The now long gone Route 66 guitars in
Hanley had an Epiphone Les Paul Custom in black, and as soon as I saw it I knew
I had to have it. The deal was quickly worked out and I part exchanged the
Encore. I took my friend Nick with me (Later of Stoke rockers LiViD) who was
more knowledgeable about guitars. I’d really taken very quickly to guitar
playing, I knew I was going to be doing a lot of it, and I wanted an axe that I
would feel good about playing. After we made the exchange we went back to
Nick’s and had a little jam before I got home. That evening I went to Exeter to
see Oasis play the Westpoint Arena, so I didn’t have a lot of time to play on
it until I got home a couple of days later.
This was a truly great guitar and I often
regret parting with it. It felt and looked good, as for the sound I was not
very experienced at all in those days. My main beef with it was that it
sustained too much, and I just didn’t have the knowledge to control what I was
doing – I just used to think piling on the distortion meant I was getting a
great sound. At this time I wasn’t playing through an amp and was instead using
a Zoom 510 driver pedal, which looking back wouldn’t have given the best of
sounds. Nevertheless, I did use it on some very early 4 track recordings.
I liked the LP enough to not part exchange
when I was looking to get my next guitar, an Epiphone Riviera. However, after a
few months of owning both at the same time, and coming to the conclusion that
they sounded exactly the same (because I knew no better), the time came to chop
in the Les Paul. Somewhat stupidly, I was aware that this was not a Gibson, and
therefore not the ‘real deal’ – again a youthful folly.
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