This is my 1983 Gibson SG. I traded my old ESP Horizon NT-7 for it, as I was looking for something that was more appropriate to play country and blues music. It was a direct trade which was fantastic, and actually the pictures in this post are a little outdated. I have switched out the Seymour Duncan Phat Cat P90 pickups for Gibson ’57 classics (another direct trade! Lucky me).
I have had a ball playing with this guitar. There is plenty of Instagram footage of me to prove it. Owning a vintage guitar like this has me in the mindset of babying it. Yes yes, guitars are meant to be played, but this one means something special to me. A renewed strength and spirit in such a shreddable and finely crafted Gibson is an inspiring presence among my mostly shred machines. It also was a great break from looking at super strats all day (not that I’m complaining too much).
The drawbacks? 22 frets. That’s about it. Everything about this guitar echoes cool, and boy does it have mojo. If you look back on my Instagram account you’ll find that I actually put in a lot of time on this guitar in regards to seeing what kind of shreddy things it can do.
I also exclusively used this guitar for when I was doing my Berklee Online assignments, which definitely added a familiar gritty tone to everything I was recording.
Ultimately I love organic sounding guitars. Whether they are made out of space-aged materials or otherwise, it has to feel right and it has to sound right. And organic being the descriptor of the last few years in regards to guitar tones that actually sound good (and not programmed), I really do think this Gibson takes the cake.
You can see me playing it extensively in this video review of some Rokconn pickups (which I still have and am scratching my head as to what to do with! Maybe a contest is in order.)
Finally, I leave you with the guts and the glory of the guitar. What a beautiful mess.
You can find more pictures of fancy instruments on my flickr.
Paul Ozz 