A day for disappointments... And then some not so bad news.

Today was the first day of our weekend and we had 2 things on the schedule.
 
 
First, drop by to the NSPCA in the hope of adopting a 4th cat. We'd seen a few pics of baby cats they had for adoption and were quite enthusiast about 3 little sisters, black and all. 
 
Second, visit Guitar Center for me to try a couple of SGs, and as my wife decided while we were on our way, buy one.
 
We spent an hour at the shelter, going from room to room and back and forth trying to see if anything magic happened. As it turned out, none of those cats was ours, none of them really clicked w/ us. Or then, they had issues w/ other cats, which isn't an option for us.
 
Oh well, that'll wait. We'll try to locate other shelters on the web tonight. On to Guitar Center.
 
They didn't have the SG I was looking (Black G400 Pro) for but they had quite a few of them, including the very similar Faded G400. I've tried them all - almost. The Faded was the worst of the bunch, certainly one of the worst guitar I've played in a store in years. The others ran from passable to ok. I even tried the Gibsons. 
 
Nope. Just not for me. I realized how accustomed I had become to the weight of the Les Paul, how it sits firmly against you and makes you feel totally grounded. I also realized that just because they had similar bridges didn't mean that I'd feel at home playing a SG. 
 
What really disappoint me was that this ruined a potential chance for me to add a different axe to my arsenal for a very reasonable price and to have something I can work on improving. I'd see little point in buying a second Les Paul Standard or some cheaper models. 
 
I've seen a few interesting used Les Pauls - one with EMGs and a Floyd like tremolo - but I'm too much of a traditional-style fan. 
 
Anyway after discussing it for a bit and looking at my options, my wife figured out that maybe we could put a bit more on the guitar, which would allow me to maybe grab one of the "pro" series Les Paul - mine's a standard. So we'll probably visit one or two music store again tomorrow. 
 
I'm thinking one of these would be nice.
 
Ebony, totally similar to my current standard LP but different stock pick-ups. But I have a thing for duplicates. :P
 

 
Or then, a long time fantasy, but totally outside my usual palette - the Heritage Cherry Sunburst :
 

 
I love that flat type of finish - not sure how you call that? -  I think it'd be the opposite of your AAA Maple type of finish... Reminds me of my old hero Ace Frehley's main Les Paul in the mid 70s.
 
If I can find one of these and if it's as nice as my current standard, I'm sold.
 
They also come Goldtop, but the above two are my main picks for the moment.
 
And as I was drooling over a couple of Gibsons they had on display, my wife vanished in the bass dept. for a minute and came back with a tiny shortscale Squier Bronco Bass. It was dirt cheap. Probably not the best option for recording, but she wanted a bass NOW and I had somehow hijacked the budget by switching from a SG to a LP. 
 
Anyway, it's her first bass. :) And it's fun to play. And I had lots of fun giving her a quick lesson - she knows theory, so I can explain how it works and she picks it on the spot. I've already taught her Seven Nation Army and she sort of figured out THE riff she's always wanted to play on bass - the chrus in Zeppelin's Babe I'm Gonna Leave You. 
 
She rocks, man! :P
 
 
 
 

Now that you mention it, I guess I could use that. lol
 
Roman - from what I saw on the web that's way beyond my budget. Maybe after I get the first authentic Gibson Les Paul, which isn't happening anytime soon.

Just a comment...  Strap locks became essential for me when my '76 Les Paul came unhooked and dropped right onto an antique table belonging to a friend's mom, damaging both.  That was around '79 or '80.  I haven't been without 'em since!

Rain there is a pattern emerging here. Multiples of everything. You don't have and ark do you?
Guitar shopping is such fun. Especially when you know you can get one and not just wish you could get one.
Have fun.
It is very cool you can share this adventure with your wife.

Hey Rain,

Have you ever tried out one of the Epi ES 335 Dot's. Gibson scale and bridge. Semi hollow tone. I have always been a LP guy, but the Dot has been a really nice flavor to my tone arsonel and I have really liked the build quality and play ability. Sits nicely in your lap in the studio as well.

spacey
To each his own but if I already had a coupleof guitars to play and had the "dream" of owninga high end model and needed to save to get one-that's what I'd do.(based on that's exactly what I did when I was a pup....numerous times)

This is exactly where I am at right now Spacey.
Except a Pup no longer I am.
Even old dogs.....etc
Like new toys...yeah,that's it.

dxp

spacey
To each his own but if I already had a coupleof guitars to play and had the "dream" of owninga high end model and needed to save to get one-that's what I'd do.(based on that's exactly what I did when I was a pup....numerous times)

This is exactly where I am at right now Spacey.
Except a Pup no longer I am.
Even old dogs.....etc
Like new toys...yeah,that's it.

LOL..."old dogs"....I have a big whiskey jug that I drop my change in and when it's full
it usually cashes in around $300.00. Whenever I want something I'll tell my wife, "well I'll
put my change towards it" LOL.....that jug has paid for many things worth much more than
$300.00 ! ( not that she doesn't know I'm....spacey)
 
 
Mike- two of them with P-90s...I'm sure glad I made those for my Tele. Love the sound and
nice change-up. Been many years since I played/owned a LP with P-90s.

spacey
"....I have a big whiskey jug that I drop my change in 

 
mmmm whiskey.....
 
yeah the coin jar is our friend.
When my girlfriend recently moved in with me she wanted to 'combine' the change we put
in the coin jar!  hell no!   That's how I 'get stuff' with that money....
well actually like you said, it's how we 'seed' getting stuff.....
 
wow, you got all that stuff just from that coin jar?

 

UbiquitousBubba
I tried to buy a coin jar with coins I had saved in the jar.
 
The resulting causality loop destroyed the universe.  Now, I put change in there and it vanishes.
 
There's either a wormhole within the jar or my wife and kids keep emptying it.  On the positive side, it's always full of individual socks.  Well, I'm off to go pull all the change out of the dryer.

 
I'm so confused....
where's my socks?
 

spacey
To each his own but if I already had a couple
of guitars to play and had the "dream" of owning
a high end model and needed to save to get one-that's what I'd do.
(based on that's exactly what I did when I was a pup....numerous times)

I totally get that. I need to specify though that the Gibson is something that I will buy myself, either when we go back to Canada or, preferably, once I get a visa which allows me to work here in the US. I took the decision while I was waiting for the test results when they removed those nasty moles on my side. It's a promise I made myself for a bunch of reasons, a few of them pretty symbolic, in fact.
 
The Epiphone is (potentially) a birthday gift from my wife. I couldn't ask or even accept that she buys me that Gibson. And honestly, I believe that Epiphone make darn fine guitars, as long as you take a bit of time to shop around.
 
In fact, judging from past experience, I'll probably have just as much trouble finding a Gibson that feels as right as my current Epiphone, no mater if technically the Gibson is a superior and finer instrument.
 

SteveStrummerUK
 
Desire is a funny thing.
 
Ever since I got my first cheap guitar, I always wanted a Les Paul, a US Strat, and a US Precision Bass. For some reason, the bass just 'had' to be black body/maple neck (probably because Jean-Jacques Burnel played one!).
 
I often wonder if, back then, I actually wanted these guitars not because they were nice instruments, but simply because I couldn't afford them.
 
On the journey to end up with my 'dream' stable, my first step, over 25 years ago, was to get a Strat. It wasn't the US Fender I'd always wanted, but the hand-made Strat-style guitar I still have and use today. So much do I love this guitar, I'll never part with it, and as I grew to love how it played and felt, my desire for a 'genuine' Fender Strat diminished.
 
Next came the bass, and a short time after I got the guitar, I bought a new Japanese-made Fender PB. That was a beautiful bass to play, but very light in weight. It had the old-style large machine heads fitted and these actually overbalance the bass to the extent that you'd have to hold on to the neck when playing it with a strap. I kept this bass for a long time, until I traded it in about five years ago against a white Yamaha with active pickups (similar to Michael Anthony's). A nice bit of kit, it sounded much better than the PB, but after a while, I found it wasn't as comfortable to play.
 
The next step was to trade this in and acquire the first instrument from my original wish-list I'd bought so far, a (used) US Fender Precision. Not quite the 'dream', it was black body/rosewood neck, but close enough! LOL, I felt I'd finally 'arrived' when I took it home! It played like my old Japanese built Fender, and sounded much better that the Yamaha.
 
So, on the bass front, I was happy at last. Until I played a US Jazz bass. My eyes were opened. The thinner style neck made this bass much easier to play that anything I'd ever tried before, what with my stubby little fingers. To cut a long story short, I sold the PB (and at a tidy profit!) and bought a shiny new US Standard Jazz Bass - black body/maple neck. Correct configuration, wrong bass! And I can't see me ever selling it. Even if I find that I 'need' another bass, this beauty is going nowhere.
 
The final piece in the puzzle was going to be a Les Paul. Or at least something that offered me something different from my 'Strat'. My quest took me via a Line 6 Variax 700 (now sold) and a Dean Razorback 'V' (up for sale). Although I really liked both of these guitars, especially the Variax, I still felt I 'wanted' my Les Paul...
 
And then I received an email from this guy called 'Spacey'  And, as they say, the rest is history.
 
Designed from scratch to my specifications, even down to a stubby-finger friendly neck profile, my dream collection of guitars was finally completed when Ruby arrived from across the pond!
 
And I suppose the point is, that I'm now lucky enough to possess three beautiful instruments, all of which I'll keep forever, but none of them are any of the three guitars I'd always dreamed of owning! And now that I'm fortunate enough to be able to add the Strat and the LP if I wanted to, the desire has (mostly) gone, so content am I with my collection.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
You know, for the longest time after I finally bought my American strat, I didn't really want any other guitar. I had wanted a black strat w/ a maple neck ever since I'd seen Gilmour play one in live at Pompeii. Plus, it was also the first quality instrument I had played over at a friend's house.
 
I bought that one in the 90s and I was done. It wasn't until 10 years later, around 2006, that I started thinking about getting a guitar w/ humbuckers, for purely practical reasons, only to record certain specific type of tracks. Marianne (my strat) would obviously remain my main guitar.
 
Time passed and I never bought that second guitar, not until we were in NY 2 years ago. We were about to spend a few months in Europe and I needed a cheap guitar I could take with me. No way I was taking Marianne to Russia. So I bought a little Epi LP Junior, which I still use for alternate tunings. And that guitar kind of created a precedent in that, for the first time, I entertained the idea that maybe there was something besides Fender strats. They were still my main thing I thought, but what if I could add something a bit different...
 
And then I bought that LP and it changed everything.
 
I've had very few dream guitars in my life to be honest. The black strat was the main one. An olympic white one would have been next. I've wanted one for so long. But I can't seem to play strats anymore, so that's out. 
 
The SG thing didn't work out. Teles aren't really my thing. 
 
So that leaves a Gibson - for a bunch of reasons, as stated previously. And different Les Pauls. A white-ish one would probably remind me of my first guitar hero, Randy Rhoads. A heritage cherry, which is most likely a Ace thing. The goldtop, which is a must. But first and foremost, the Ebony+Ivory ones, because that's just my thing. 
 

:)

 
I tried a couple of them - I was actually partial to the ebony when I walked in, but this one just locked into me and felt so absolutely right. So Heritage Cherry plain top it is. :)
 
And then we dropped by a shelter and fell in love with this baby girl. Meet our 4th cat:
 

 
 

The picture isn't too good but her head reminds me of a bat, actually. Lovely. Now it's only a matter on integration I guess...

Yup. And I love it. 
I just realized that I had bought the black one June 28 2012, that is, almost precisely one year ago.
 
I called the black Les Paul Mae.
This one shall be named Mia.