This series is called “Pointless Exercise In Futility, Why Even Bother?”  :D

A few days ago I asked my friends to vote on the SG Junior….whether it looked better with the original black P-90 cover, or better with the chrome cover I installed for fun.  The RESOUNDING response was “keep it like it is, you jerk!!!”

So this is a futile set of photos because it illustrates the process of me installing the reviled chrome cover.   It has been removed and switched back to the original…so these photos are no longer relevant at all!  But here they are anyway.  Enjoy!  :D  

PS: when I pulled the pick guard off the first time, I was surprised by the appearance of the neck/body joint.  By “appearance” I mean the fact that is APPEARS!  It can be seen!  I don’t think I have ever seen a neck join so obvious under a pick guard…but then again all my other SGs have 2 pickups, and the neck pickup would probably cover this up…

I love democracy.

Original ”black” wins over “chrome” by a score of 30 votes to 11.  Majority rules!  :D

PS: I will warn you in advance that I took about 400 pictures of it with the chrome cover still on…and those shots will definitely be showing up here over the next few days.  Or weeks.  :D

Don’t say I didn’t warn you!  ;)

Tumblr friends who know me probably know I sold 2 of my Stratocasters over the last few months…one was a Road Worn 50s, and the other was a 2010 Custom Shop ‘63 Relic.  They were both black, and were my very first black Stratocasters.

I guess I missed having at least one black Srat around because when the price on this one was lowered to $350 … I HAD to have it!  ;)

PS: my Tumblr buddy markeh11 commented on a previous post, asking what the back of a hard tail Strat looked like…hence why 2 of these pics show the guitar flipped on its face!

I have just bought a parts-caster with a matching headstock and no decal. I am probably going to have to make my own, because no one out there seems to make replacement decals for a black headstock!  Some of the logos are ok in gold script, but without exception ALL of the other lettering (e.g. the “STRATOCASTER” name itself, the patent numbers and the “original contour” lettering) are in black, and so would not show up on a black headstock.

Photo #1 shows one of the ideas I am kicking around…of course I am using my favourite “transition” logo from (roughly) 1965.  The other lettering is tbc (to be confirmed!) at this point…  ;)

2011 PRS Starla, Charcoal.

Damn you Gibson!  EVERY TIME I think I have all the guitars I will ever want, you go and do something like this: a limited edition Casino in black?!?  AND you make it cheaper than a regular Casion.  AND you include a hardshell case?!?  Damn you!!!  

:D

PS: There’s that Spitfire again…WTF?!?  ;)

Gibson Custom Les Paul Special, Double Cutaway.  Oh, and some trees near my house (photo 1) and near my friend’s house at Bloor & Yonge streets in downtown Toronto (last photo).  :P

This guitar is so nice that if I were forced to choose only one guitar from my collection it might just be this one!  :D 

Various Gibson headstocks from my collection (part 2).

1. 2011 61 Reissue SG, limited run in TV Yellow.
2. 2009 Custom Shop ES-339, sunburst.
3. Same as #2 above!
4. 2010 Custom Shop Les Paul Special (single cut) VOS

Dudes…ok, yes, I said I was going to be offline until Monday ‘cuz I’m on the road, but I was just sitting here in my hotel room in Montreal (une ville où l’on parle français!) and I decided to take a few shots of the guitar I brought with me (the Les Paul Special Double Cut).  I really liked the way the photos turned out…so I am breaking my self-imposed silence to post one (or maybe more …later!).  You know I like a photo if I am willing to load photos to Tumblr over an unstable and painfully slow hotel wi-fi connection…  :D

Anyway…I think I have figured out the perfect way to photograph black guitars (for reasons I won’t go into here, they are the hardest colour guitars to get decent photos of!).  What I need for my “studio” (by which I of course mean my “house”) is a kingsize bed with a white duvet on top.  Perfect!  :D

PS: strap by Jaykco.  One of my favourites…it’s called “red dragon” or something like that…  :D

My favourite Gibson?  It’s in the top 2 or 3 anyway…

2010 Gibson Custom Les Paul Special double cut. 7.1 lbs of pure joy in your hands…

“2010 Fender Custom Shop 63 Relic Stratocaster In My Living Room 1”

This was my very first Custom Shop instrument.  Not the last though.  :D

(Strap by Jaykco http://www.jaykco.com/)

Wednesday night shopping #1:  A Gibson Midtown & a Gibson ES-339 hanging in the evening sun, streaming through the front door of the shop.

Long and McQuade Store in Burlington, Ontario Canada.  August 29, 2012.

Next up on the workbench for a string refreshing: 2010 Gibson Custom Les Paul Special, Double Cut.  this is one of my absolute favourites from the collection.  It sounds divine, and plays like butter!  Wait…what does “butter” play like?!?  Aw forget it!

(Strap by Jaykco  http://www.jaykco.com/)

Toronto, Canada, June 22, 2012. 

Ok…I guess I was wrong.  It’s not “impossible” to take a decent picture of a black guitar…it CAN be done.  It’s just not as easy as other colours because to expose the guitar properly, you end up overexposing the rest of the photo!

But, here are a couple of shots of my 2010 Custom Shop Time Machine ‘63 Relic Strat that I don’t hate!

Toronto Canada, June 10, 2012.

Blast from the past…2011 PRS Starla special order hard tail, Charcoal Black, Bird Inlays.  Photo taken February 3, 2012, near Toronto, Canada.

My pal at The Guitar Shop (Port Credit, Ontario, ~15kms West of Toronto, http://www.theguitarshop.ca/)  arranged this special order for me from PRS when I complained that I loved the Starla, but NOT the standard Bigsby vibrato tailpiece.  He messaged his pal in production at PRS and within a few minutes, my special order hard tail Starla was in production!  It pays to have friends in the business!  :D