The High Country Guitar Collection
Being a left-handed player, decent
guitars are hard to come by. For example, I have been playing for
well over 20 years and have never once in my life played a 12-string
guitar because I have never, ever seen a left-handed one. Most of
the time, if a store carries any left-haded guitars at all, they are
cheapies, like Squiers and Mexican-made Strats. However, I have managed
to accumulate a nice collection of electric guitars over the years.
Here's a gallery with pictures and a short description of each.
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Body: Solid
mahogany body with sycamore top (hence the super-cool markings).
Not modeled after any particular guitar, although it bears some
similiarities to the guitar that Jerry Garcia can be seen playing
on the Closing of Winterland DVD. The headstock design
was based on the view from my deck.
Neck: The
neck is curly maple and mahogany, with an ebony fingerboard.
As you can see in the fourth picture, the neck is unfinished,
which I chose because I didn't want my sweaty fingers sticking
to the finish as I slide up and down the neck. Also, the back
of the neck is slightly flattened, which is something that I've
grown to like by playing classical guitar.
Pickups: After
attempting several different combinations, I have arrived at
a pickup scenario that I am happy with. The neck pickup is a
Seymour Duncan Alnico II Pro, and the bridge pickup is a Seymour
Duncan Stag-Mag. I just put the Stag-Mag in in the spring of
'06, and so far I love it. It has a super-hot, bright tone that's
great for a harder-edged rock and roll sound. They have very
fat sounds, and very smooth distortion, which fits the bill
when you're playing Phish songs.
Electronics:
The guitar has several electronic extracirriculars. There is
an internal effects loop with a unity gain buffer that theoretically
reduces the degradation of the signal as it passes through multiple
pedals and patch cords. Each pickup has a selector switch for
split, series, or parallel wiring (hence the tiny little switches
you see by the input jacks).
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1988 Gibson Les Paul Custom
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I got this guitar in 1988
as a high school graduation present from my parents, back when
you could still get a Les Paul for under $1000. It was my main
guitar until I got the custom in '04, and I still love to play
it. It weighs about 120 pounds, and it sounds like it. It also
has Seymour Duncan pickups in it, and I put them in so long
ago that I can no longer remember which models they are.
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2000(?) G&L ASAT Deluxe
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| I stumbled upon this guitar at Robb's Music
in Boulder. Some poor guy had ordered the guitar on layaway but
was unable to come up with the dineros to pay for it when it arrived,
and so the store put it out on the floor for sale. It had a couple
of small blemishes on it, which allowed me to get it for an outstanding
price. It's a great guitar, and I use it frequently when I do
gigs with bands other than Phix. |
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Music Man Silhouette Special
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I found this guitar used at a Guitar Center
in Austin, TX. It was apparently owned by the guy who plays
(or played?) for the band The Riddlin' Kids. You could tell
that it had been on the sales floor for a long time and that
the price had been marked down repeatedly. Plus, I don't know
what the guy did to it, but it has a couple big dents in the
sides, but it doesn't bother me at all--in fact it allowed
me to get a pretty damned nice guitar for about $350. It really
sounds suprisingly good, and I have even occasionally used
it with Phix when my custom was "in the shop."
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Acoustic Guitars
I love to play acoustic guitar, and
in fact if I wasn't so busy with Phix, I'd probably be playing it
a lot more, but at the moment I don't have any acoustics that are
nice enough to even bother putting a picture up. I have a Guild jumbo
hollow body, which was quite expensive, but which I don't like very
much. I also have a beater Ibanez cutaway that I use for teaching
lessons and around the campfire. I also have a piece-o'-junk classical
guitar that I play a lot anyway because I like to play classical guitar
and it's the only one I've got.
There is some good news on the horizon,
though! I just ordered a Taylor 810ce dreadnaught that is due to arrive
in June '06. As soon as I get it I'll put some pictures up.
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