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

image
...am here to tap through the walls.


Thu Aug, 13 2009

Les Paul: June 9, 1915 – August 13, 2009

"We all must own up that without Les Paul, generations of flash little punks like us would be in jail or cleaning toilets. This man, by his genius, made the road we still travel today."
That is attributed to Keith Richards, and he might be the only one to know about what he would otherwise be, but there can be no question but that his very life was once directed by an unknown force. That force was one of the giants of the twentieth century: a man born during the first world war, and whose life gleamed like the mid-century peak into which he flourished. He sailed across that peak in jet-age fins and brilliant chrome, and then kept running headlong into the digital era, gathering friends and goodwill to burnish a name that will live as long as people can still make music with anything more advanced than a hollow tree and a limb to bang it with. Wherever there is ever still an electric spark in it, he'll be there at the heart of it, ringing forever.

I can't imagine how it gets better than that.

Good for you, Lester. Thank you with all my heart.



~~~~~

(afterward -- ) Martin links-up the New York Times obituary, which is actually fairly well-done. Don't miss the fifteen-minute video, "The Last Word", which carries enough of the master in his own voice to merit the title.

Aug 13, 09 | 2:20 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}