hotrodperlmutter wrote:ultratwin wrote:Tom DeLonge sig
eh, say what you will about the rest, but the tom delonge sig is the nicest one-trick pony i've ever played. gibson brought back the dirty fingers just for this guitar, and it's a tone you can't get from anything else. an epiphone es-333 (set neck, rear access, non-painted neck, top mount output) for $400? count me in.
i guess my point is that it's a very different guitar from the others you mentioned. in terms of the amalgamation, it's very cool. the rest are pointless, unnecessary, unimaginative and wiggity wiggity whack.
I thought a bit about what I intended to say, and it pretty much amounts to this: Gibson has been "taking it one step too far" as of late. Not to say the foundational ideas behind the guitars are necessarily bad, but I think if they had stopped before things got fairly absurd, we'd have less complaining going on. To illustrate my point:
-The
Jack Bauer sig(still chuckling) would have been just fine as a
reasonably-priced "limited run" goldtop ES-336 without having to highlight Keifer's favored pastime and studio ownership, as harmless as it might seem. My friend has a very nice cousin of the 336 that I like a lot, an ES-339 (that is, very nice other than the "flattening radius", in case you didn't see my post on the TDPRI last night), and think the non-traditional flat finish would be a decent option for the thing, instead of putting out something as confusing as an "inspired series". Logically, we could assume that a flame maple-cap Keanu reeves Dogstar Ripper Bass could come out next, right?
-The
BFG in transparent colors, fine. Tobacco burst and wine red on plainer tops, chrome hardware, and
normal knobs would have been really been likable, as the pu'p configuration(and even the killswitch) is something many I'm sure would have heaps of fun with as a fantastic rock machine, and with more traditional looks it would have won way more fans for a good. As it was, it seemed to be aimed at Cookie Monster voiced stage lurkers. Discontinued fast.
-The
Robot Guitar was honestly almost cool. Traditional in most every way save the tuning mechanism, but did we all want one in some of the more ostentatiour Brach's Hard Candy colors?
-The
Dark Fire = BFG impregnating the Robot Guitar, hence the discontinuing of each as an excuse to prolong the heritage of an "all-new" oddball Les Paul. Not altogether a bad thing, greater than the sum of its parts, I figure. Glossy blood red looks fairly sexy and worlds better than the transparent flame finishes.
-The
Tom Delonge sig in another color
besides in addition to turd brown would have been reasonable. Like black. I might have liked the thing even with one pickup.
-The
Zoot Suit SG is simply hard to get my mind wrapped around laminate sandwich of leftover rainbow birch veneers? Classic Gibson SGs are badass, the Zoot Suit SG is that lump of taffy going 'round and 'round that you stare at while bored at the county fair.
-The
Dusk Tiger. Someone please try to say something positive, 'cause I'm out of words.
-Lastly, imagine
Firebird X instead as a highly chambered Les Paul with all of the bells and whistles tastefully concealed on the upper side, like the Variax acoustic. Once again, I think I'd consider liking it if it looked like a more traditional Gibson, not a Gumby drowning incident at the Ferarri paint factory.