not be knighted by our president. Joe is sure to become a Kennedy Center honoree one day, for outstanding contributions to music and the performing arts...

I've never seen one on a old Gibson with PAFs. The disadvantage is that it does not allow you to adjust the action significantly away from what exists on the guitar. Should a collector avoid guitars that have been modified as such? http://elderly.com/vintage/items/40U-5644.htm

This one has S/N 8 1154. http://reverb.com/item/582095-1958-gibson-les-paul-standard-goldtop#description-tab The pickups measure out at 10.3K ohms and 8.5K ohms. Oh, baby, scorching hot. Weight is 10 lbs, 2 oz. It looks like it was kept under a bed. Not enough pics to authenticate this bird...

Fogerty owns a 1968 Les Paul Custom, and a 196X Les Paul Goldtop, according to Premier Guitar Magazine. I've seen pics of a LSLP custom with a Bigsby too (2nd pic). Source: http://www.la.com/ci_11397690 The goldtop is shown around the 9+ minute mark on this video: His tech could not...

I attended the final Allman Brothers concert at the Fillmore East in June 1971. Never heard any band give a finer performance, even five decades later. J. Geils was also on stage, and boy did they give a knockout performance, as well. But ... memories are hard to reconcile with recorded history...

http://robertkeeley.com/product/black-glass-british-fuzz-oc44-edition/ I received an email offer to buy this fuzz pedal this morning and they sold out like lightening. Did Joe Bonamassa beat me to the site?

Probably time for a thread like this to surface. Historics did not come into being in the first third of the 90's. Even back in the 1970's, Gibson was attempting to pay tribute to its past, and in the 1980's they tried harder with pre-historic models, one of which I own. But the number of...

I've been reading the thread about buying before trying, and I have to admit that I have done even worse. Buying and not trying. Suppose you have more than one piece of gear arrive in a week. Other than checking for physical damage, I may put one guitar aside, and just play the other. After two...

Always a sucker for just about anything on sale, I ordered this using the discount code VIP15 (15% off): https://robertkeeley.com/products/overdrive/red-dirt-overdrive/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvrz272eiYI Artists who've used this include: John Fogerty and John Petrucci. No overdrive...

In Season 11 of CSI-Las Vegas, the character, Dr. Ray Langston, is investigating the case of a female hoarder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29f6AnVdIF0 The scriptwriters gave their interpretation of hoarding behavior, as originally espoused by the philosopher/psychologist Erich Fromm: Dr...

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/19511-summer-namm-13---wampler-pedals-velvet-fuzz-demo Where have you been all my life, Velvet? This was introduced at Summer NAMM 2013, but only one dealer has a lock on initial sales. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85Dd9rdOaMg Sounds like an...

One of the legendary people in the equipment side of the music business is Maricela of Seymour Duncan Pickups: http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/19347-builder-profile-seymour-duncans-custom-shop-queen?page=1 I'm happy that Premier Guitar magazine has done an interview with this great...

For better or worse, Gibson began using Richlite as a fingerboard material as a substitute for natural woods. When it comes time to refret the guitar, what are the dangers of using a soldering iron to heat the old fret wire for removal? I guess I want to know the melting point of Richlite, and...

In the good old days, ebay would list all the bidders (by user name) for an auction. Thus, you could compile short-term statistics on the number of wins vs. the number of bids, assuming that feedback was left for each auction. I think my slugging percentage is around 600 (six wins per every ten...