|
 |
 |
The music industry listens when Joe calls
on his Les Paul telephone!
I am not an avid collector.
I try to find what works for me.
I've played a lot of different guitars over the years
and they've all had something to say.
These are the pick of my current stable.
 |
The cleverly designed Gibson Firebird is a good choice for any Strat fan. This is the guitar that was missed. It took me a long time to find one. Gibson delivers. You either like it or hate it, and I like it! |
 |
I bought this Ibanez George Benson straight from the factory in 1997.
It has a maple body and neck, ebony bridge and fretboard with a natural finish.
The two floating mini humbuckers give a nice mellow, jazzy sound.
I use D'Addario Chrome strings, 12-52.
Mainly for solo gigs, it's a smaller version of the full sized Benson, a good travelling guitar. |
 |
I've only had this Fender Custom
Shop Strat since September of 1999 but now I couldn't live without it.
It's a 1960 re-issue with an alder body, maple neck, rosewood fretboard with all metal gold plated.
It has a 5 way toggle and 60's style strat pickups with a reverse middle wind.
Fender Nickel Wraps, 11-49.
With sounds from surf twang to early Hendrix, an essential studio guitar. |
 |
This is another Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster.
It's a '54 re-issue that I've had since 1994.
It has an ash body with maple neck and fretboard and standard chrome plating.
The '54 re-issue pickups really cut.
It has glossy tones, almost like a Telecaster and is a great gigging guitar.
Same stringing as above, it's really clean, perfect for R&B. |
 |
This is one of my most versatile guitars. It's a Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul Standard that I purchased in 1998. The body and neck are mahogany with a two piece maple top and rosewood fretboard.
The pickups are P.A.F. humbuckers
and it's my top recording guitar.
It has amazing action, a dark thick sound and wonderful sustain.
Fender Nickel Wraps again, 11-49. |
 |
The Mesa S.O.B. Boogie is a solid workhorse that I picked up in the early '80s.
It's got 60 watts with a 12 inch Celestion speaker.
This amp is extremely reliable, with lots of headroom and great tone at all volumes.
I particularly like the limiter |
that compresses and smoothes the sound to control the volume in smaller venues.
|
This brand new Mesa Subway Boogie is a lot of fun.
With only 22 watts and a 10 inch speaker, it has more power than I expected.
Lots of features such as effects loop, line out for straight to board recording, on/off speaker switch, half power option, reverb and |
more.
Perfect for late night practicing when I don't want to disturb the folks next door.
|
My old Fender Reverb tank has seen a lot of action.
I've always liked the old
spring reverb sound.
I've tried several digital reverbs and the Fender just seems warmer and more natural to me. |
Another good feature is that it has its own pre-amp so I can control tone, dwell and mix separately from my main amp and get a wide variety of sounds.
|
This is the only effects pedal that gets it's own picture.
It must be honoured.
This is a VOX Original Clyde McCoy Wah Wah Pedal from the mid '60s.
Clyde was known as the inventor of the 'talking guitar'.
A club owner gave it to me |
several years ago and it's been bashed and battered.
It still sounds great though and is one of the classic effects.
Other effects I use for stagework include a BOSS Digital Delay, a couple of Rats from Proco and a BOSS Octave Divider.
For studio effects, I just tell the engineer what I want to hear and let him do it at the board.
There are guitars that I have loved and lost over the years.
I played a Gibson L5 solid body in England that was given to me by the guitar roadie from The Who.
It made up much of the sound on Broken English.
Crash chords, lush chords and solos. I was known in England as "that Canadian kid with the red L5". I played that one when we did Saturday Night Live.
I had a 1959 Dot Neck 335 that I used on Dangerous Aquaintances which was sold when things got a little tight.
Then there was that beautiful 1950's Strat given to
me by Carl Stoneman.
Then there was... aahh, such is life. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
