this is a despicable tale. one evening in a dingy room in north london, we were getting ready for our second ever gig. as we were stashing our gear in one corner, i saw this brown gibson hardcase amongst the guitar cases piled across the room. in true sour grapes mode, i went , “hah. ini case aje kot…”.
this tennessee-hewn piece of mahogany is owned by wan “yeah yeah yeah!” adrie, a mate of ours who was studying engineering in sheffield a few years back (well known amongst our circle for his “business, love? no, engineering” story). he and his housemates (for the life of me, i can’t remember what they called themselves) were churning out original tunes at that gig in london, and gave a stupendous performance with great audience participation, despite being the first band onstage. when asked on why he chose to play the guitar, the prompt reply was, “slash!”. yes.
his gibson SG standard seen here is a rightie, but adrie is a southpaw. not just any old southpaw, but a typical melayu* southpaw. in the old days, lefthanded guitarists learnt to play the guitar using right-handed ones. the lower gauged top strings would then be the bottom strings, and so forth. unlike uncle jimi who strung his rightie strats the leftie way, meaning a new nut and setup to account for the reversal of string tension blah de-blah. if i’m not mistaken, guys like man keedal and joe of wings play the guitar the melayu style (trabye, can you confirm? -ed.)
the SG has a gorgeous tone despite the lightness/thinness of the mahogany as compared to the chunkier les paul. it has the same 498T/490R humbucker combo as the pre-2002 les paul standard. and if you remember lmsn rds’ entry on the guild, they do share similar traits. i remembered when he left his SG with me for a couple of weeks and it was a joy to play. had to be extra careful that time though, as the vintage-styled kluson machinehead for the G string was buggered. gibson only sold them in threes, and i was lucky to get just the one for him from this guitar repairman-cum-luthier in newcastle.
being a typical gibbo, these guitars are ‘easier’ (strat players would know what i mean). the last time i saw this guitar rocked onstage was the 1999 sheffield gig. it was a memorable set, where they went metal full on. what with lmsn rds singing screaming “the police! the police!” on a sepultura cover (this story will be in another upcoming entry).
* so that southpaws get to just pickup a righthanded instrument and perform in circumstances like band orang kahwin.
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signature tune: back in black by ac/dc
