Kinda shameful Mr Juszkiewicz

Here it is, the aforementioned shonky Gibson gig bag. This really is a shameful piece of tat, the only one I have worse than this is a black vinyl thing from the 80s that came with something I bought.

I know that SG studios are cheap but they'd be better not giving you anything in my opinion.

It's a real contrast with the Gibson hard cases which are pretty nice. I've noticed that it's been two months since I updated my blog and that's because I've just been too busy to mess around with guitars. I've been stretching my playing a bit but not messing about with them. Now we're in the rundown to Christmas things will be quieter for me and I may actually get to do some fiddling.

Gibson #3 - SG Raw Power

The polar opposite of my Gothic SG, light vs dark.

Maple body, neck and fretboard, classic '57 pickups, Klusons etc. etc. vs Mahogany body and neck with ebony fretboard, EMGs, Grovers and so on.

Unusually for a Gibson it's a three piece neck and being maple this should really be tough as old boots. So less worry about the classic SG headstock disaster.

The only thing I don't like about it is the weird dark smoke scratchplate which you can just about see through in the light. I'd have preferred a bog standard 3-ply black one.

Plays very nicely, does the usual twin humbucker Gibson thing, but with a much brighter more airy tone.

What I don't quite understand is how Gibson can get away with the gig bag it came in. The flimsiest piece of tat I've seen for ages. You wouldn't expect to get this with anything but a real cheapie.

Gibson #2 - 'SG Gothic II'

"So black your eyes kind of slide off it."

Proof that marketing works. I was reading a recent copy of Guitarist where they reviewed the new Gibson Anniversary 24 and I think the previous month I saw a review of the SG Gothic Morte. This had served to remind me that I have fancied an SG for a while. eBay is awash with cheap SG Specials so it wasn't likely to be long before I had another guitar related walletbusting accident.

Thing is having looked a fair bit I'm not keen on the finish options you get. The overwhelming majority for sale are the 'worn' and 'faded' ones which are generally insipid colours and the 'worn' ones have a nasty faux relic thing going on. Who wants a guitar where the best description the manufacture can come up with for it is 'worn brown'. I had an Austin Maestro the same colour and that was most definitely not rock and roll.

This isn't just internet speculation from peering at a screen, I've been looking at SGs in the flesh and while I normally like satin finish guitars I really don't like the 'worn' and 'faded' ones.

You do get SG specials with a gloss finish in strong colours but they're less common and quite a bit more pricey. You'd have to get it in cherry red and then you'd always be disappointed it wasn't an SG standard. Even if there isn't perhaps as much difference between the two as with other models.

Which is all a bit of an 'arms race' that leads to me wanting a pretty expensive guitar instead of one of the cheap Specials kicking around.

Oh and then there are lots of fakes around.

So with a bit of a rethink I started looking for one of these. Not made for very long, the 'Gothic' models were a satin black take on the Special. Gibson did a Les Paul, Flying V and Explorer in addition to the SG and there are also equivalent Epiphones.

It's a Special in a decent solid colour and as a plus point they upgraded to an ebony fretboard, i.e. pretty much what I'm looking for. I'm pretty sure the fretboard radius was increased to a widdle friendly 14"+ too.

They did two generations of the Gothic SG, the first had a single 'moon and star' inlay at the 12th fret which is pretty nice but this second generation one has no fret markers at all. I love this. It's also missing the bizarre 'Gothic photo' of a bearded guy on the back of the headstock the first ones came with.

Then there are the EMGs.

The 1st gen. 'Gothic' came with uncovered versions of Gibson's workhorse 490R/T pickups. This came with the thrashmetaltastic EMG 81/85 combo. The 490s would have been fine, I have no idea why Gibson did this, maybe they should have named it the 'Metal SG' not the 'Gothic SG II'.

Regardless, it ticks a lot of my boxes. EMGs aren't for everybody and certainly have a reputation for making everything sound the same but I quite like them. Do you take cash?

Gibson #1 - 'Les Paul BFG' gold

This is my first USA made guitar so I'm curious how it stacks up against my various Korean/Japanese/Chinese ones given the great upswelling of brand loyalty there seems to be for Gibson, especially amongst Americans.

I've fancied a BFG ever since I became aware of their existence. The unfinished look and neck P90 really do it for me. The other affectations (clear wiring covers, wooden knobs, lack of truss rod cover and switch toggle) are kind of stupid but easily undone. In fact this one already came with more sensible bell knobs, a truss rod cover and switch toggle.

Whenever I get a new guitar I restring it, wiping it over with a damp microfibre cloth to remove dirt and if necessary oiling the fretboard. In doing all this I get a good look at the build quality. This time I did things like have the pickups out so I got a really good look.

I can sort of see where the money went into manufacture here, every line and edge is sharp and well defined, the hardware is excellent and little things like the direct pickup mounts being proper metal threaded affairs rather than screws straight into the wood show. However this is only really visible if you start dismantling the guitar like I did.

It's astonishingly light, hanging it on my luggage scales shows it to be just of 7lbs (guitars seem to be weighed in lbs). This will be the chambered body, making it far lighter than my Korean copies. The Indie Custom shop L-shape is over 11lbs.

I've played it a little now and it is nice, but I'm not sure that made in USA price tag shines through. Going back to back with the WI66ProE that's immediately to hand it's obviously different, with a fatter neck and medium frets but better to play? Not really.

The bridge Burstbucker 3 is a decent medium-hot humbucker, the neck P90 is sweet and overall it has quite a bright tone for something with the silhouette of a Les Paul, but a tone that I couldn't get from Japan or Korea if they made such a thing? Not really.

There's a reason all the big manufacturers have 'lesser' ranges made somewhere East of here. At the low end obviously there are very inferior guitars around, I know I've bought some, but once you get to midrange ones the 'heritage' brands, especially Gibson, need to worry IMO. You do get very tidy manufacture and quality hardware, but you pay for it. This entire  paragraph is brought to you from the 'old news' dept.

So I can't rule out getting another 'heritage' brand guitar, I've been looking at SGs for ages, but I'm not going to pay through the nose for one. Or I might just buy a Gordon Smith.

At some point I'll do a back to back with the BFI, which is my modded Indie take on the 'Les Paul with neck p90' idea to see if my opinion changes.