(second block, fourth letter of the prisoners' quadratic tap code...)

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...am here to tap through the walls.


Wed Sep, 05 2007

E Street Guitars

Reynolds points to the new Bruce Springsteen video and remarks...

"Somehow the opening made me think of Blue Oyster Cult,..."
That's not hard to figure out: the opening guitar lick has the same sort of arpeggiated roll as BOC's "Don't Fear The Reaper", although the actual notes are different.

In any case, I had the same sensation of comparison to BOC almost five years ago when I watched Springsteen's "Live In New York City" DVD. There are a couple of moments when Bruce, Nils Lofgren, and Steve Van Zant are standing at the downstage edge just blowing murderous guitar-power off that deck together, and while the particular flavor of the E Street Band is not very reminiscent of BOC, the general attack of those moments made me think of nothing else.

"Guitars out to rule the world."

Really: those three together are as guitar-powerful as anything that exploded out of Long Island back in the day.

Seriously recommended.

Sep 05, 07 | 1:10 pm

AxeBites

Various guitars I see floating by, mostly Gibson and mostly eBay.

Early Norlin ES-335 -- 1970, in Walnut ("ES-335TDW"). This is a period-piece look and feel, and arguably the sound as well but that's to cut things very finely. A "classic" 335 would be the original of 1958 in the Sunburst or Natural finish, or the Cherry Red of 1959; the Walnut of 1970 (second year of that finish offering) is not really a "classic" 335. In the history of the Gibson aesthetic, this is analogous to, say, vertically-striped polyester bell-bottoms or Bahama Blue shag carpeting. None of this is to say that they're not cool guitars, and this is a nice one. Excellent photographs.

Chrome hardware, featuring the trapeze tailpiece (like my L-47 and I've always liked it) and ABR-1 bridge with period-typical nylon saddles. Bound rosewood fretboard, with small block markers, and then the crown inlay at the machine head. These would be the T-top Humbuckers. Vintage Nazis would moan that the upper bouts are pointy (the body templates were wearing-out in the factory) and the fourteen-degree machine head with the volute signals a sometimes not-fun era of the line, but these things really do rock or moan or whatever you want a 335-type semi-hollow to do. ...which, of course, is because it really is a 335.


In the months since I've let AxeBites languish all to bleedin' hell, Gibson's Robot Guitar technology has sifted out to other models than the original Les Paul application. I don't know how it's going: I still haven't even seen one of these self-tuners. I don't see piles of them burning on the sides of the highway, nor reverent hangings in display cases over bars, so who knows? This 2008 Robot SG is ready to rock in the Metallic Red. Nickel hardware; it's the stoptail wired for data to send to the tuners, with dual Humbuckers. It's a bound rosewood fretboard, but I really like the single-bound machine head with the crown inlay. That's a real cool old-school look, right there, to set off that crazy-ass color. {nod}