Dreaming || 1984 Designer Series Gibson Flying V || Old Guitars

In september of 1984 I was a 12 year old kid taking a huge bite out of the guitar licks bellowing from the Scorpions newly released album, "Love at First Sting".  The dueling solos between Mattias Jabs and Rudolph Schenker filled my young head with dreams of someday being on stage wielding an axe nearly as cool as these guys.  I loved Matthias' explorer, but oh that flying V was the real dream.  Ever since I saw it sketched on Dave Fedorenko's book cover in math class the love affair began.

However years, responsibility, boredom, etc. got in the way and it took me until 2006 to finally think about getting a band together.  The Booty Chesterfield Trio played the circuit for several years.  My main axe at the beginning was a 1982 Smith Stratocaster by Fender.  It is still a sweet guitar, but not much of an attention grabber.  Around the end of 2009 I saw The Gillbillies play for the first time.  The first thing that struck me about these cats was how bad ass Jimbo was for rocking a Flying V.  The flame of my old (and almost forgotten) love was reignited.  I wanted to be like Jimbo.  I wanted to rock a Flying V.  But not just any V would do.  If there is one thing that I learned from The Gillbillies is that you have to have a different, unique approach.  So I wasn't just going to find an "off the shelf" V; I wanted something with style.

Months went by.  Then in February of 2010 I saw this beauty rear its ugly head on good old Craigslist.  A 1984 Designer Series Gibson Flying V.  I had to have it.  Plus, I thought it was a heck of a deal.  My main reason for acquiring it was kind of as a joke, i.e. to live out a childhood fantasy of rocking a Flying V on stage.  Then I got my hands on it....

I got it off some kid in N. San Jose's Japantown.  It was in decent shape.  At one time it had stickers all over it that had been removed still the clear coat has aged at different times.  The pickups had been switched out a long while back to Seymour Duncans.  There were no breaks or major chips and the neck felt good.  There were two missing volume knobs and a cracked tone knob.  After a quick test run I quickly paid the chap his cash and headed home for a true test drive.

The first thing I noticed was how good the pickups sounded.  I had a Classic Les Paul before with 500t & 496r pickups in it and it sounded like golden ringing compared to my LP (which I soon traded away).  The neck also was super fast and played awesome.  I replaced the volume and tone knobs with some old jaguar ones and we were off to the races.  I played this guitar as my main stage axe for all of 2009 and pretty much all of the rest of the Booty Chesterfield Trio shows.  I don't ever plan on selling this bad boy.  Too cool for school, plus it has a little bit of my childhood metal roots embedded within those licks it puts out.  Enjoy the pictures.

And here are a couple of videos of the V in action:

Live shots are courtesy of Ian Healy & Murray Bowles

Giving Birth to The Gillbillies || 1978 Les Paul Custom || Old Guitars

Isn't she a beauty?  I mean who has ever seen a custom colored orange Les Paul?  Not I.  There is some really history behind this babe.  If you have ever seen or heard The Gillbillies you know that they are an instrumental act that focuses on the melodic rhythms often found in the 60s era surf music...but with a twist.  They are heavy.  They have a sound all to their own.  And this guitar played a vital role in shaping the way of The Gillbillies ever so sweet tone.

Seeing The Gillbillies "live & in person" is an experience in itself.  When talking Gillbillies and guitars you would think that I would writing about one of the Flying V's with Bigsby's (a la Lonnie Mack) that many have seen Jimbo playing out and about the Bay Area.  But as Jimbo put it, this is the guitar that gave birth to the Gillbillie sound.  "We decided to try an instrumental surf guitar sound and this was the only guitar I had with a tremolo."  Hence, the Gillbillies were born.

But there is a lot more to this story.  I had seen and admired this guitar being played for quite some time.  One day after a jam with Jimbo and Nick I got the real story behind the Orange Custom Les Paul.  He had spotted this unique instrument while perusing through the online auction house, eBay (as many of us do who are addicted to the instrument known as the guitar).  He checked on the end date and made a mental note to check on it before the auction ended.  Life got busy and the auction slipped his mind.  Luckily it had ended with out a sale.  He sent an email to the seller and asked if he could buy it.  A week later he got a reply, "If they don't sell, I get rid of them write away."  Jimbo inquired if he could have the dealer's contact info that the guitar was sold to because he really wanted it.  "I'll see what I can do." Another week goes by and he finally gets the contact info of the dealer.  He calls the dealer and he is told that he sold it a few weeks ago to a music shop in Hollywood (the town of flashy guitars).  He asks for the shops info....and the wait continues.  On a Sunday night an email comes with the name, address and phone number of the Hollywood shop.  Jimbo sets his alarm to call the shop first thing when it opens on Monday morning.  11:05am monday morning rolls around...

Ring, ring...
Music shop employee: How can I help you?
Jimbo:  I was wondering if you have a certain guitar in your shop.  You will know if right away once I described it to you.  It is a 1978 Orange Gibson Les Paul Custom with Bigsby tailpiece.
Music shop employee: Are you shitting me?  I literally just hung that guitar on the wall right before we opened.
Jimbo: Please take it off the wall and run this credit card number.  I want it.
Music shop employee:  Ah man, one of my co-workers is going to be soooo pissed!  He loves that guitar.  Unfortunately he is over-extended on his store credit and the owner won't let him have any more.  He is going to be pissed.


Soon after it was shipped up to Jimbo.  The only change that the shop made on it was removing the floating wooden bridge and replacing with the current adjustable one.  He did find out that this Les Paul Custom originally came out of the factory polaris white with all nickel hardware (tuners have been updated).  Soon after it's first birthday it was painted the beautiful color orange it now possesses along with the addition of the bigsby.  The the sound is to die for.  But for now just feast your eyes of a few pictures of this rare gem.

And here is a little taste of that tone she puts out....