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.
