Anti-social Media

The election is finally over. Thank the Maker!

But that hasn’t kept one side from gloating and the other side from crying big ol’ crocodile tears. And, truthfully, no matter how this election would’ve ended, I don’t believe the noise from it will be over for months. But I digress. Today I wanted to make an observation and call it done.

Apparently, there is no longer any room for someone in the middle. There is no room for compromise. Working with the other side to try to move forward is no longer accepted.

It seems that now everything that does not completely agree with you is extreme. If someone’s thinking is anything to the right of yours, then they are a filthy fascist. If their thinking is anywhere to the left of yours, then they are a brain-damaged liberal. There can be no common ground unless they think exactly the same way that you do.

Growing up, you could disagree and still be friends. These days, it seems you must draw a line in the sand about everything, and, if someone isn’t standing on your side of that line, then they must be cut off.

And we wonder why society is the complete dumpster fire that it is.

I blame a lot of this on the rise of social media, which, from today forward, I am calling anti-social media. I know it’s not the only thing to blame, but it certainly brings out the worst in people.

As an example, I was scrolling the big R this morning, and, for some reason, clicked on a political thread. There was a LOT of hate in that thread. It was mostly one side spewing venom at a single poster who may or may not have been from the other side. They never said anything that gave away their ideology. They merely dared to ask if political comments could be curbed now that the election was over. One quote stood out that sort of encapsulated all of the hate being slung. Paraphrasing, it said, “no stopping, no rest, and no peace until <the other side> no longer have a voice in this country.” And admit it. You can hear that comment coming from either side.

No compromise, right?

The older I get the more I am convinced that the world isn’t as black and white as preachers and politicians want us to think. Don’t get me wrong, right is right and wrong is wrong, but there is a LOT more grey than I would’ve admitted in my younger, more idealistic days. And, in those grey areas, when you’re dealing with over 330 million people, compromise is an absolute necessity if you want to avoid the morass that our political landscape has become.

Mexico Finally Did It

I’ve seen folks wonder when it was going to happen, and it looks like it has finally did. The Buck Owens Telecaster, which is a good looking guitar if I should say so myself, is a MIM Tele, and it costs $2,000.

I remember his Tele. I was a kid, it was a Saturday night, and the fam was all sitting around watching Hee Haw. “Glooooom, despair, and agony on me…if it weren’t for bad luck I’d have not luck at all…” He didn’t use it on that song, but it showed up occasionally on the show.

We watched it every Saturday night. I liked watching Buck Owens and Roy Clark. In my kid mind, they were funny, and, even then, I realized that they were both great musicians. And the two of them had pretty good chemistry and made me laugh.

As an 8 or 9 year old, it was a good time. I still remember enough about the show and the music and the fun that it has stuck with me all these years later. Buck Owens remains, to me, what that Bakersfield sound is supposed to be. And he should since he pioneered that sound. I didn’t even realize that sound had a name until a few years ago. I’ve always enjoyed it.

As a complete tangent, I didn’t know until recently that he was from just up the road in Sherman. I always thought he was a born and raised Californian. I also didn’t realize that he didn’t really like Hee Haw, but like most every job I’ve ever had, they paid him enough that he did the job.

You can hear his influence in several artists, especially Dwight Yoakum. Up to now, Epiphone’s Dwight Trash Casino is one of only a couple of signature guitars I’ve wanted. I didn’t find out about that one until it was too late. As I recall, it was an Epi Elitist. So it wasn’t a cheap one either. I’d love to get one of these Buck Owen Teles, but it’s a little too rich for my blood.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not throwing shade on the guitar or the fact that it’s not MIA. I’m sure it’s a great guitar and worth what they’re asking. Truthfully, I wouldn’t get it no matter where it was made. The price is a bit much for what I want to pay for a Tele. But this is the first time I’ve seen a MIM Fender hit that $2,000 point. That’s more than some MIAs cost.

Ensenada is making some great instruments. In fact, the Tele I have is from there. I’ve also got a Strat from there. A couple of them in fact. They’re not shabby instruments! The MIM instruments are, in my mind, supposed to be a little more affordable than those that are MIA. Hitting that $2k mark means that they may not be so much anymore.

So, the new question is when Epiphone is going to hit that price point. They’re getting close. Awfully close. But they’re not there yet. If Fender is now there, I imagine that Epi will probably hit it with a model or two next year.

And since I mentioned it up there, here’re the signature guitars I’d like some day. I had the Nita Strauss Ibanez. It was a super nice guitar. I liked it, but it wasn’t for me. It wasn’t one that I had planned to get. I just picked it up at the local GC and played it once, and decided I needed to give it a chance. I’ve also got a Jimi Hendrix Monterey Strat. I bought it to be more of an art piece that hangs over the door of my little music room. It doesn’t really get played. It just hangs there and looks cool. Those are the only signature guitars that I’ve had/got.

I almost bought one of those Emily Wolfe Epi Sheratons a couple years ago. Like the Nita Strauss Ibanez, it wasn’t one that I went looking for. I was in the market for a 335-esque guitar and walked into the local GC where a black one was hanging on the wall. It looked really cool, and it played and sounded like a 335 should. They had another regular Epi 335 on the wall next to it. I liked the neck on the 335 better than the Sheraton, so that’s the one I took home.

If they ever make one, I’d be all over a Henry Garza signature Strat. Even though Los Lonely Boys isn’t nearly as active (or don’t seem to be) as they were 20 years ago, that guy is still one of my fave players. As far as signatures that I know are out there, here’re the ones I’ve said I would like. One of those Dwight Trash Casino guitars. I’d kind of like an SRV Strat some day just because SRV. I kind of dig the Brad Paisley Tele. Then there’s the Brent Mason Tele. I dig the Robert Cray Strats. I want that one mostly because it’s a hard tail, and there aren’t too many of those out there. Now I can add the Buck Owens Tele to that list.

Various Thoughts of Late

Not much to talk about today. So I’ll just throw out some random things from the last few weeks.

  • First, how come I had to google how to make this a bulleted list. It should be obvious and up front. I have plenty of complaints about how MS does stuff, but at least they do this right.
  • I recently replaced the pickups in my Tele with a couple from Bootstrap Pickups. Telecasters are one of those guitars that I really feel like I should like. After all, it’s an iconic guitar. But they’ve just never done much for me. I, honestly don’t remember which pickups I got. I think it was a Pretzel in the neck and Palo Duro in the bridge. They sound really nice to my ear. I had originally replaced the stock pickups in it with a couple of GFS pickups. I moved those GFS pickups into the Squier Tele that I use as a beater. The Bootstraps sound good enough that I have kept that Tele out since I replaced them. It sounds just like I expect a Tele to sound. And that’s kind of weird. I’ve never really been a Tele fan, so I’ve surprised myself that this one has stayed out for more than a day or two at this point.
  • My pepper plant has fallen over. Not sure why. It’s still growing and producing peppers and everything. It’s just growing sideways. Kind of weird.
  • Picked up one of the new Nux Vox pedals. I couldn’t remember the name so I had to look it up. They call it the 63 Diamond. It’s a pretty good sounding pedal. Sounds like it’s advertised, kind of Vox-y. I’ve gotten several of their pedals, and I have been impressed by most of them. In fact, their Steel Singer (D-type) pedal stays on one of my boards. And their Morning Star (BB-type) is one of my fave of that kind. For that Morning Star, kick on the Shine feature, and it just sings. The only Nux I haven’t really liked was their Klone. I forget what it was called, but it was just kind of an average pedal. Didn’t do much for me. I guess their TS-type has also been kind of meh for me, too. But overall, I like that brand.
  • Bought that ODR-1 that I talked about in the last post. Because of it, I was going to swap out the TS-type on my board with the Visual Sound Open Road. Still haven’t gotten that done. Not that I’ve changed my mind and don’t want to do it now. More that I keep getting distracted and not doing it. Eventually it’ll happen.
  • Planning a trip out to the desert southwest before too long. I need to get my hiking backpack locked and loaded and ready for that trip. I noticed recently that Teton (formerly Teton Sports) no longer sells the backpack that I use. I sometimes think I was the only one that liked that model. And I really like it. I think I had a post about it on my old blog. I might have to do a backpack post on this new site too.

Am I a Nobel guitar player?

Every time I hear someone play an ODR-1, I dig it. It’s just a really good sounding pedal! I had somehow missed until a couple years ago that it was something of a Nashville staple pedal.

Back in like 2021, I had a guitar buddy that had one, and he loaned it to me. I really liked it. It was like a Tube Screamer but without the mid-hump. Did I mention that I really liked it? So I found a mini-ODR for $50 shipped, so I got it. For some reason, it never did much for me. I never could get it to sound like I remembered the other one sounding. So a year or so later, I traded it off. I think it was in that box of pedals that I traded to GC for my PodGo.

Since I got rid of it, I’ve always remembered really liking that one I had borrowed. I should’ve just gone back to that buddy and asked if he wanted to sell it, but I never did. I’d still occasionally think I needed to try one again. Being the fan I’ve always been of Wampler, about a year ago, I had some Amazon credit, so I picked up a Belle.

I like the Belle. To my ear, it’s a lighter OD than what that buddy’s ODR could be, but it’s a good sounding pedal. It has that button on the side that’s supposed to do something to the clipping, but, honestly, I don’t hear a difference. I actually ran it on my board for a while. I ran it into a klone, and those two sounded really, really nice to my ear.

So last weekend, during all the Labor Day gear sales, I saw someone that had one of the full-size ODR-1 pedals on sale for $100 shipped. So I bit. Got it in this week, and I’ve played around with it a bit. I like it better than the mini that I had. Or at least how I think I remember the mini sounding. (Yes, I know they probably sounded just the same, and I’m being stupid.) Got it all set up to a sound I like, and it’s a nice sounding pedal.

Then, today, I remembered that I have an old Visual Sound Open Road in the drawer. From what I’ve been told, it’s an ODR-esque pedal. So I pulled it out this morning, lined up the new ODR-1, the Belle, and that Open Road. I played around with them to get them sounding the way that I like them. Once I got that done, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that they sounded pretty much the same. I was, also, reminded just how much I like that Open Road. For drive pedals, it sometimes gets shoved to the back of the drawer and forgotten.

After this morning, I’ve actually got that Open Road laying on the floor to take the place of a TS-clone that I have on my board at the moment. I had forgotten just how much I like that pedal. I’ll swap them out this afternoon.

The Belle and the ODR will go into the drawer. I’m not looking to get rid of either at this point. I’m glad I got that ODR. Otherwise the the Open Road may’ve stayed buried in the back of the OD drawer for a while more.

Reverb Changes

I like Reverb. At least in the past I have. I’ve spent way to much money on that site. I, also, used to use it to sell gear that I didn’t necessarily want anymore. And this post is going to be a little complain-y I’m sure.

Before Etsy bought them (or whatever their parent is called), I used to sell a bunch on there. I say it was a bunch. I definitely wasn’t a store, but every couple of months I was selling something…a pedal or some piece of gear that I wanted to turn into credit to turn around and get something else. And I was pretty constantly buying something. Then they got bought.

Since then, it seems that the selling fees went up. Looking on the site, it appears that they have a selling fee and a payment processing fee that, together, come out to be 8%. It always feels way more than that thought. It used to not feel that way. Nowadays, if I price my stuff where I think is fair, then add on shipping in the amount that I feel like I can drop off and look like a good guy and still end up with a price I can live with, then subtract out the fees, it seems like I’m only getting about 70% of what I want to get. That’s not that much better than I get at the local GC if I take stuff there. And, at the GC, I don’t have the headache of trying to sell stuff (but that’s another story).

Then, Reverb has started this thing where, no matter what the condition of something is, they have front and center the comparison to new pricing. So, you’re buying a busted, hoopty something, and almost before you see the price, you see it say “$XX Typical new price, $XX Savings.” You know what, it’s not new, so I don’t care what the new price is. It’s used, so show me the comparison to the average used price. Also, sometimes it shows a dollar amount savings from new and sometimes it shows a percentage. Standardize that, and make it the percentage. Dollar savings, to me, is meaningless. If you’re going to make me look at the price as compared to the new version, then I’m doing that math in my head anyways.

Of course, that doesn’t really matter at this point since I’m not buying much on there at this point. Sellers have gotten to where they’re asking too much for used gear. So, if you’re going to buy new, there are a lot of options, and Reverb is only one of those. And I’m not really selling there anymore. With fees what they are, like I mentioned up there, it’s almost not worth it to sell there anymore. I’d rather just collect pedals in a box and take them all to the GC all at once and avoid the headache of having to pack and ship and hope that someone doesn’t stiff me.

Now, mentioning all that, I’m about a hypocrite too. I still buy stuff there way too much. In fact, I’m waiting on a pedal to come in now. Should be here in a couple days. But I can’t think of the last time I sold something there. Although it’s about time that I either get a box full of pedals together to take to the GC or give up and start selling stuff on there again.

Squier vs Fender

I have several Squiers. I have several Fenders. They’re both good companies. They both make good guitars.

Brief history. My most recent Squier and my most recent Fender have both been Telecasters. And both were purple. One was a Squier Classic Vibe 50s Tele. The other was a Fender Road Worn 50s Tele. I had seen a purple Tele and really liked the look, so I decided that I needed one.

I saw the Road Worn, and thought I should get it. But it cost over twice as much as the Squier. So I went with the Squier. It came in, and I quickly realized that it must’ve been a Monday morning guitar because it had issues. So, a few months later, I sprung for the Fender. Ever since then, I’ve said I should’ve just started with the Fender all along. It would’ve saved me getting the Squier.

So I have two purple Telecasters.

Now, I think that Squier guitars have their place, and they are generally good guitars for the money. I’ve, also, always talked about how they are good alternatives to their more expensive Mexican and American made cousins. I’ve always known, however, that there are things about the Fenders that make them nicer guitars, but, until today, I had never looked to see what any of the differences were.

Several months ago I swapped out the stock pups from the Fender. I was never really happy with the ones that came with it. So I got the GFS pups and figured I’d try them. The new neck pup was really nice. I liked it a lot! But the bridge never really caught my ear. I kept hearing about Bootstrap pickups, and thought I’d order them to see what they sounded like. I made the swap today.

I liked that GFS neck pickup I had gotten so well I thought I’d stick it in the Squier. So back to back I had both of those guitars pulled apart. The difference was, to me, absolutely astounding.

The Fender is a Road Worn. So it has nicks and scratches and worn paint all over it. But the cavities were all finished out nicely. They were even shielded. No rough spots or edges. The couple of date and barcode stickers in the guitar were positioned with intent. They were straight, and it appeared that someone had taken the time to do them right. The electronics were looked nice. Taking the parts off, they came off as expected, and the screws came out easily. I was able to change the pickups, and it all went back together with no issues. Start to finish took me roughly an hour, and I was playing the guitar again. The new pickups sound pretty nice if I should say so myself.

Once I got done with the Fender, I started to work on the Squier. And it was a whole different ballgame. First, parts didn’t want to come off. In fact, I ended up stripping the head on one of the screws on the bridge plate trying to get it off. None of those 4 strings came off easily. Then the cavities were all pretty rough. None of them were finished as nicely as the ones on the Fender. And none were shielded. I was, also, surprised to find out that the new electronics didn’t quite fit the old hardware. So off to Amazon to order new hardware. There was also this weird grease-looking stain under the pickguard and a spot of the same whatever-it-was under one side of the control plate.

Folks talk about the fit and finish of new guitars all the time. This Squier had issues from the get-go, but the usual pull-it-off-the-wall-and-play-it fit and finish wasn’t too bad. However, today, after pulling the pickguard and the bridge plate and the control plate all off, any illusion of good fit and finish quickly went away. Under the hood, there was a reason this guitar cost half what the Fender cost.

Like I said, start to finish, the Fender went from one set of pickups to the new set in about an hour. I spent about the same amount of time on the Squier. In that time, I managed to get it apart and realize that I needed to order a bunch of parts. I spent another 30 minutes ordering parts and putting some parts back together so I don’t lose them. Once I get all the parts in, I’ll be able to spend another 30 or 45 minutes putting them all on. Problem is, since one of the parts I had to order was a new bridge, once I’ve got all that on, I’m going to have to take time to set the guitar up again.

Once I get the Squier back together it should be a great guitar, but it still won’t be that Fender. Truth is that, after today, I realize that, no matter how much I’d like for it to be, that Squier will never be as nice a guitar as the Fender. Even though I’ve got some really nice instruments in there (and some really budget ones), I always skeptically looked at the difference in the two and think the nicer ones might not deserve their higher price tag. Today I realized that was wrong. There’s a reason that the Fender cost over twice what the Squier cost.

Cheap OD Addiction

I have a problem with buying cheap ODs. I have a drawer full of them. Actually like 2 drawers full of them. 2 drawers with like 40 pedals each.

Suddenly I feel like I need to qualify that last statement. I also have my “good” OD pedals too. In fact, I currently have 2 boards built. One is my mini board and one is the more full board. The mini board has a Wampler Germanium on it. The bigger board has my Klon KTR on it. Also, no, I bought them both brand spankin’ new, so those two cost me regular retail and not the insane used-market prices. The other pedals on both boards are a good mix of pedals like those and cheap pedals. For instance, the compressor that I run on that board that has the KTR is one of the red Behringer pedals because that’s the one that I like.

But the cheap ODs. They started off in a couple of ways. First, I have a tendency to get on a kick with a pedal and try to buy a bunch of copies of it to see if they are good copies or not. For instance, I never got a real TS808. I have a TS9 and a TS Mini, but no 808. However, I have been through probably 20 TS-type pedals. I currently have probably 10 or 12 over there. Klons, same thing. When the EHX Soul Food hit and everybody started releasing their own K-type, I probably had 12 or 15 at one time.

In fact, my most recent pedal kick has been the Bluesbreaker type pedals. Just over the weekend I added that new EHX Spruce Goose to my watchlist on Reverb. Put in a couple of offers on a couple, but they were shot down. And I refuse to buy a used pedal at only 25% off the new price. To me, that’s just insane. My offers were right about 40% off the new price. Add in shipping, and that’s still more than I want to pay, but it’s a LOT better than 20% off plus shipping, which gets it back into new pedal pricing. But I digress.

Which brings me to the second reason I have so many. I was on an afford-a-board kick for a while. I wanted to see just how cheaply I could put together a board for a little dinero as I could. So I was trying ALL the cheap pedals (not just the drives). And some power supplies. Heck, at one point, I had a looper on my board that cost me $100. It cost more than the other 5 pedals I had on that board combined.

Buying all the cheap ODs that I’ve gotten, I’ve gotten some real dogs. And some real gems.

Many of the bad ones I remember being bad, but I don’t remember what they were exactly. Should I rephrase that. There is a point where, if the pedal is so bad, I will definitely remember it. However, if the pedal doesn’t cross that line of being just terrible, it tends to just fade into the group above it which are the not really good, not really bad, but it’s not something I’m going to keep. That’s where a lot of them fall.

Here are a couple of the most terrible ones. Also, I’ll link these on Amazon just for reference. They’re not affiliate links, so I get nothing if you click on them and try them.

The Caline Pegasus. I never got rid of this one. I still have it just because of the artwork on it. It’s a half-Pegasus, half-centaur playing an electric guitar. Imho, the graphic is so over the top that I’ll keep the pedal. The pedal, however, sounded like a can of angry bees. I didn’t get a bad pedal. I’m sure of that. It was just a bad sounding pedal.

The Nux Horseman. I actually pre-ordered this pedal, and I was super excited when I finally got it. But it was just so underwhelming. It didn’t sound bad, but it didn’t sound good. It just sounded like an OD. It has a feature in it that allows you to switch between the gold-Klon and silver-Klon sounds. There was a definitely a difference. The silver sound (I think) was a harsher drive sound than the gold sound. I just couldn’t get a sound dialed in that I liked. It may’ve been a good klone. Maybe I just didn’t give it enough chance because, overall, I am a fan of Nux pedals. Just this one didn’t do anything for me.

And here are a few standouts.

The Nux Ace of Tone. See? Fan of Nux. This is a two-sided pedal. One side is their Morning Star. It’s a Bluesbreaker. The other side is their Tube Man. It’s a TS-type. If I needed a one shot drive pedal to fit anything and everything, this might be the one that I grab. Turn the Shine feature on for the BB side to throw a little extra high into the tone, and I totally dig this pedal.

The Tone City Durple. This is the Danish Pete pedal that Andertons/Tone City does. I actually run this pedal on my small board in the place of a TS-type. It’s a little different from a TS pedal. Truth is, I think it’s based on the Kalamazoo Love pedal, which, oddly enough I have one of, but I’ve never tried them side by side by side. I dig this pedal.

The Amumu Hot Summer Overdrive. I don’t really know what camp to put this pedal. It’s an overdrive, but I can’t really put into any of the big OD-types. From that perspective, I’d almost compare it to my Thorpy Gunshot (which is definitely NOT a cheap OD) because it doesn’t really sound like anything else. I don’t run it on either of my boards, but it’s a fun pedal to play with. Turn the comp switch to compcut, raise the level, gain and tone at about noon, and this pedal is a heck of a good time.

The Donner Dark Mouse. All I’ll say about this one is that, when I reach for a RAT pedal, this is the one I grab.

And, finally, I’ll mention the DemonFX DualGun. But I’m not linking it because I still have a bit of a crisis of conscience about this brand. For instance, from all I can tell, all the way down to the way the pedal looks, this pedal isn’t just a copy of, but it’s a direct rip off of the older version of the King Tone The Duelist (which I will link). I bought the pedal DemonFX on a whim, and I have been amazed at how it sounds. It’s another BB-type/TS-type pedal like the Ace of Tone. I’ve since picked up a couple of other DemonFX pedals (that also appear to be direct rip-offs of more expensive pedals), and they all sound really, really good. Makes me really want to buy the originals of what they are because they are such good sounding pedals.

Those are a few of the standouts. I’ve got all kinds. Caline, Amumu, Mooer, Flamma, Tom’sline, Amazon Basics, Behringer, Donner, Shark Chili, KLIQ… The list goes on. If I see a cheap pedal on Amazon, especially if it’s an OD, I’ll probably grab it and try it out. With the exception of the NUX pedals I’ve listed above (and that Thorpy), I don’t think I paid more than $50 for any of the ones that I call cheap pedals.

I’m trying to quit. Really I am. But it’s just fun to grab a pedal or two and throw them on the floor and see what kind of sounds I can get out of them. Thinking of that, it’s also time to either put a few up on Reverb or throw them in a box and carry them into the local GC and see what I can get for them.

My New Epiphone ES-355 – After 6 Weeks with It

I’ve had that Epiphone 1959 ES-355 for about 6 weeks now. In fact, I think it was an even 6 weeks yesterday. I think that’s plenty of time to get past the honeymoon period with it and be a little more objective about what I do and don’t like about it. So here’s my 6-week roundup of that guitar.

It’s that 335 size, so it’s a big guitar. Not a deep guitar, it’s just a long way across that bottom bout on the body. I know I’ve always heard folks complain about that about a 335-style, but that’s not something that has ever really bothered me. Maybe because I played only acoustics for so long and, by the time you get your arm around one of those, this doesn’t seem so bad.

Fit and finish out of the box wasn’t too bad at all. I think I tweaked the neck slightly to get it like I wanted. There are a couple of rough spots in the wood that you can feel through the finish. Nothing that was really bad. You can just feel a little roughness in the wood…it’s not smooth. There are couple of spots right at the neck where the red stain bleeds onto the binding, but it’s not really anything you’re going to see unless you’re looking for it.

It has that satin finish. I kind of like it. Back when Gibson was making those 335s with the satin finish, I had always said I wanted one. Long about 2016 I couldn’t find one anymore, so I ended up getting one that was wine red with black binding. It was an ok guitar, but, for what I spent to get it, I didn’t want it to be just ok. So I traded it in during the great gear purge of 2020. I like this one. You can see the wood grain through it a bit, especially on the back. I’ve got a satin Strat that, from playing it a bunch, the satin has kind of polished out to become a little glossy in a couple spots. I imagine that this guitar will eventually do the same thing.

Still not a fan of the gold hardware. This is the second guitar I have with gold stuff on it. The other is my 1962 50th Anniversary Sheraton. Not a fan of gold on it either. Both of these guitars come with gold. So they have gold. So be it. I don’t think it makes it look better.

That said, I have left the tortoise shell or whatever color it is pickguard on the 355. I think it helps the look of the gold hardware.

I dig the inlays on the guitar. In my head a Strat and Tele should have dot inlays. Guitars from Epiphone and Gibson are a little fancier in style, so they should have something other than dots. I know that doesn’t make a lick of sense, and I’ve got Fenders that don’t have dots and other Epiphones and Gibsons that do. But I really like the look of the big block inlay on the 355 and whatever the design is on the headstock.

I’ll also mention the binding. The only other guitar that I have that has 7-layer binding is that 1962 50th Anniversary Sheraton. I think it looks really good on that guitar, and I think it looks really good on this one.

Still a big fan of the 50s neck. Big fan. Huge fan. It’s probably 80% of the reason I wanted the guitar, and it has not disappointed.

Don’t really care about the Gibson-style headstock. That’s not to say that I don’t like it. It’s to say that I don’t care. It’s not great. It’s not bad. My opinion about it is kind of “whatever.” I never have been a fan of the that tall, thin Epiphone headstock that Epi has used in the past, but I really liked the new Gibson-inspired headstock that Epi started using a few years ago. It was kind of a nice middle ground between what Epiphone had been using and what Gibson used.

The pickups. Now the pickups I am a fan of. They’re supposed to be those Gibson Custombuckers. I don’t really know what that means other than they were going in some of the really nice Gibsons, and they are the latest iteration of the PAF-style pickups. But what does PAF really mean anymore? Everyone seems to sell a PAF-style pickup these days, and some of them sound wildly different. Heck, I’ve got Burstbuckers in a couple guitars and 57 Classics in a couple others. Those are probably the current most popular PAFs that Gibson, and I hear a difference in them. They’re not the same. Granted, I am pretty sure that I probably couldn’t tell the difference in them in the wild, sitting in the quiet the my little music room, I hear a difference all day long. I have become a big fan of the Burstbucker 1 that is in my Les Paul. It’s just super smooth.

I don’t know if the ones in the 355 are actually Custombuckers or not. I’ve not yet pulled them out of the guitar to look. But, again, sitting in the quiet of my music room, these pickups are my new favorites. They take the Burstbuckers and 57s that I’ve got in other guitars to a whole new level. I was actually sitting here playing it earlier today, and I the thought went through my head that I really liked the way they sounded. Granted, you put some drive and grit on them, and you lose that signature semi-hollow/335 sound. But playing it clean, those pickups sound. so. good.

The guitar cost more than double what I paid for most of my Epiphones, and it was 50% more than my most expensive Epi. However, they say the pickups in it are those Custombuckers. Those apparently go for $500 a pair. By comparison, a brand new set of Probuckers will cost you $120. So nearly a $400 difference in the pickups. It also comes with a case. A typical Epi hard case will retail for I think $130. Just those two items alone make a difference of about $500 give or take. Subtract that out, and it puts it in the range of some of the more expensive regular runs Epiphones these days. Is it worth that $500 bucks? Now that’s a subjective question if I’ve ever heard one.

So here’s my 6-week verdict on my new Epiphone IGC1959 ES-355. I dig it. Like, really dig it. It has been the guitar I grab ever since I brought it home. I don’t see it seeing the inside of its case for a while yet. I compare it to that Gibson 335 that I had for a while, and this is easily the better instrument. Granted, I think that Gibby was a Friday afternoon guitar. But this Epi is better. It feels better, it plays better, and I like it better. The neck is perfect, and it sounds super nice to my ear. I think I can objectively say that it’s a great guitar. Would I buy it again? Absolutely!

A gold top Epiphone Standard 50s Les Paul on the left and a cherry red Epiphone Inspired by Gibson Custom 1959 ES-355 on the right.

I Like Big Necks

I recently changed jobs. Same company, but going back to a little more technical role than I’ve had the last few years. I mentioned a few weeks ago that there was a new guitar out that I wanted and gave several of the reasons I wanted it. Mrs Snarf told me maybe I needed a “happy new job guitar.” That was all the excuse I needed.

The guitar has recently come out, and, for a few weeks, it was pretty impossible to find one. Then for a few more it was impossible to find locally. Then I noticed that no other local shop had them (not even GC), but the one just up the street from the office somehow had a couple of them. So the first day of the new job, I headed over there to test drive one.

I walked in and mentioned to the sales person what I was looking for, and he took me straight over to it, pulled it off the wall, and handed it to me. As soon as I put my hand around the neck of it, I knew I wanted one. The one on the wall wasn’t the color I wanted, so he had to go to the back and get another one. He brought it back out, and it was still in the box, unopened. So he opened that one up and handed the new one in the right color to me. Not only did it feel just like the first one, but the color was even nicer than I thought it was going to be. So I bought it.

It’s one of those Epiphone 1959 ES-355 guitars in red. I’ve been digging it, and it’s pretty much the only guitar I’ve played since then.

To me, there were two big selling points. I’ve really wanted to try those Gibson Custombuckers without spending $500, and I really like the neck that’s on my Epi 50s Standard LP. This 355 is advertised to have those pickups and that same neck.

Full disclosure here. I’m not actually sure what the differences in a 335 and a 355 are. I know the 355 is supposed to be a fancier 335, and this one is fancier than any 335 I’ve owned. However, I’ve seen 335s that I thought were just as fancy as this one. So I’m not really sure what makes this one stand out from the 335 line. Looking at it, it has fancy binding, big block inlays, that fancy headstock inlay, and gold hardware. Maybe all that together is what does it. I, honestly, don’t know.

I’ve always wanted a 335 with block inlays. The fancy headstock inlay I wasn’t as concerned about, but I always thought it would be cool to get a block 335. Another selling point is that the inlays on this one are actual mother of pearl and not pearloid like they put in so many of their guitars these days. They say it has an ebony fingerboard instead of laurel or some of the other wood they use these days. On this guitar, they also put the Gibson headstock. I didn’t really care about that. Now I never have been a big fan of that tall skinny Epi headstock, but I like the one they started putting on their guitars a few years ago. And I’ve never been a fan of gold hardware. But underneath that gold hardware, they say they have Gibson Custombuckers, and, even though I hadn’t heard those that I knew of, I liked the idea of them. Spoiler, I don’t know that I could tell them apart from a pair of Burstbuckers or 57 Classics, but, to my ear, they sound really, really good.

Probably 90% of the reason that I bought this guitar, especially as quickly as I did, is because of the neck on it.

I bought my 50s Standard LP on a whim. I had tried a couple of other LPs, and didn’t really gel with them. They were too heavy. They never really sounded like I thought they should. And they always seemed just a little small. But I had always wanted a gold top. Purged a bunch of gear in 2020, and then I saw AMS had a blem Epi 50s Standard gold top for a ridiculous price. So I bought it just to say I had a gold top. It came in, and I was initially surprised to not be able to tell why it was a blem (I still have no idea why – maybe it was a return). Then I picked it up to play it. The neck felt better than any neck on any guitar I had ever played. This purchased-on-a-whim guitar suddenly became the one I played more than anything because of that neck. And it had remained so ever since.

So when I saw that this ES-355 was advertised as having that same neck, I had to try one. The day that I saw that guitar shop had one in stock, I called them up and asked the sales person on the phone if he could put his hands on an Epi 50s LP and the 355 and tell me if the neck felt the same. He came back to the phone and said that, if they weren’t the same, they were at least very, very similar. That’s when I decided to head down and check one out. And sure enough, when I picked that first one up, I knew immediately that it was going to have to go home with me because of that neck.

The neck isn’t one of the baseball bat necks. I’ve got an acoustic with one of those, and my hand gets tired playing it after a while. It’s just sooooo huge. But then it’s also not your typical modern neck that is relatively thing and optimized for fast playing. It sits somewhere in the middle. It’s a nice handful. It gives you plenty to grab on to when you’re playing. In my opinion, it’s the perfect guitar neck. If I ever have a guitar built for me, I will be giving the luthier either the LP or this new 355 and tell them to copy that neck.

I’ve now had it 3 weeks. Since I bought it, I’ve had 3 guitars out on the wall. That Epi 50s Standard LP, my Gibson CS ES-339, and now this Epi ES-355. And, as I’m sitting here typing this out and seeing it hanging on the wall over there, I’m thinking that, if that 339 had this neck, it would be the perfect guitar.

Reverb Jackwagons

Now I know I’ve been guilty of this too, but, as soon as I realize I am, I stop. And, I try to be honest with myself from the beginning about it. Yes, I am talking about the “I know what I’ve got” people.

I was reminded of them today. I was surfing Reverb as I sometimes do. Today, I was actually jumping off the daily alert email I have setup. A piece of gear I have been looking for popped up. So I clicked it. After all, the condition said Very Good, and the price was fair for that piece of gear in that condition. The problem was, when I clicked on it and saw the condition of the item, I was very much underwhelmed.

It’s a speaker cabinet. I’m sure it probably plays fine, but the fact that the seller is calling it in Very Good condition just floors me. According to Reverb, “Very Good items may show a few slight marks or scratches but are fully functional and in overall great shape.” On the other hand, “Good condition includes items that are in find working order, but have significant cosmetic imperfections.”

This speaker cabinet has a big faded spot and a slight rip on the grill where somebody decided to removed the branding. The right side of the cabinet looks good. The back of the cabinet looks good. The left side of the speaker cabinet has torn tolex on one top corner, and looks like 3 good scratches and a rip that looks to be about an inch long. Then the top has two extra holes in it for some reason that look like nail holes, 4 small circular rips in the tolex that looks like where someone had set something on top of it and scratched it, and another rip on one of the front corners that’s big enough you can see wood through it (and actually looks kind of like a burn). Then there’s rust spots all over the handle.

All of that, yet somehow the condition is “Very Good.” Granted, I’m not going to message the seller about the cabinet because I don’t want one that is in that rough shape. I’m not wasting my time or theirs like that. Truth to tell, for the condition that it’s in, what they’re asking + their free shipping brings the cost of the amp down to where it really should be imho because it’s going to cost them $100 to ship the thing. Besides, with the amount of sales they’ve made, if I bought it, I’ve got a feeling that when they realized how much shipping is going to take out of their pocket, they’d cancel the sale anyways.

I’m just hung up on that “Very Good” condition thing. When I sell on Reverb, I try to be honest about the condition of the gear I’m selling. Truth is, I probably err to the side of worse than better. So, if there’s any question if the gear may not be “Very Good” then I tend to call it “Good” because I don’t want someone coming back and saying I lied. From what I understand, Reverb always sides with the buyer, and I don’t want someone buying something and being disappointed in the condition so that they contact Reverb and say it wasn’t as described. I’ve heard horror stories about that and folks getting back a piece of broken gear because the buyer either broke it or didn’t care to pack it back well.

Which brings me back to the “I know what I’ve got” people. They’re the ones that I blame for jacking the price of gear up and causing the overall prices to continue to climb like they have. Used to, you could get some really good deals on used gear. Because of these folks pricing their used gear at new prices, it seems like you really have to work to get a deal. Not too long ago, I used pedal could be gotten pretty easily for 1/2 the price of a new one. Nowadays, folks are pricing them so close to the new that, by the time you add in their shipping, you may as well buy it new because that’s how much you’re spending.

Then there’re the “I know what I’ve got” collectors that do this. By a piece of gear with the sole purpose of flipping it for an inflated price. I’ve bought gear (even some of that gear) thinking that, if I don’t like it, I could always flip it.

Heck, sitting right over there on my pedal board is a Germanium Tumnus from Wampler. I bought it on a whim and was lucky to get one. I wasn’t thinking “I’m going to buy this and turn around and sell it for twice the price.” I bought because I know that I like klones, and this one apparently had some of the magical diodes or capacitors or whatever is in it that none of my others have. So I thought “I’ll get one, and, if I don’t like it, I can always get my money back out of it.” It’s a great pedal! It’s on my board, and probably won’t be coming off anytime soon. I got it to use it if I liked it. I didn’t get with the intention of flipping it and driving prices up. That’s just stupid.

Neeways, I’m just ranting about the general state and prices of used gear. If you sell something, take an objective look at it before you do. Should you really be listing that guitar as Mint Condition when it’s had a questionable headstock repair, 3 tuning pegs have been jankily replaced and don’t match the others, and the jack is still mostly attached to the guitar but it’s half hanging out? Probably not. Also, when you realize it may not be in the condition that you think it is, price it accordingly. That 10 year old Epiphone that’s been beat to heck shouldn’t be priced at a Gibson level just because you replaced the pickups and had it professionally setup 5 years ago. It’s still a beat-up Epiphone.

Objectivity. When you’re selling something, it’s something you need to bring into play.