Guitar Porn: G&L Tribute Fallout

I was given this G&L Fallout as a birthday gift by one of my best friends. He and his boys had been living with me during a difficult divorce and this was the awesome "thank you" that he gave me in return. It's a custom tangerine orange color with a P90 in the neck position and a coil-tapped humbucker in the bridge position. Not only a fantastic guitar, but a really kind gesture from a great friend.

Amp Porn: Fender 1965 Deluxe Reverb Reissue

This Fender Deluxe Reverb is the only brand new, fresh out of the box guitar amp I've ever owned. It is 22 watts of classic Fender tone with the best reverb ever. It has displaced my Fender Twin Reverb II for live gigs and thankfully it weighs less than half as much!

Guitar Porn: Gibson Les Paul Junior

This has become my favorite guitar. It started out as a Billie Joe Armstrong model, but the previous owned removed the components that identified it as such. The H-90 pickup in this guitar sounds fabulous through a cranked Fender Deluxe Reverb. I found this one on Craig's List in Chicago and met the seller half-way at a Taco Bell in Beloit, Wisconsin to do the deal.

Guitar Porn: Rickenfaker 330

This is the sister 6-string Rickenfaker to the 12-string shown below. Got this one in a trade for a Epiphone Korina Flying V on a Craig's List deal.

Guitar Porn: Cowtown Guitars in Las Vegas

Who needs dancing girls when you have guitar porn like this? During a recent visit to Las Vegas I stopped by Cowtown Guitars to check out their selection of vintage guitars and amps. I was not disappointed! In particular, I fell in love with a 1959 double cut Les Paul Junior in Heritage Cherry finish. There were a few interesting Tele and Strat "partscasters" too.

Guitar Porn: Gibson Les Paul Junior Melody Maker

This is an odd guitar. It's a 2003 Gibson that has a Melody Maker style body and narrow headstock shape, but with the P-90 pickup found on a Junior, and the tune-o-matic bridge/stop tailpiece found on a Les Paul. This faded TV yellow guitar has become one of my favorites.

Guitar Porn: Seagull S6 + Spruce

This is a 1998 Seagull S6+ acoustic guitar with a solid spruce top and cherry back and sides. It has a built-in LR Baggs pickup with on-board bass and treble controls. This is a really nice guitar for the money and has served me well on those occasions when an acoustic is called for.

Guitar Porn: Bizarre Guitar in Phoenix

I recently visited a friend in Phoenix, Arizona and as I am wont to do, I hit a few music stores and pawn shops while I was there. The most impressive of which was Bizarre Guitar on North 7th Avenue. All the major brands were represented and they had the best selection of Rickenbackers that I've seen in a long time. Kudos to the guys at Bizarre Guitar!

Whopatooli: The Painting

Further proof that the secondary definition of Whopatooli as "a confused mixture" is starting to catch on! This artist called his painting "Whopatooli" because he used only left over paint during its creation.

Guitar Porn: Yamaha G-55

This was my first guitar. It's a 1970's Yamaha G-55. Several people in my family used this guitar for lessons before I got a hold of it. It's been used and abused - there is a 3" crack in the back - but it still sounds great and plays well.

Stompbox Porn: Korg Pitchblack Tuner

After reading some favorable reviews of the Korg Pitchblack chromatic tuner I decided to add one to my pedalboard. This is an accurate, dependable tuner that is not only easy to read at a distance on a dark stage, but also offers true by-pass switching to help keep your signal path quiet.

Guitar Porn: Rickenfaker 330-12

I found this no-name replica of a R**********r 330 12-string on Craig's List. I'm not sure who the manufacturer is, but it's made in Korea and the build quality is very good. I added a custom truss rod decal to properly label it as the ersatz guitar that it is.

Amp Porn: Fender Princeton 65

I use this Fender Princeton 65 for my at-home practicing. I won this amp on an eBay auction a few years ago. These are decent little solid state amps featuring channel switching, reverb, and three way EQ with master volume on the lead channel.

Amp Porn: Fender Twin Reverb II

This Paul Riveria-designed 1983 Fender Twin Reverb II has been my main gigging amp for many years. It has excellent clean sounds even at high volumes. I put my two-channel Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Classic in front of this amp for distortion, and use the amp's second, master volume channel for boost during solos. Unfortunately, no vibrato on this model.

Amp Porn: Fender Pro Junior

I picked up this Fender Pro Junior off Craig's List for use in a recording project. It's the original tweed, made in USA, blue frame speaker model. With two EL-84 output tubes and a pair of 12 AX7 preamp tubes, this little 15-watt amp produces some great overdriven sounds at reasonable volumes.

Whopatooli Spotted on ChaCha

Mobile search site ChaCha recently featured a query requesting the proper spelling for Whopatooli. Since definition #1 from our home page was cited in the ChaCha answer, I guess our spelling is starting to gain traction in the modern lexicon. Here's hoping our non-alcohol related secondary definition does too.

Guitar Porn: Rickenbacker 381

While on a recent family vacation through Michigan, I had a chance to stop at Elderly Instruments in Lansing where I lusted after this 1991 Rickenbacker 381V69. It had checkerboard body binding, triangle fretboard inlays, and two toaster pickups. It was an awesome guitar that I would have loved to add to my collection.

Stompbox Porn: Line 6 DL-4 Modeler

Christmas came early this year when I found a great deal on a Line 6 DL-4 for sale on my local Craig's List! I've been wanting to add one of these to my pedalboard for years. This pedal is amazing. It covers all the classic analog echos and delays, but has the more modern digital delays too. A couple presets even have some modulation on them, for an echoey flanging sound. It's super easy to use too - no menus to scroll through. Just tweak the settings using the five knobs and then save the configuration to one of the three presets.

Stompbox Porn: Seymour Duncan SFX-03 Twin Tube Classic

My primary amp is a Fender Twin Reverb II. Like most Twins, it has a great clean sound, but not much in the way of dirty tones. Putting the Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Classic in front of my Twin effectively creates an all-tube three channel amp configuration: Super crunchy on the Twin Tube's lead channel, creamy distortion on the rhythm channel, and sparkling clean with the pedal in true by-pass. This pedal is simple to use, sounds awesome, and is built like a tank.

Secondary Definition Catching On

I came across a blog entry that contained a Whopatooli reference that is consistent with the secondary definition I created, i.e. a confused mixture of loosely related items. The blogger's reference is "You see, when I get sick I pretty much become a whopatooli of cold medication."

Stompbox Porn: Seymour Duncan SFX-09 Double Back Compressor

I had been using a DOD Milkbox compressor for several years, but had always been disappointed with the lack of responsiveness in the attack and the excess noise it produced. I had intended to replace it with the 4-knob Keeley Compressor, but then I discovered the Seymour Duncan SFX-90 Double Back Compressor. This unit sounds as good or better than the Keeley and only costs about US$160.00. I'm extremely happy with how quiet it is and how it adds the sustain I'm looking for without coloring my sound. The double-back feature is very nice too, allowing you to fold your unprocessed signal back into the signal chain as much, or as little as you like. Quiet and sustain for days, what more can you ask for in a compressor?

Guitar Porn: Les Paul Orgy in Milwaukee

Today I visited the first annual Les Paul Guitar Show at the Discovery World Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This museum is also home to Les Paul's House of Sound, a hands-on exhibit that chronicles Les Paul's life story and the development of the Les Paul guitar - along with many of Les' other inventions. This was a very cool show because it not only featured Les Pauls for sale by local dealers Cream City Music and Bizarre Guitars, the event organizers also encouraged attendees to bring in and display, trade, or sell their own Les Pauls too. In fact, those who brought a guitar to the show were admitted for free and received a complimentary appraisal of their guitar by the Cream City Music staff. Rick Nielsen from nearby Rockford, Illinois also brought by some of his favorite Les Pauls for display. Rick's most collectible guitar was a 1955 gold top that he said he bought for US$65.00 many years ago. Dean Zelinsky (original founder of Dean Guitars) was also there, showing off his new DBZ line of guitars. I like the look of the DBZ "Croc Skin Bolero" model.

Guitar Porn: 2007 Eastwood Classic

I spied this beauty on the used rack in my local music store and immediately knew I had to have it. It's an Eastwood Savannah Standard. If you're into retro guitars, Eastwood has some cool reproductions of 60's and 70's guitar designs from Supro and Harmony. They're great guitars for the money. This one has a flame maple top, gold hardware, and Filteron-style pickups.

Guitar Porn: More CG Madison Guitars

Just one more Custom Guitars of Madison flashback... Here are catalog shots of some of the custom guitars we built. The V and Explorer style guitars were special orders. The bass was a prototype built for demo purposes. My former partner still has the bass, but I don't know what became of the other two guitars. Hopefully someone is still enjoying them somewhere!

CG Madison Artists

In my last post I mentioned Custom Guitars of Madison, a custom guitar company I co-owned back in the late 1980's. Here's some photos of a few of our endorsing artists from that time: Ted, Steve, and Paul.

Guitar Porn: 1987 Custom Strat Style

Back in the late 1980's, a partner and I owned a custom guitar manufacturing business called Custom Guitars of Madison. Our headstock logo was a modified script-style "G.C. Madison". This sunburst Strat style guitar was one of the three prototypes we created as samples for our customers and dealers. It features Dimarzio electronics, ESP hardware, and a seriously v-shaped neck profile.

Guitar Porn: 1982 Gibson Explorer

I acquired this Gibson Explorer used in 1985. The guitar is 100% stock except for the Gibson 490T pickup in the bridge position. It features the original gold hardware and has a humongous hardshell case with purple interior fabric. A true rock-n-roll machine from the days of big hair and spandex!

Guitar Porn: 1989 Fender Strat Plus Deluxe

Pictured here is my 1989 Fender Strat Plus Deluxe in a unique "pewterburst" finish. I obtained this guitar in a car-for-guitars trade with a friend back in 2000. The bridge position pickup has been upgrade to a Bill Lawrence blade humbucker, but other than that the guitar is stock. This guitar features an LSR roller nut and locking Sperzel tuners, so it always stays in tune - even after vigorous exercising of the whammy bar.

Single File Rocks

Here's a video montage of the band Single File, one of the groups I played in back in the 1980's. It features an original tune called "Staff Can't Dance". The video portions are from a TV telethon appearance and the still photos were taken at some of our live shows. My daughter put this video together to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the recording session that captured this song. We were all just teenagers in high school at the time.

Guitar Porn: 1977 Gibson Les Paul

I've been the proud owner of this 1977 Les Paul for over 20 years. It's been my primary guitar for the last five or six years because - even though it is from the oft derided "Norlin" period - it simply plays and sounds better than any other guitar I own. The original DiMarzio bridge pickup has been replaced with a Gibson Burstbucker and the tuners have been upgraded to tulip-button Schallers.

Guitar Porn: 1960's Kalamazoo KG-2

This is a 1960's Kalamazoo KG-2 guitar. These were made by Gibson in their Kalamazoo, Michigan factory and sported many of the same components as the Gibson Melody Maker of that same era. Even though Gibson marketed these as student-level guitars, they play and sound great. I acquired the guitar in 1979 and refinished it because the original finish was in poor condition. The Schaller bridge/tailpiece is also an upgrade over the original fixed intonation, wrap-around bridge.

Guitar Porn: 1974 Gibson Flying V

This is my 1974 Gibson Flying V in tobacco sunburst. I purchased this guitar from the friend of a coworker in the Fall of 1982. It came with a Bill Lawrence XL500 twin blade humbucker in the bridge position and the original Gibson humbucker in the neck position. Over the years, I added a replacement pickguard, strap locks, and a new nut. Despite the fact that the headstock on this guitar has been broken off no less than three times during its life, it still plays and sounds awesome.

What's a Whopatooli?

Most references to the term are alcohol related:

• UrbanDictionary.com
• eHow.com
• AnswerBag.com
• Foodaq.com
• Wikipedia.org

I'm working to introduce a secondary definition of my own creation which I think perfectly describes the contents of this blog: A confused mixture of loosely related items.