Over the year's, I've owned a number of Guitars, around 19, but I've never had more than 4 at any time, currently I have 3 guitars. So here is a bit of background on many of the guitar's I've owned over the years and used in alot of my bands... I've never had more than 4 at any time, currently I have 3 guitars. So here is a bit of background on many of the guitar's I've owned over the years and used in alot of my bands...
1984 Takamine GZ300
$325, Dominic's Music, Ottawa ON.
Used: 1984-1989 and 1995-Present
Bands: All Bands Pre-Cowpint, Cowpint, Deadbeat Dads, Phantom Shifters, Reverend Daniel and the Hogwater
My first ever guitar and the only one I've managed to hang onto for more than 10 years straight. I bought it with money saved from working a real crappy job at a Ponderossa Steak house. Learned my first song on it... The Who's "Substitute". Originally this guitar sported a red finish and I bought it because it was the closet guitar I could find that looked like the Gibson SGs I saw hanging around the necks of Pete Townshend and Angus Young. After I sanded off the original finish the guitar was sprayed black and then stripped off again, and lathered with cheap varnish which also damaged the plastic pipping around the body's edges. Beginning around 1989, this guitar pretty much stayed in it's case in a closet, until about 1995 when I brought it out, got it working again and started to use it as a stage back-up or as a Open-Tuned Slide guitar with the Phantom Shifters. Over the years there have been 9 different pickups in this guitar, currently it has had a nice sounding Vintage Seymour Duncan in the bridge position. This guitar has a very thin set neck with very large frets and was featured on the Phantom Shifters first 2 recordings...
1974 Gibson SG Special
$375, Privately
Used: 1988-1989 and 1996-2000
Bands: Cowpint, Deadbeat Dads, Phantom Shifters, Reverend Daniel and the Hogwater
In the late 1980's I worked at the Sunken Dory Cafe with a guy named Craig, who then played in a Mod band called The Orange Alert, and he currently plays in an Ottawa band called J&E Grocery. This SG was his back-up guitar at the time so it was pretty easy to convince him to sell it too me, and I got it cheap. Only he forgot to cash the cheque I gave him for a real long time, And I forgot to keep the money in my account for the same period of time. So I eventually returned it too him. At the time I was playing a custom built Strat with EMG Humbucker Pickups and a Floyd Rose Whammy bar (very 80's) as my main guitar, so even though I'd alway dreamed of owning a real Gibson SG, I wasn't playing it much. At the time my main Amp was a real shitty Peavey Bandit (everyone had one in the 80's) I shudder at the thought of that set-up!...
Skipping ahead to 1995, I'd recently moved back to Ottawa from Toronto and I was still playing that awful Custom Strat in a band called the Deadbeat Dads. Cousin Ryan was in that band too, it was a pretty bad combination of Grunge/Rap/Metal... (still shuddering) After 2 years of shows with the Deadbeats the old Stat just broke one day, literally in practice, it's Mahogany Body snapped in half in my hands. That was the end of my Whammy Bar playing. (Thank God) Without alot of options to get a playable guitar quickly, I phoned up Craig and asked him to lend me that old SG again. When the Deadbeats broke up I sent it back to him, but I finally bought it from him a short time later, and it became my main Shifters guitar for 2 years and is on all our recordings. Late in 2000 all the original electronics (70's Gibson PAF pickup in the neck position and a splittable Dimarzio Super Distortion pickup at the bridge) in the guitar just died, from too much beer, sweat and blood, I guess. So I replaced it all. I put in a Vintage Seymour Duncan Humbucker pickup in at the neck and a Seymour Duncan "Pearly Gates" pickup at the bridge. Soon after this overhaul I sold the SG to Greg "Daniel" Cockburn, then-Rhythm guitarist in the Phantom Shifters. He eventually sold the guitar to Song Bird Music when he moved to Los Angeles...
1986 Gibson Les Paul Junior
$500, Privately
Used: 2000-2006
Bands: Phantom Shifters, Reverend Daniel and the Hogwater, Long Timers
A few days ago in this Blog I told a story about the SG getting Bloody at a show in Montreal and Mark Michaud of the Fiftymen lending me this Les Paul Junior. I liked it alot and asked to keep it. Eventually I bought it from him and he used the money I gave him to buy a real nice Epiphone Semi-Acoustic that became his main guitar for years. The Junior is featured on all the Long Timer's recordings and was my main Guitar for the last year of the Shifters or so. At one point I had the Tone Pot replaced with a "Cut-Switch" like Greg Ginn of Black Flag used to use, but eventually I replaced it with a disconnected Dummy Tone Pot. Another small Mod on this Guitar saw the Volume Pot Bypassed when the knob was turned to "10". This made the Guitar and it's "Dog Ear" P90 pickup really, really, Hot and Live. The main reason I decided to part with this guitar was the fact it as simply too noisy though my HiWatt half-stack. I sold it to Song Bird Music to buy a "proper" Les Paul. in 2003, Ryan a bartender at Babylon and an accomplished carpenter stripped of the thick Satin-Cherry finish and then added a clear coat of Finish to the bare Mahogany Body and Neck. The Guitar looked alot better after I did that...
1978 Gibson Les Paul Custom
$1000, Privately
Used: 2004-2005
Bands: Long Timers
One day I was in Song Bird Music and for some reason, I was drooling over a Les Paul Standard they had in the shop for some ridicules price. Salesmen often have something going on, on the side and one the the "Bird Guys" had been in a band with a guy who was selling this 1979 Les Paul Custom pretty cheap, but not at the store, of course... I can see why it was cheap, the Maple Top had a pretty bad and very deep crack on it. (visible in the picture above) The guitar was also a victim of a few years of neglect and smelled like "Basement". It didn't bother me, the guitar did play very well and I kind of dug the rare Maple Top with a clear finish and the rarer Maple Neck and Fretboard. Gibson only made about 200 of these guitars in the late 70's (according to Zakk Wylde in some guitar magazine I once read). Although it wasn't ever featured on any of my recordings it was my main Guitar for about a year with the Long Timers. One night playing Mavericks, the guitar just wasn't "happening" for me. It felt dull and stiff, so after a few songs I put it down and picked up the Les Paul Junior, and the improvement was amazing, the Junior felt and sounded 100 times better, I don't think I ever played the Custom again after that night...
1975 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe
$1600, Song Bird Music, Ottawa ON.
Used: 2005-Present
Bands: Long Timers, Phantom Shifters
Back at Song Bird Music one day, they had a mid-70's Gibson Les Paul Deluxe on the wall. I was there helping the nephew of an ex-girlfriend pick out a guitar, but soon enough I was on my way out the door to get a load of cash and the now-never-used Les Paul Custom to trade for the Red Wine Finished Les Paul Deluxe. There are a few guitars I coveted for years. one was an SG, another was a Les Paul Junior... And the other one was a Les Paul Deluxe. Pete Townshend played hundreds of them throughout the 70's and Les Paul Standards and Customs never really did it for me anyways. It was always a Deluxe that I really wanted, but they're fairly rare these days. Deluxe's are different from a Standard or Custom because they have the smaller, more brittle sounding "Mini-Humbucker" Pickups instead of the larger "PAF" Humbucking style pickups. They also often have a unique 70's feature of a "Pancake" body made with an extra layer of Maple sandwiched between to thin layers of mahogany. Some consider the Deluxe's to be inferior to the other Les Paul's but I sure don't. There was a period in the 70's when the Deluxe was the only Les Paul Gibson made, I just think they're the 70's version of a great guitar line. After playing the guitar for a bit, I decided to try a pair of Seymour Duncan P90's to replace the stock Mini-Humbuckers, something I'm really glad I did, I liked the Mini-Humbuckers alot they gave the guitar a really smooth-thick sound, but P90's are my favourite pickup by far and this guitar sounds incredible with them! And because I never-ever use Tone Pots I've snipped the connection to them on this guitar, so 2 of the knobs are Volumes for the pickups and 2 of them are just Dummy Pots... It is and will probably always be my "go-to" guitar...
(...in the hands of current owner Dave Martindale...)
1980 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe
$1800, Song Bird Music, Ottawa ON.
Used: 2005
Bands: Long Timers
Since the other Les Paul Deluxe turned out to be so amazing, I didn't hesitate to find some more cash and brought in my old Les Paul Junior to trade the next time a Deluxe turned up at Song Bird. This was a 1980 Tobacco Sunburst version of the Deluxe, minus the pancake body and featuring a thicker neck than my other Deluxe to. Soon after purchase this guitar also sported a pair of Seymour Duncan P90s and snipped Tone Pots. My plan was to have an identical (or near identical) guitar to use on stage in case of a broken string or any other problem. I used this guitar as a back up for about 5 Long Timer Shows and also played it as the main guitar for 3 Long Timers shows...
Angie, my girlfriend, was born in 1980, the same year this guitar was built. And she looks alot like The Wonder Year's Winnie Cooper, so seeing as this guitar was very pretty too, I decided I'd call it "Winnie" as a nickname. I'd never named a guitar before that. It turned out to be a little bit of a mistake since I really, really like the other Deluxe more and couldn't part with it ever. When the Phantom Shifters started practicing again, Dave started playing "The Winnie" and couldn't put it down, I eventually just told Dave he could buy it from me. It's now his main guitar and has played it in more shows than I ever did. The guitar wasn't the right match for me, but I sure feel the other "Winnie" in my life sure is!...
2006 Ampeg Dan Armstrong Plexi
$1600, Long & McQuade, Ottawa ON.
Used: 2006-Present
Bands: Long Timers, Phantom Shifters
Well it had actually been 21 years since I'd bought a new electric guitar, I figured it was time. Years ago when I lived in Toronto I bought a Fender Super Twin Amp at a Long and McQuade store in Brampton and was pretty impressed with their selection of Gibson's. Gibson's are my favouite electric guitar by far and I've only had 4 electrics that weren't Gibson's, so when I walked into the Ottawa Long and McQuade I had every intension of leaving with a new Gibson... I was hoping maybe for a Flying V!... Since I sold the 2nd Deluxe to Dave, I felt I needed another guitar to bring along to shows to back up the Red Les Paul Deluxe. Flying V's have the entire neck clear of the body, I thought that may be fun to play, I was fully intending on also replacing the pickups in the new guitar with Seymour Duncan P90's, I really dig those pickups!... When I initially walked into L&McQ I was pretty disappointed, I'd never been there before and it turns out that the Ottawa L&McQ is the only store in the whole chain that doesn't sell Gibson electrics. They have thousands of the cheaper Epiphone's, millions of Fender's but those aren't my style, they had a few very expensive Gretch's and a few PRS guitars that looked OK, but nothing stood out until I spoted the Dan Armstrong Ampeg!... Actually it caught my eye first thing when I entered the store, but I was pretty intent on finding a Gibson. My eye was always finding it's way back on the Ampeg though, alot. How couldn't it? It's very unique, and I know player's like Keith Richard, Ron Wood and Leslie West sure thought they were something way back in the early 70's. Oddly these Lucite bodied guitars look as "futuristic" and weird now as they did way back then... The Guitar also had a great neck with 24 frets clear of the body, and a Single Coil pickup very similar to my beloved P90s. (and another interchangeable Humbucking pickup came with the guitar too, very cool feature) What really sealed the deal for me was how quiet it sounded, it sounds great, alot like the Junior or the Deluxe but alot quieter than either guitar, the Lucite body resonates differently and the noise that has always plagued my set-up is practically nonexistent with this guitar. I haven't really put it down since I bought it. I wanted an American built Gibson with a set neck and pretty much ended up with the exact opposite, a Plastic Japanese guitar with a bolt-on neck!... I also came in the coolest guitar case I've ever owned as well. But oddly it's more like a Gibson that any other guitar I can think off... I just need to think of a name for her that suits her and my dear Angie as well... (read more about the Ampeg DA.)
Currently my Set up includes the DA Ampeg, the '75 Les Paul Deluxe, and occasionally the Takamine. My Amp for the last 7 years has been a 1982 Hiwatt DR-504 50 Watt Head. It's one of the very first HiWatts made under the "Biacrown" name used after Dave Reeves died. The early Biacrown's still used the famous Partridge Transformers. It's played though a late sixties Dallas Arbiter 4x12 Cabinet. It's actually a Sound City amp but the Sound City badge is long missing, I replaced it with a "HiWatt" badge. Dave Reeves made Cabs and Amps for Dallas Arbiter/Sound City just before starting HiWatt in 1968) It has 2 Celestion Green Back Speakers and 2 original Sound City Speakers)
I don't use any effects to "doctor" the sound of the guitar, but I do use a system of effects for Fuzz and Lead Boost. I have 5 Effect Stomp Boxes bolted onto 2 boards. "On the Floor" The guitar plugs into a Boss TU-2 Guitar Tuner Pedal that then plugs into a Seymour Duncan Tweak Fuzz Pedal and then the signal hits the "A channel" of a Boss LS-2 Line Selector Pedal that then creates a Loop to two Stomp Boxes set on top of the Amp used for Lead Boost, a Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster Pedal and a Boss GE-7 Graphic Equalizer Pedal Then the signal goes to the Amp.
