The Guitar Diaries Part 3: Epiphone Riviera (Jan 1998 – April 1999, March 2015-Present)

I considered the Riviera to be the Holy Grail of guitars at this point, because I’d seen Noel Gallagher playing a cherry red one on the Live By The Sea and There And Then videos. So of course, I had to have one. I ordered it from the Flying Pig Instrument Supply Company and was ecstatic when it arrived. One of the best things about this guitar was that it was loud enough to play acoustically in the bedroom. I used this guitar a lot on my four-track recordings from that period, and really began to develop my picking technique with it. It had a wonderful cherry finish that had a deep lustrous lacquer. Considering it was a budget instrument, and essentially a copy of an ES-335, I never considered it to be inferior.

Although it had nice thick humbucker pickups, it sounded best when it was being played gently, and with effects added. At this time I began to experiment using delay and chorusing and maybe not piling on the distortion quite so much. At this time I was listening to the Stone Roses a lot, and listening to some of the demos from the time I can hear that coming through.

I honestly thought I would never sell this guitar, and of all the ones I’ve owned, this is the one I wished I’d hung on to. However, in late ’98 I bought a genuine Gibson Les Paul and a few months later I found I just wasn’t using the Riviera as much, so I sold it to a guy at university. Also, the Les Paul was pushing me into harder rock territory, with the Riviera didn’t seem right for. I still remember the serial number – R97E 0304 – I put this into Google a few weeks ago out of curiosity and saw that at some point in 2012 (last year) it had been for sale on EBay. I wished I’d known, I would have snapped it up without hesitation! When I was in Penguin Steak a few years later, my friend Gav got an Epiphone Sheraton – essentially the deluxe version of the same guitar – and I really got to see what I was missing out on. Just swap the electronics on one of these later 90s Epi Semis for Gibson parts and you’ve got something as good as a contemporary ES-335.

2022 Update

Unbelievably, a couple of years later I did actually track down this very guitar to Barry Island in Wales (the seller had helpfully listed the serial number). I paid £350 to get it back, which is probably what I paid for it in 1998. As my last sentence in 2013 said, put top end hardware in one of these and it's as good as a Gibson, so that's what I did - I changed the bridge, put two new pickups in by Mojo pickups, and changed the tuners for grovers. It made it into an absolutely brilliant guitar. Despite the 16 year gap between ownership, it still felt familiar although somewhat worn in - thanks to it's many previous owners. I put a Bigsby on it at one point which I loved, but it would never stay in tune so I took it off and sold it - now there's a couple of small holes to show for it.

With value and sentimentality taken out of the equation, I'd say this is probably my favourite of my three remaining electrics. I used it live for a couple of jam nights about seven years ago, and in the unlikely event I'd ever play guitar in a band again it's the one I'd use - best sounding, lightest and lowest nickability. I was jamming a lot in 2016-2019 with a mate and this was the one that usually got used. However, it's been laid up for a little while, partly because I wanted to restrict myself to using my Jaguar, but it's in need of some professional attention. It requires a refret and a proper set up. I could tackle this myself, but after seeing what my Les Paul was like after someone with competence did some work on it, I'll be sending it off to get the work done. Fantastic guitar.