As mentioned elsewhere (the seller sent it to me in packaging that gave me a conniption, and yet somehow it survived unscathed) I've got a smashing new guitar. I've long eyed the SG Classics - meant to be one of the best value SGs you can get; Standard quality at Special prices, the necks are meant to be really big, and I'm a sucker for the batwing pickguard. The only thing that slightly gave me pause was the P90s; much as I'm a confirmed singlecoil fan (although I'm learning to love humbuckers again), I've always struggled with P90s, liking them most with the guitar volume turned down a bit (for some reason, this plays havoc with my guitar OCD).
I needn't have worried - it sounds fucking great; think I prefer P90s in an SG to a Junior - I wonder if the lighter construction stops them being quite so meaty. This relaxed chap's demo shows off its strengths rather well:
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The neck's not huge like I was hoping/expecting, but it fattens up nicely - I like tapered necks like that. And it plays ridiculously well (although the bloke had some comically high action on it when he sent it me, which always rings alarm bells - set it up fine though) - commented in a thread a while back that SGs always make me do an annoying flourish where whatever phrase I play, I celebrate by playing a showoff version of it twelve frets up.
Plenty of that action.
I remember reading an interview with Bobby Corkhill from the Smashing Pipkins a few years ago where he said he'd recorded a song with an Epiphone SG, but he'd had to stop using it afterwards as it was just too easy to play. I know what he means - SGs are fucking great (don't get me wrong, I'm still shit).
By no means a minter (has one of those telltale "I dropped my slide on it and it rattled and rolled off here, here and here" marks on it you see on acoustics sometimes), it's just dinged up enough for me not to feel paranoid playing it round the house. Body looks massively like a two-piece job in these photos (never think this makes a difference with SGs - or much else besides actually - anyway) but not so obvious in the flesh. Also really hard to see where the pieces actually join - could be something going on in the wood. It's an early (2001) one so it's got an ABR bridge, which some seem to turn backflips over, but again, I'm not that arsed.
The only thing I've done apart from a setup and some 11s is to put witchhats on it - the control cluster on an SG is too cramped for my sausage fingers otherwise.
It's great.
