Gibson releases the Pete Townsend SG....

[chefcraig]

Friend of mine once had a coffee-table book of photography from Rolling Stone magazine. This was in the late 70s. One page was great....a series of about 20 photos of Pete Townsend with a single-pickup version of the SG special.

The title of the series was "The Guitar".

The first photo simply showed the body of the guitar, with Pete's hand clenched around the neck at the upper frets. The rest of the series showed him in various stages of destroying it. It was hilarious.

If memory serves (and believe me, at this point it rarely if ever does ), there were at least three of these "Pete Destroys A Guitar" posters done in the mid-late sixties/early seventies. There was a black and white series of pictures (one of which would later be used for the band's "Maximum R & B" ads) that featured Townsend busting up a Rickenbacker semi-acoustic, the Rolling Stone one and a third taken around 1975 that was used as the promotional ad for the soundtrack of Kids Are Alright documentary, showing Townsend about to ruin a Les Paul Deluxe. You can find an incomplete yet entertaining list of Pete's more famous "hits" at this link: Smashed Guitars

Ok so how many fucking thousand dollars is this because it is a "Pete Townsend" model?

Around $1,389.00

[FORD]

Another SG fan from Woodstock- Jerry Garcia

[ZahZoo]

Ah ZahZoo, you just described me & any guitar trying to sound like any musician on any song. Guitar just isn't in my blood. But it's fun as hell to try and I will never give up. Neighbors & housemates be damned! They can just learn to love my awful version of Sweet Child O Mine.

Ya know how folks always say tone is in the hands of the player not necessarily the gear... I believe there's some truth there and odd physical interplay with each person and certain types of wood and electronics combinations.

For me it's that way... I can play Strats & Tele's mostly with alder & some old ash bodies and maple necks with single coils, preferably Texas specials... and milk out some very decent AC/DC like chunk, ring and tones. Just running into a simple Marshall combo with no added effects. Then swap an SG or Les Paul into the same setup and no matter how much I tweak the gain, tone and pickup settings or even change pick attack... it sounds and feels like mud to me. Switching to other brands but with similar wood and electronics... same results. Seems I have this issue too with rosewood and ebony fret boards even if slapped on top of a maple neck.

Clearly working up tone with a humbucker -vs- single coils setup is key factor. Lately I have found that I can pull some decent tones out of humbuckers that are "Ed like" for example the cheap knock-offs from Guitar Fetish... but only equipped in a strat body with maple neck.

All I can figure is alder/ash & maple woods behave with a resonant frequency that is compatible with my fat ass... mahogany, rosewood, ebony and the like aren't at the right mojo zone.

I'd suggest get out and play anything you can get your hands on or experiment in building parts guitars... you may hit a combo that comes to life in your hands.

It don't have to cost a fortune either... For kicks I bought a cheap Squire 51 new for $95.00... threw a Guitar Fetish EVH bucker in the bridge and lost the dog-assed ugly pick guard, dropped the stock single coil as low as it would go and put a beauty ring around it... also put a $15 replacement bridge on it. Less than $200 invested and that little sucker screams!!!