Ordering A Tokai LS173 From Ishibashi's U-Box

I recently ordered a pre-owned Tokai LS173 from Ishibashi in Japan and received it in the mail a few days ago. That is, if you could call going personally to Singapore Post's headquarters not once, but twice, 'receiving it in the mail'.

It all started when the guitar was delivered at 5pm on a Friday evening, with no one home to receive it.

I hate when this happens. I immediately start imagining a disgruntled postal worker schlepping a bulky cardboard box containing a delicate guitar and hurling it unceremoniously into the back of the van after a failed delivery, prominent 'fragile' stickers notwithstanding.

After a couple of fruitless calls to customer care that same Friday night -- both of which promised a call back which I never received -- I decided to try my luck and go to Singapore Post's headquarters on Saturday morning to collect the guitar.

At SingPost, I gave them the tracking number and waited for 20 minutes while they tried to locate the carton. They finally came back and told me that the guitar was in the 'holding area'. And the clincher was that the staff member on duty who had the key to the holding area was nowwhere to be found, and neither was this person answering their cell phone.

Well done, SingPost. Looks like you have a disciplinary problem on your hands.

I was told I could collect the guitar 'probably' on Monday or Tuesday, with more promises of a call back. So off I went home, guitar-less and slightly agitated.

Make that very agitated.

I was up bright and early on Monday morning and back at the post office -- call backs be damned -- reminding myself not to lose it if they gave me another 'holding area' story. The cheerful girl at the counter, who seemed to be harbouring a nasty cold, took note of my tracking number and went around back.

I felt like Mel Gibson in the final climactic scene in the movie 'Signs' -- "his lungs were closed, his lungs were closed, no poison got in, his lungs were closed.."

Except my chant was "the holding area is open, the holding area is open, someone has the key -- and that person is there -- the holding area is open.."

Sure, we laugh about it now, but those were some intense moments.

The Ishibashi carton at the post office -- finally!

Thankfully, this time they located the carton with my guitar in it.  I decided it would be prudent to check the guitar there and then for any possible shipping damage.

The guitar, snug in its case, was well packed in an Ishibashi carton with lots of bubble wrap. Opening the Tokai hardcase I found more bubble wrap around the headstock and the strings completely loosened.

It's always wise to loosen a guitar's strings for shipping, especially on Gibson-style instruments with angled headstocks. If a guitar at full string tension is accidentally dropped during shipping, the delicate headstock and neck joint is more likely to crack from the impact because of the strings pulling at it.

Safe and sound

After a few light taps on the back of the neck to check for a rattling or broken truss rod, I looked the guitar over and was surprised at the extremely new condition it was in, especially for a used instrument. These Japanese guitar players either baby their guitars or hardly play them at all!

Put it this way, I was expecting a guitar in a far more used condition based on the description Ishibashi sent me:

=Used TOKAI / LS-173 GT /03-315959009 

Some light used appearance as light scratches and some tiny dents could be seen on whole item

On the top, there are scratches and some tiny dents

On the back, there are some buckle wear scratches and dents

Edge and side body, there are scratches and dents

Neck condition is good

Fretwear could be seen, approx 80-90% remains

Working condition is good

Serial number : 1433041
WEIGHT : 4.4kg

It comes with original hard case

The guitar as listed on the Ishibashi website

I literally cannot spot any of the scratches and tiny dents described, which I think is something very telling about Japanese retail culture. They would rather err on the side of extreme caution than to send out a used guitar to a customer as 'near mint', no matter how microscopic the imperfections.

But why a Tokai Les Paul-copy you might ask?

Amber celluloid inlays

If you remember my series of articles on Sherman's Les Paul Quest, my good buddy Sherman's  most recent acquisition was a Tokai Pacifix Exclusive, based on a 1956 Gibson Les Paul goldtop. Pacifix is a high-end music retailer in Yokohama, Japan that collaborates frequently with Tokai guitars to produce limited run models built to their exact specifications.

Meticulous fretjob

Sherman has been through so many Les Pauls and Les Paul-type guitars of late that I've lost count. But his newly aquired Tokai was unique. It had a vibe and tone that rivalled the best and most expensive of Gibson's custom shop Les Pauls. And at about a third the price.

I'd always thought Tokai guitars were cheap Japanese knock-offs. I had no idea that they also made very high-end models priced at what Gibson was charging for some of their custom shop Les Paul Standards.

Needless to say, my curiousity about Tokai guitars was piqued.

A Little Tokai History

Tokai Gakki started out in 1947 manufacturing harmonicas. Based in Hamamatsu prefecture, Shizuoka, the original factory is still where Tokai is based. A family-run business, the current president, Shohei Adachi is the grandson of Tokai founder Tadayouki Adachi.

Tokai started making guitars in 1967. Its sole model, the Hummingbird -- not to be confused with Gibson's steel-string acoustic of the same name -- was Tokai's take on Semie Moseley's Mosrite line of guitars.

By the early 1970's, Tokai's quality had improved to the point where they had begun to take on sub-contract work from other larger Japanese companies. Tokai was even commissioned by the iconic American acoustic guitar company C.F. Martin to produce guitar parts and to manufacture their budget-priced Sigma line.

When the contract with Martin guitars ended, Tokai continued to produce acoustic guitars under their own Cat's Eye brand which were excellent copies of various Martin models. Interestingly, the Cat's Eye series is still being made -- by a single craftsman who builds every Cat's Eye from scratch! Pun slightly intended.

By the early 80's, Tokai was making about 100 different models, almost all being direct copies of Fender and Gibson guitars and basses. And they had begun exporting to Europe and the United States.

Tokai Les Paul Reborn, Reborn Old And Love Rock

In the beginning, Tokai unabashedly named its Les Paul copies 'Les Paul Reborn' -- emblazoned in large script in gold letters on the headstock, no less -- which naturally caused Gibson to threaten legal action.

'Reborn Old', and subsequently, 'Love Rock' replaced the 'Les Paul Reborn' script.

The 'Reborn Old' model designation was used for a short time and are the rarest of the vintage Tokai models, making them quite sought after by collectors. 'Love Rock' remains Tokai's model designation for all their Les Paul clones.

'Love Rock'

These days, Tokai makes guitars almost exclusively for the Japanese domestic market with only a handful of small companies handling their distribution in the UK, Australia and Europe. And because they are meant for the Japanese market and produced in relatively small quantities, they are able to copy Gibson's headstock design exactly without fear of legal repercussions. Or, more likely, fly under the radar just enough for Gibson not to bother.

Tokai LS173 Premium Series Specifications

In 2014, the Tokai LS173 model designation replaced the previous LS160 model.

Quartersawn mahogany neck

The LS173 features a one-piece mahogany back, two-piece maple top, long tenon '59-profile  mahogany neck with 18 degree headstock angle, amber celluloid inlays and a nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Hardware includes an ABR-style bridge with brass saddles, aluminum tailpiece and Gotoh tulip peg tuners.

Beautifully figured one-piece mahogany back

The LS173's electronics feature US-made CTS potentiometers, Sprague orange drop capacitors, a Switchcraft outout jack and Switchcraft 3-way selector switch. The pickups are Japanese-made PAF-Vintage Mk II's.

Sprague orange drop capacitors and CTS pots

What I found particularly conspicuous about the LS173 were the yellow brass saddles.  I was familiar with nickel plated cast metal saddles, graphite saddles, and even nylon saddles -- but brass?

Brass saddles

A quick consult with the oracle of all things Gibson (my good buddy Sherman) revealed that original Gibson '59 Les Pauls featured brass saddles which Gibson chose to nickel plate to match the rest of the hardware.

Looks like Tokai was trying to make a statement by showing off their brass saddles au naturel.

Setup And Tweaking The Action

The guitar came with .010 - .046 nickel plated strings, and was intonated perfectly by the setup guys at Ishibashi before shipping. The neck was adjusted with a tad more relief than I liked -- I like my necks almost straight -- so I popped the truss rod cover and gave the nut a quarter turn. There seemed to be almost no tension on the truss rod nut and it turned with minimal effort.

Straightening out the relief brought the action extremely low, perfect for checking for potential uneven fretwork. Applying the ubiquitous 1-2-3-4 fingering exercise along the whole range of the instrument revealed no overly buzzy frets or fretted out notes. A sign of a good and very even fretjob!

Raising the action out of ultra-low Allan Holdworth territory to a more playable height, I could almost feel the guitar chomping at the bit to start wailing at its first gig that very night.

How It Sounds

Not exactly a featherweight at 9.7 lbs, the LS173 is nevertheless very lively when played acoustically. Even unplugged, chords jangle loud and clear and single notes ring true with no dead spots.

But I was a little concerned about the pickups. And I'll be honest, outside of the Ibanez Super 58's -- which I think are really fine --  I have never been a fan of Japanese-made pickups.

The general consensus on the various Les Paul forums was that the pickups the Tokais came with should be immediately removed, quarantined and destroyed, lest the hapless Tokai owner develop a life-threatening case of Horridtoneitis causing him to be shunned by band members, past, present and future. They were supposedly that bad.

The pickups, not the band members.

Plugging in the guitar at home for the first time instantly allayed any doubts I had about the PAF-Vintage Mk II's that come stock on the LS173's.

The neck pickup was warm without being wooly or dark. And the Sweet Child O' Mine intro lick -- don't laugh, its my go-to lick for testing neck humbuckers -- sounded throaty and absolutely convincing with the tone control backed off.

The bridge pickup, meanwhile was sweet sounding, with that elusive cry that Les Paul players crave and sell their first-born for.

But seriously, that cry, that sweet top-harmonic that adds a lilting tail to the high notes, is why people throw big bucks at boutique pickup makers. Unbeknownst to many, the quest for this ghost harmonic is a walk to the edge of a very slippery slope, leading to an endless loop of buying, selling and replacing of pickups. It's a descent into gear acquisition madness.

You know you're in trouble when your pickup soldering chops have superceded your ability to play the A minor pentatonic scale in 8th notes at 120 bpm in the fifth position.

But yep, that tone -- that cry -- is right here, folks  Go get your pair of Vintage-PAF Mk II's if you can find them.

Using the Tokai LS173 at my regular Monday blues-rock club gig that night confirmed my opinion further. These pickups sound as good or better than any pickup on any top-end Gibson Les Paul  I've played.  And frankly, Emperor's New Clothes aside, don't you think that some of those pickups on those custom shop signature Gibson Les Pauls are downright anemic sounding?

So there it is. You might say that I'm a total Tokai convert.

And why I wasn't hip decades earlier to this dark horse of Japanese guitar manufacturers I'll never know.

An Interview With Rex Goh

Born and raised in Singapore, Rex Goh is a true journeyman musician.

Rex Goh

Rex migrated to Australia in 1972 and then moved to Sydney in 1976 to a burgeoning music scene.  A few months after his arrival in Sydney, he auditioned for and joined a then-relatively new band called Air Supply.

By 1980, with multi-platinum albums and a string of Billboard hits, Air Supply had become a pop supergroup who were touring the world.

For his friends in Singapore, Rex's success with Air Supply came as no surprise. He was already known for his good ear and natural ability when he started playing in bands at the local British Royal Air Force bases while still in his teens. Many Singaporean musicians of that era whom I have spoken to still recount those days of the RAF bases fondly. And they still testify to Rex's precocious talent then.

Today, Rex is an in-demand guitarist in Sydney, dividing his time between recording sessions and Australian tours.

The Guitar Column:  Thanks for taking time out to do this interview Rex!

Rex Goh:  It’s my pleasure.

TGC:  When did you start playing and who were your earliest influences?

RG:  I suppose growing up in Singapore in the 60’s, it would have been The Shadows, The Ventures and also early local bands like The Quests and The Checkmates who were my early influences. Then came The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Animals.

My taste changed when I heard the John Mayall and The Blues Breakers album with Eric Clapton, Cream, Jimi Hendrix and also Terry Kath, the guitarist with Chicago. All this time I learned how to play by ear..

TGC: We actually have a lot of mutual friends and many of them describe your playing back in the days of the RAF bases as simply stunning! How old were you when you started playing at the bases?

RG:   I had just finished high school when I joined the band called Group 123. We had a manager, Jimmy Loh, who very kindly helped me acquire my black 1969 Gibson Les Paul which I still own.

TGC:  How did you get your playing together at such an early age?

RG:  When I was 10 years old, I was fortunate to live two doors away from Benny Chan, the guitarist with The Checkmates. My mum had just given me a ukulele and lucky for me, the ukulele was quite a good one and it played in tune. About twice a week, I would go to Benny's place and he would teach me simple Elvis tunes to start with.and then later jazz standards like 'All Of Me' and 'It's A Sin To Lie'. 

I suppose I would have spent about 3 or 4 years learning chords and playing rhythm for Benny on the uke.  Later on I graduated to playing the guitar and I started to form band with kids from school or from the Aljunied estate where I was living.

TGC:  Do you have any memorable gig stories from this time?

RG:  Although I started out as a lead guitarist, I became a bass player when I joined a band called Tani's Titans. We were kids and were also lucky enough to appear on Singapore TV's variety show playing country music. When I first joined Group 123, I was the bass guitarist but switched to lead fairly soon when the lead guitarist Dave Tam left.

TGC:  You migrated from Singapore to Australia in 1972. What made you decide to take this huge step?

RG:  When I was working in clubs in Singapore I used to admire quite a few overseas bands like 'Tenderness' from Perth, 'Pieces Of Peace' from Chicago who were an incredible soul and funk band, and also 'Peter Nelson and The Renaissance' from New Zealand. Their arrangements of Blood Sweat & Tears and Chicago songs were stunning. I wanted to play in bands like these.

TGC:  What gigs did you take on when you first arrived in Australia? Was it difficult breaking into the music scene?

RG:  I was living in Adelaide when I first arrived and one day I answered an ad in the local paper for a lead guitarist. Soon I graduated to a Yes cover band that played about half Yes songs and half originals. We had quite a following and also had a residency at The Tivoli Hotel in the city on Tuesday night. I then moved to Melbourne before going to Sydney in about 1976.

TGC:  Air Supply was positively huge in the late 70's and early 80's. How did you come to hook up with one of the biggest pop groups of that era?

RG:  A few months after I had arrived in Sydney, I heard that Air Supply needed a guitarist so I went for an audition. They had just released their first hit in Australia called 'Love and Other Bruises'. They were a new band on the scene and I was fortunate to join them.

TGC:  Was The One That You Love album your first record with Air Supply?

RG:  No, my first album with them was The Whole Thing's Started. There were no hit singles on the album but it was the start of my recording career.

TGC:  You're credited with co-writing 'I Want To Give It All' with Graham Russell.

RG:  Yes, I wrote the music during an early tour of the US and played it to Graham. He liked it, so he wrote the lyrics to the song. We also wrote 'She Never Heard Me Call', 'What Kind Of Girl' and 'Late Again'.

TGC:  Air Supply must have been an amazing experience. Care to share a few memorable gigs or road stories from your time with Air Supply?

RG:  Those were days that I will cherish forever. I remember when we were opening for Rod Stewart on big stages like Madison Square Garden which holds around 80,000 people and all we saw was about the first 50 rows. But you could hear the roar all around you which was just thundering.

I got the chance to meet many famous people like Aretha Franklin, Gino Vannelli and played with Glenn Campbell in his show. Once I had a police escort for my boots from the hotel to The Greek Theater where we were performing so they would arrive in time for my performance!

TGC:  Did you turn exclusively to session work after Air Supply?

RG:  No, I formed a band with singer Jenny Morris called Q.E.D. We made it to the charts in Australia with a song 'Everywhere I Go'. We also made an album titled Animal Magic.

TGC:  You're credited with recordings and performances with Savage Garden, Randy Crawford, Tom Jones, The Supremes and The Temptations amongst many others.

RG:  I played on Savage Garden's first album that included 'To The Moon And Back' and 'Truly Madly Deeply', two of their biggest hits, but did not tour with them. I was fortunate enough to work with Randy Crawford and Tom Jones on The Midday Show, a live TV show in Australia on which I was part of the orchestra performing with local and international artistes five days a week.

I also toured and recorded with Tommy Emmanuel and I was in his band for about three years when he played mostly electric. Another big international album I played on was with a Canadian group called Soul Decision that went platinum in many countries.

TGC:  Who have you been recording and touring with most recently?

RG:  Lately I've been touring and recording with Graeme Connors, a well-known country artist in Australia and Glenn Cardier who is more a blues and roots artist. Glenn has just released a new album titled Stranger Than Fiction. My latest project was recording an album with Darren Percival who came second in the TV show The Voice Australia.

TGC:  This interview wouldn't be complete without the typical guitar and gear questions. You're credited with being one of Australia's most heard guitarists, having played on numerous sessions. What guitars, effects and amps would you bring with you to a recording session?

RG:  Typical gear I would bring to a recording session would be two amps, my 1965 Fender Deluxe and my 50-watt 1970 Marshall JMP with two 12" Celestion Greenbacks.

For guitars, I would always bring my favorite Fender Telecaster - a late 80's issue of the '52 Tele. I used this guitar on many of the Savage Garden tracks. My brown Warmoth Strat which was given to me by a good friend in Adelaide and my black 1969 Gibson Les Paul which I bought at Swee Lee in Singapore back in the Group 123 days. The Les Paul was featured on many of the Air Supply and Savage Garden tracks.

Lately, I've been using a 1997 PRS which I purchased on eBay. It has quite a different sound from the Les Paul. I would also throw in a Rickenbacker electric 12-string just in case.

I use mostly stompboxes in the studio like TC Electronics delay and chorus pedals, and the AC booster and the RC Booster by Xotic. I have been experimenting with the old Germanium transistor fuzz box which Hendrix and The Rolling Stones used in the old days. For tours when I have to program sounds for certain songs, I would use my Boss GT6 and a Mesa/Boogie V-Twin for my distortion. My days of effects racks that stood about 4 foot high and running in stereo are well gone.

TGC:  What is your favorite acoustic steel-string for session work?

RG:  For acoustics I'm fond of my Gibson J45 and Maton Tommy Emmanuel model. I would also bring my Maton 12-string acoustic.

TGC:  You were also endorsed by Ibanez guitars for awhile. I've seen videos of you playing a nice blonde Ibanez 335-style guitar.

RG:  Yes, that guitar was especially built for me by Ibanez. It has a smaller body than the regular ES33 and told Ibanez that would prefer a smaller body 335 so they came up with the one you saw. David Moyse (Ed. note: Rex's co-guitarist in Air Supply) also had one but his was sunburst I think. David and I were given many guitars by Ibanez but we left them in the States and I don’t know where they are now. I love my blonde Ibanez -- it’s getting better with age. I have not modified anything.


TGC:  Correct me if I'm wrong but I do believe I've also seen you playing an early Roland GR guitar synth on a few of your appearances with Air Supply. Were you into guitar synthesizers at the time?

RG:  I don’t remember playing a Roland guitar synth but I used Casio guitar synth model PG 380 which had the sound built into the guitar. That was way past Air Supply days but was fun for awhile. The guitar was great by itself and was my main guitar for quite a few years during the late 80’s and early 90’s.

TGC:  The Classic Albums Live tour is an interesting concept where audiences get to hear their favorite albums performed live. You were the musical director for the Brothers In Arms tour. Can you tell us a bit more about this project?

RG:  I was approached by the promoter Phil Bathols whom I met during a tour called The Beatles White Album Tour on which I was the guitarist. He told me that Brothers In Arms was one of his all time favourite albums and would I like to put band together to do national tour as a concept show. For the first half we would play the whole album exactly from start to finish and the second half would be the best of Dire Straits. I was lucky enough to use drummer Chris Whitten who actually toured with Dire Straits during the 90’s. He now lives near Sydney. I have since done Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and The Beatles Sgt Pepper’s and Abbey Road albums

TGC: I, for one,would love to hear a Rex Goh solo album. Can we look forward to one in the forseeable future?

RG:  I love playing in a band situation and never regard myself as a virtuoso guitarist since I always like to play with singers. It might happen someday maybe with lots of guest singers.

TGC: Do you have any parting words of advice for young guitar players looking to get in to the music industry?

RG:  My advice is that you need the desire and the passion for whatever you do. To hang in there when times are tough and never lose sight of your goal. Success does not come overnight. You might get lucky but more often it’s hard work. The industry is very different now than in the old days when usually the focus for kids growing up was music whatever kind it may be.

When I was growing up in Singapore, it was either marbles or playing the guitar, thankfully I chose the latter.


TGC:  Thanks so much for doing this interview with us, Rex-­- here's wishing you All the Best in your future endeavours!

RG:  It’s my pleasure to be of any help to you, all the best. Cheers!

(Pic Source: www.classicalbumslive.com.au)

Les Paul Standard Faded | The Best Sounding Les Paul Ever Made?

If you've been following my account of Sherman's Les Paul Quest, his most recent investigations into finding his ultimate Les Paul led him to Larry Corsa of Corsa Guitars.

From what I understand, Larry Corsa started his custom business by purchasing stock Les Paul Standard Faded guitars and modifying them to 'Peter Green specs'. This meant stripping the 'faded' finish off the guitars, respraying with new paint and applying a nitrocellulose gloss or semi-gloss coat, depending on the customer's requirement. The neck pickup was also reverse mounted and the electronics reconfigured for that distinctive Peter Green humbucker-out-of-phase tone.

Gibson intended the Les Paul Standard Faded to be more modestly priced than their glossy, more expensive counterparts. Far less work went into their finishes and the guitars left the factory with dull, matte, sunburst finishes that looked liked they hadn't been applied with much enthusiasm or attention to detail. But according to Larry, this turned out to be a major plus, tone-wise, making the Gibson Les Paul Standard Faded the best sounding Les Paul ever made!

And his rationale is simple, and sound.

In order to achieve a mirror-like gloss finish, the pores in the mahogany that make up the back of Les Paul guitars need to be filled with wood filler before being stained and sprayed with nitrocellulose lacquer. The downside to applying wood filler to achieve a perfectly smooth finish was that it also severely dampened the guitar's resonance and tone. And since the Les Paul Standard Faded did not receive the same wood filler treatment, they ended being far more resonant than the standard, glossy Les Pauls.

This is Larry Corsa's response to an email enquiry from Sherman, which makes for a very interesting read:

"Believe me, despite all the hype and myths about the tone of Les Pauls, the truth is very few sound good, and even the best sounding ones can’t compare to the Gibson Les Paul Standard Faded because it was finished correctly – not on purpose, but to be a 'cheaper' version of a Les Paul Standard – but they are now discontinued.

The reason the Les Pauls you have played did nothing for you is because they are mostly just mediocre sounding.. People will spend huge sums of money on an Historic, not knowing that, from its birth, it’s tone has been severely compromised because of the way it is finished. Manufacturers have conditioned people to look for guitars that resemble high quality furniture in looks, with no regard for what they actually sound like.

The simple fact is, a Les Paul type guitar has a mahogany body and neck, which is a true “tone” wood, if used properly. The maple top is not 'tone wood', as people often say. However, it does have a purpose, other than looks, on my guitars. Very simply -- and this fact is either not apparent to guitar makers, or they simply ignore it in favor of making 'normal' looking guitars -- when builders force grain filler into the pores (grain) of mahogany, the natural resonance, which is responsible for the sustain, is destroyed.

Back in 2007, when I discovered the Les Paul Standard Faded and experienced how perfect they were in tone, resonance and sustain (all essential to getting the best Peter Green out of phase tone), I didn’t understand WHY they were superior to all other Les Pauls I have ever owned or played, and I have owned around 15 original 50’s Bursts and PAF Gold Tops. I originally had four Standard Fadeds, all totally superior guitars. I then started buying more, and converting them to my LCPG (Ed. note: Larry Corsa-Peter Green) specs.

Corsa PGGM - Peter Green, Green Manalishi

It became obvious to me that the only thing different about these guitars was the fact that they had no grain filler in the mahogany. That’s all! All parts the same as any other USA Standard, except for how it was finished. Over the next few years, I converted more than 250 of these guitars and shipped them all over the world to Peter Green fans.

Larry Corsa (right) with Corsa guitar owners 

Alas, sometime in 2008, Gibson decided to discontinue the guitar, even though some Gibson sales reps told me the Les Paul Standard Faded was the best selling Les Paul in the line that year. People started to catch on that, for way less than half the cost of an Historic, they can have a Les Paul that destroys anything else in tone. I am fairly convinced that Fadeds cut into the sales of the more expensive Les Pauls, and that is the true reason they discontinued them."

With the discontinuation of the Les Paul Standard Faded models by Gibson, Larry Corsa is building his own line of guitars which you can read about at www.corsaguitars.com


Read more about Sherman's Les Paul Quest Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

The Les Paul Quest Part 3

In my last couple of posts I talked about my buddy Sherman's quest for his ultimate Les Paul.

And I was surprised when he told me someone on one of the guitar forums was selling a Sid Poole Les Paul!

Another guitar collector friend of mine had bought a Poole Les Paul off of Bernie Marsden in 1998.  His story was that he was in the UK for business where he happened upon a blues festival featuring Marsden's band.  So enamoured was he with the tone of Marsden's Poole that he offered him top dollar for it right after the show.  Pretty crazy I know, but that's the story.  And I've seen and played that Poole guitar myself. 

And it was through this same collector friend that I met Sid Poole in Singapore in 1999.  Over dinner in an Indian restaurant (Sid's preference), the three of us spent about two hours talking guitars. I remember him mentioning how he started out building 1959 Les Paul replicas for a select clientele in the UK, and the subsequent 'Cease and Desist' letters from Gibson that followed.  Changing the headstock design and putting his own name on it didn't stop his customers from coming back, however.

Sid was a really good bloke.  Sadly, he passed away a couple of years later in 2001.

The Marsden-owned Poole became a benchmark for me as to what a great Les Paul could be -- or should be. 

Light and resonant, the whole guitar seems alive in your hands.  Heck, when I played it sitting down I could hear the fabric of my jeans rustling against the thin nitrocellulose finish through the amplifier!  And the Tom Holmes humbucking pickups perfectly complemented the instrument giving an airy twang without a hint of a mud. Everything I would imagine an authentic 1959 Les Paul to be.  Finish off the whole deal with a stunning quilted maple top and you had what was basically, quintessential Sid Poole.

The only thing missing was the familiar headstock with every guitar player's favorite bluechip 'G' brand. 

I swear, if someone were to scarf-join a Gibson headstock onto a heavily flamed Epiphone Les Paul some mook will gladly fork out big bucks for it.   And where is Epiphone getting all that amazing flame maple for their tops anyway?

But back to our story.

When Sherman sent me the pics of the Poole Les Paul he was considering, certain alarm bells went off.  It looked like a decidedly new guitar and didn't have the vibe of an original Sid Poole-built guitar.  A quick search revealed a Poole successor of sorts who was custom building guitars and this particular axe appears to be one of them.

The seller wanted about $2200 for it, well below what an original Poole would go for these days.  If you were lucky enough to find one.

For Sherman, the quest continues.

Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of The Les Paul Quest.

And take a gander at the Poole Custom Guitars site.  Besides their standard models, they're also building guitars to custom specifications.

Yngwie Malmsteen's 1969 Les Paul Gold Top | Random Guitar Of The Day

This was the only Gibson Les Paul in Yngwie Malmsteen's collection before he sold it to the current owner.

Wait a minute, Strat-meister or no, I thought that owning at least one Les Paul was de rigueur for every guitar hero? 

And this Les Paul Gold Top is a good one too, apparently. 

According to the seller, Yngwie was reluctant to sell this particular guitar because it had a 'bright' tone he was unable to find in any other Les Paul. 

I would give this guitar probably a 7/10 on the beat-up scale.  The gold-top actually looks pretty good with none of the green oxidization of the bronze powder that was mixed in with paint to achieve the 'gold' color.  There is a real nice natural patina in the nitrocellulose finish along with a couple of character-adding, man-sized dings -- none of that perfectly coiffed, fake aging you see coming out of custom shops. 

But boy is the back chewed up -- probably from years of grinding against Yngwie's pirate-approved belt buckles.  The serial number (836070) is just visible on the back of the most excellently ravaged headstock, which would put this guitar's year of production at around about 1969.

You can check out the eBay listing for this Yngwie-owned Les Paul here.

Heritage H150 Les Paul-Style | Random Guitar Of The Day

Here's a Heritage H150 built by our buddy Larry Perkins when he was working for Heritage Guitars during the mid to late-90's.  Judging by the guitars that he built and brought with him when he was gigging in Singapore where I met him, this man knows his craft!

And here's a particularly spectacular example of the ol' Perkins mojo. 

This Heritage H150, dubbed 'Talos', was one of four Heritage guitars built by Larry for his own use.

Custom appointments abound including an ebony fingerboard, a one piece Honduran mahogany body with an extremely figured, bookmatched flame maple top and flame maple headstock veneer.  A Perkins signature touch is also the extra high arch on this guitar's top.  Nice. 

You can check out my earlier interview with Larry Perkins here and you can read more about this guitar at this eBay listing.

Roy Buchanan's Gold Top Les Paul | Random Guitar of the Day

Here's an interesting find.

The late Roy Buchanan established a unique voice with his blazing work on his 1953 Fender Telecaster.  In his hands, the Telecaster was rock, country, blues, soul and gospel; transcending genres.  Roy Buchanan pushed the boundaries of the instrument well past its traditional country role. 

But back to this guitar.

Roy apparently purchased this 1983 Gibson Les Paul 30th Anniversary Gold Top from a music store, recorded with it, and appears with it on the cover of his album Dancing On The Edge.  

In a Guitar Player magazine interview from August 1985 he had this to say about his Les Paul, "I was in a music store to buy some strings and they had this 30th Anniversary gold-top Les Paul that looked great.  I fell in love with it.  So I went home, came back and bought it -- right off the rack.  In the 60's, the trouble was that they stopped making the model early in the decade, so they were really hard to find.  The ones I found were usually beat up.  Plus they had these little bitty frets, and now they have big frets.  Mine's a Standard with humbucking pickups.  I like it because it's entirely different from the Telecaster -- a nice big, fat sound.  On the album, I used the Gibson for the fat sound on the rockers."

According to the seller, this Gold Top Les Paul was sold by Roy Buchanan's widow after his death to Gil Southworth of Southworth Guitars.  Thorough documentation from both Roy's widow and Gil Southworth accompany this guitar -- and it even retains the original strings that Roy installed himself!

You can check out the eBay listing for this guitar here.  As always, ask the necessary questions and do the research before committing.

Gibson 9/11 Les Paul

As we approach the 10th anniversary of that fateful day of September 11, 2001 let's take some time out to remember and honor those who passed. 

And let's not forget also, those who continue to bear the emotional burden of having lost a loved one in that tragedy.

Time, they say, heals all wounds.  And it does.  Up to point. 

I am entirely unqualified to give anyone who has lost someone in 9/11 any kind of advice.  But I can tell you how I deal with personal losses of my own. 

And it is simply this -- remember a favorite song you shared. 

Remember how you sang along to it, or danced to it, or laughed about it.  Remember the dinner you were having the first time you heard that favorite song, or that long drive together when it came on the radio.

Music has that incredible ability to transport one back in time to a happier place.  And if you can smell, taste or even momentarily touch a precious moment once shared you realise that that person, though no longer at your side, is very much a part of your being, your very DNA.  And they are not far away. 

This is music's gift to me.  And I hope, to you.

I initially wanted to peg this post as part of my Random Guitar of the Day series.   But then I realised how trivial that would make it all seem.  There is nothing random about this guitar. 

It's purposeful.  And the handpainting on it is purposeful.  It exudes as much heartfelt emotion as any great work of art.  And if art is a reflection of life, it don't get much more real than this.

If only we would all just pick up a guitar, any guitar, and direct our attention to the peaceful act of making music, instead of planning that next random act of senseless violence.  Legislated or not.  

Screw the guns and bombs.  Hopefully, one day we'll all evolve enough to know better.

Gibson 9/11 Les Paul

Aethertone Custom Guitars

Matt Hancock, creator of Aethertone custom guitars has started his own blog -- http://aethertone.blogspot.com/ -- and I'm definitely staying tuned!

Matt has customised three guitars so far, but hey, he's only been at it for a year and a half.

But anyone with an eye for detail can immediately spot the amount of painstaking work he puts into his art -- from the faux burnished metal plates to the hundreds of painted-on screws that appear, uncannily, to be almost 3-dimensional!

His second project -- a Steampunk'd Les Paul Studio is featured in this pic.

Check out my earlier post on Matt's Aethertone AE1 Stratocaster here.

RIP Gary Moore

Gary Moore (4 April 1952 – 6 February 2011)

RIP, Sir.  You will forever be an inspiration.

Duane Allman's '57 Goldtop Les Paul

I just came across this very cool site about a '57 Goldtop Les Paul, serial number 7 3312.

Originally owned by Duane Allman who played it on a number of recordings including Statesboro Blues and Layla, Allman swapped this Goldtop for a '59 'plain-top' sunburst Les Paul model in 1970.

The guitar resurfaced in 1977 when it was traded in at a music store, stripped of its goldtop to a laquered natural finish. 

It was purchased by Scot Lamar and Peter Young who saw the instrument's intrinsic value, although the fact that the guitar was owned by Duane Allman apparently did not factor into the music store's asking price!  I'm guessing they would have pretty much paid the standard going rate for late '50s goldtop Les Pauls at the time, which would probably have been anywhere upwards of $3000 or even much less, considering its delapidated condition replete with tooth marks on the headstock where it was chewed on by a previous owner's puppy!

Rightfully, the guitar was restored back to its former golden glory by Gibson finish guru Tom Murphy in the late 90's.

One of the current owners, Mike Boulware, has this to say about the instrument and its link to Duane Allman:   

"I think the reason is that, like many great players, he, as a man, came through stronger than what instrument he played, with one notable distinction... when he played slide on the Gold Top, the universe held it's breath to listen."

Apparently the owners are now selling the Duane Allman Goldtop. The asking price? A cool $1.1 million. 

Check out a detailed history of this amazing axe here:  http://www.duaneallmansgoldtop.com/

Les Paul Owned 9/11 Gibson Guitar on eBay

This Gibson Les Paul Standard Premium Plus was donated by Les Paul himself to raise funds for the Uniformed Firefighters' Association Widows and Childrens Fund in the wake of the September 11 tragedy.

This Les Paul received a custom paint graphic by retired NYC fireman Peter Ortel and then sent to Madison Square Garden where it was displayed before being auctioned on eBay in 2002.

Depicting firefighters raising the American flag at Ground Zero, the graphic is stunning and made all the more poignant by the fact that it was done by one of New York City's Bravest. 

eBay Item #: 110503138126

Gibson Releases Slash 'Appetite' Les Paul

Gibson recently announced the release of their new Slash signature 'Appetite' Les Paul. 

Based on the Les Paul copy built by Kris Derrig that Slash used for most of  Guns n' Roses 'Appetite For Destruction', this axe, honestly, appears to be not much different from Gibson's usual offerings.

It appears that either Derrig nailed it in copying Gibson's design specifications or not much research went into the design of this new signature model.  Or what if a couple of Kris Derrig's design innovations on the original were too much of a departure for Gibson to want to implement?  Who knows? 

The 'Appetite' Les Paul features a 'reverse chevron' AAA-maple top, 'Unburst' nitrocellulose finish, Seymour Duncan Alnico II Pro Slash signature humbucking pickups and TonePros tune-o-matic bridge and tailpiece.  Amber top-hat knobs cap the linear 300k volume pots and 500k non-linear tone pots.

Jumbo frets are fitted to the rosewood fingerboard on the slim-60s profile quarter-sawn mahogany neck and the 17-degree angle headstock features a silk-screened Slash signature and logo.

Get thee to a music store to check out the Appetite Les Paul if you're a true Slash fan.

(Pic Source: www2.gibson.com)

Gibson Announces Slash Signature 'Appetite' Les Paul for 2010

Gibson recently announced the soon to be released, limited run Slash signature 'Appetite' Les Paul.  My guess is that this will be the most talked about, reviewed, discussed and dissected axe for 2010.

But folks, 'Appetite' has got to be one of the strangest guitar model names ever.  Not to mention that its imminent release comes so closely after Jimmy Page's 'Number 2'.  Is it just me or are we seeing some kind of gastro-intestinal pattern developing here?  Too bad that the far more elegant sounding 'AFD' has already been taken by Marshall for their new line of Slash amps.

What is interesting is that Gibson, after taking several stabs at a Slash signature Les Paul over the years, has finally chosen to tackle head-on and attempt to replicate the guitar used on Appetite For Destruction.  Never mind that the singing beast used by Slash on Guns N' Roses debut wasn't made by Gibson but was actually a Les Paul copy built by one Kris Derrig.  

Gibson has issued the following specs for the 'Appetite' Les Paul:

•Traditional style weight relief Mahogany body with AAA Figured Maple top

•Unique neck profile made for Slash features rounded 60’s shape

•Rosewood fingerboard with trapezoid inlays

•Un-burst top with faded cherry back lacquer finish

•Slash signature smoking skull with top hat artwork for peghead face

•New Seymour Duncan Alnico II Slash Signature pickups

•Special capacitors selected by Slash for vintage tone

•Tone Pro hardware with historic machine heads, locking bridge and tailpiece

(Pic Source: www.gibson.com)

Larry Perkins Bluesman's Journey.. And Meeting The Ghost of Orville Gibson?

Larry Perkins, guitar player extraordinaire, is a guy you've probably never heard of.  But he has a few good stories to tell. 

Larry was on the second last day of his 3 month stint as frontman for the houseband at the Crazy Elephant club, Singapore, when this interview took place. An accomplished guitar luthier and repairman, Larry also worked at Heritage Guitars in Kalamazoo, from 1996 to 2006. 

This conversation took place in a Japanese restaurant over a bottle of chilled sake and plates of seasoned baby octopus.


The Guitar Column:  Tell us a bit about your early years. Where did you grow up and what was your earliest musical memory?

Larry Perkins:  I grew up in Paw Paw, Michigan. It was an agricultural town. I remember going to a barn dance when I was maybe 3 years old and the guitar player was playing a Fender Stratocaster. I remember sitting there and just watching him for hours.

Later on, my older sisters were into the bands of the British Invasion. I was 8 years old and exposed to the music of the Beatles, The Stones. My favorite band was The Yardbirds.

TGC:  Were you aware then that Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton were in The Yardbirds?

LP:  I didn’t know. I just liked the songs.

TGC:  When did you get your first guitar?

LP:   It was 1967, I was 11 years old. My first guitar was an old Sears acoustic. It was a piece of junk. In school choir the kids got the baritone ukuleles, the 4-string ones tuned like the lower 4-strings on a guitar. I dove right into it and when the teachers saw I was pretty good at it, they put me in with the older group of kids.

I didn’t know it was Jimmy Page I was listening to when I was listening to The Yardbirds. When Led Zeppelin came out I found out that it was Page again, and I felt I had to listen to this guy!

TGC:  When did you get your first electric guitar?

LP:  I got it in 1968. It was a Teisco. My mother got it for me on condition that I stayed with the school music band. And I had a little amp. I had only one setting for the amp – turned up all the way up. It was the only way to get it to distort.

TGC:  Were you really into the guitar by this time?

I was obsessed by it. I would stare at the clock in class and I couldn’t wait to go home and play. I couldn’t understand why everybody wasn’t into it.

TGC:  What were you practicing? Did you jam along with records?

LP:  I was jamming along with the records -- Beatles, Zeppelin.

TGC:  When did you get your first band together?

LP:  This would have been in 1968, when I was 12 years old.

TGC:  12 years old in ‘68! That must have been a great time to grow up!

LP:  It was, it really was! Woodstock, flower power!

I had a very Mid-western upbringing -- you could put the same story all throughout America. The first band I was in played school dances, talent shows.

TGC:  What songs were you playing?

LP:  We did Grand Funk Railroad, Led Zeppelin, Donovan. I remember we played The Animals’ House of the Rising Sun. I also played a lot of old standards – American standard pieces. There was a jam session on Sunday outside of Paw Paw that I would attend. I played Satin Doll, A Foggy Day. I was a young kid hanging out with these old farts playing these tunes!

As a matter of fact, last New Year’s Eve (2009) was the 40th anniversary of my first band’s first bar gig. It was New Year’s Eve 1969 -- the drummer in my band called to tell us he had got us a gig. We got together and he handed each of us 40 dollars and a shot of whiskey. 40 dollars was a lot of money back then!

TGC:  And things haven’t changed, there are bars that still pay musicians 40 dollars! You must have been pretty good by then.

LP:  I got a lot of encouragement. I was into any band that had a big guitar sound. I was playing blues based rock n’ roll. I didn’t quite get the connection about the (traditional) blues yet because I thought it was kind of hokey. I was totally wrapped up in rock n’ roll.

TGC:  Was it at this point that you wanted to play music seriously?

LP:  No, I just always wanted to. I was always practicing. It was something I always wanted to do, to make a living from music.

TGC:  What were some of the things you were working on at this time?

LP:  I would work on my repertoire, my lead work. I would work on my tone. If my band was going to play a new song I would work on that. I also picked up the bass guitar. In high school I was also gigging as a bass player. I actually made a lot of money playing bass in college as a hired gun.

TGC:  Where did you go to college?

LP:  I went to Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, studying science with a minor in music. I didn’t graduate but I was there for 3 years. I went in as a horn player, trombone, but I could play any kind of brass instrument. I would go to theory classes. As far as music, it exposed me to a more academic approach.

TGC:  So there you were, a guitar player right in the heart of Gibson town!

LP:  I never realized that Gibson Guitars was in Kalamazoo til after college! Somehow I never made the connection.

TGC:  When did you start getting into guitar building and repair?

LP:  In college, I owned a Guild solidbody. And I had friends who would come with minor guitar problems and I would do repairs. I learned to solder at a young age and I would work on guitar electronics. Just helping friends with repairs for a few dollars, and maybe a joint. You can print that!

TGC:  What bands were you playing in after college?

LP:  In my 20’s I had my rock n’ roll band but I also bounced around in half a dozen bands, sometimes playing bass. I was in demand because I was known as the guy who could sing and play guitar, or sing and play the bass.

1983 was a real turning point. I auditioned and joined a band out of Detroit as the bass player. The band was a drug front. They (the management) didn’t care about the band -- they were only using the band and the club as a front to sell drugs. I had to leave. It broke my heart.

I was engaged to a girl about this time and went the route of selling every bit of gear I owned in November of ‘83. You know, ‘quit music and get a real job’. I went to work for my future father in law.

Four months went by and I had to get a guitar. I got a Harmony Flying V and a Peavey amp and started working on my chops again. At this point my first wife had some drug issues and was indulging in drug-related behavior. I got into the bottle pretty heavy.

I would go down to the basement and try to reinvent myself, I wanted to work on my chords. I would take a chord and find every possible position to play it. So as my first marriage disintegrated, I was reinventing my guitar style. I went back to the roots with the blues as well.

I put a band together called Red Rooster which lasted from 1981 til 1999. I almost died from a drug overdose in October of ’88. That was the darkest period of my life, ’83 to ‘88, but it put a fire in me and gave me an understanding of myself and my talent.

In 1989 I got divorced and moved back to Kalamazoo. I hadn’t had a band for almost 6 years, but I had a new lease on my guitar playing. I had lots of old friends and connections with the clubs in Kalamazoo. And within a couple of months I was doing gigs. I was doing a lot more blues gigs as well.

TGC:  What happened after that?

LP:  In ‘91 I got more heavily into repairs. I went to work in a music store, Farrow’s Music in Kalamazoo. They had a couple more stores in the country. This was the era before the big Guitar Center stores.

TGC:  A real mom n' pop type operation – just a little bigger.

LP:  Exactly. I got the job by complaining to the manager about the guitars they had on display. They were poorly setup, strings were rusting, the guitars were dirty. I told him I could increase his guitar sales and that I would work for free for 2 weeks to prove myself. I sold more guitars in 2 weeks than he had sold in 6 months, just because I cleaned them up, put new strings on them and set them up well. I ended up working there about two and a half years.

When Farrow’s closed I worked as a groundskeeper taking care of things in an apartment building, Milham Meadows – taking out the trash, shoveling snow in winter.

TGC:  You’re the king of guitar setups. Your guitars at the Crazy Elephant all play great. What do you look for when buying a new or used guitar?

LP:  I’m really anal about my setups.

I wouldn’t buy a guitar if it didn’t have the features I was looking for. The last thing I would consider would be how it looks like – which is probably the first thing that most people buying a guitar look at. One thing I insist on though is a nitrocellulose finish because I‘m old school.

TGC:  I remember in the late 70’s Fender was making Strats with really heavy ash bodies covered in thick polyurethane finishes.

LP:  Guitar culture is festooned with myth.

Brass nuts and heavy bodies were the in-thing in the 80s. But those same guys telling you that you needed brass nuts, brass bridges, these were the guys with the tiny mosquito tones. And they would tell you these things -- that you needed brass to get sustain. Sustain comes from your hands first.

TGC:  Do you have any setup secrets you would care to share? How do you set the neck relief on your guitars for example?

LP:  Good action is good playability. Most of my guitar have low action, but I like the guitar to fight back a little bit.

The first thing I look at is the relief on a neck. It doesn’t matter if a guitar is poorly setup with too much relief. If you sight down a neck (the fingerboard) and see the curve of the relief only occurring between the 3rd and 8th fret, that’s the neck that’s going to dial in perfectly.

When I worked at Heritage Guitars I would look at the neck blank the same way. Once the fingerboard is glued on, it will accept stress in the same way. When I was ready to build my personal guitar at Heritage, I went through about 40 or 50 neck blanks (necks with no fingerboard installed yet), and picked out one. I brought it to the guy in the neck and body department and said “This one’s got my name on it.”

TGC:  What are your opinions about neck woods?

LP:  I want very straight grain. No grain that moves in a wavy pattern, and no knots in the wood. I generally avoid flame or figured maple for necks. Flame necks have been known to shatter at the figured part of the grain, but this doesn’t happen very often – maple is quite reliable.

TGC:  Do you prefer quartersawn or flatsawn wood for necks?

LP:  Flatsawn or quartersawn are both ok. Fender necks if you notice are mostly flatsawn. But if it’s a mahogany neck, I prefer it quartersawn.

TGC:  Tell us how you got your job at Heritage Guitars.

LP:  I joined Heritage Guitars in November 1996. My second wife worked with a girl whose father was one of the owners of Heritage -- J P Moats. My wife said that she heard they were hiring and suggested I apply. I went for the interview and after that I was going there every 2 weeks for a year, pounding on their door. They finally agreed to hire me.

J P Moats started with Gibson Guitars in 1956. He was what we call in the manufacturing business, a 'floater'. He could do about just anything. He would move from department to department making sure everything was ok. You had to be a pretty senior employee to do this.

I played a few Heritage guitars before I worked there. I was impressed – the playability, the way they looked. I actually bought a H150 model, the Les Paul type. They preferred to keep it a small operation. They maintained the handbuilt aspect.

TGC:  Jig saws and routers, no CNC machines.

LP:  Exactly.

I was the first non-Gibson guy they hired. All the employees were ex-Gibson guys. Heritage started in ‘85 and when I went in, it was the 11th year of Heritage Guitars. (Note: The idea for Heritage Guitars began when Gibson decided to move its factory from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Nashville, Tennessee in 1984. When a number of staff refused to move, they decided to buy the Kalamazoo plant from Gibson, including the original tools and machinery, and started Heritage Guitars.)

When I started, they put me in white wood prep (the pre-finishing stage) for six months, ensuring that all aspects were perfect. They liked my attention to detail and in Spring of ‘97 I was promoted to the finishing department . I did the finish on guitars for Roy Clark and John Sebastian. These guys would always ask for custom finishes, custom binding. Actually every Heritage guitar coming out of the factory now is custom.

TGC:  The Heritage Les Paul-style solidbody you mentioned you had specially built -- did you build it entirely yourself? Were there any special features you had put in that you wouldn’t find on any other Heritage guitar?

LP:  I did some of the work on it, but it was put through the production stages (at the factory). There is a higher arch on the carved top. From the side it looks like a turtle! And the guitar is all-maple – I wanted a bright sounding guitar. Heritage uses the VIP system which allows you to cut coils and get a few switching combinations out of two humbuckers.

For my guitar I came up with a system, that allowed me to get every possible switching combination from three humbucking pickups. This allowed me to get any sound I wanted – I could get it to sound like a Les Paul, or a Tele or a Strat. There were only two Heritage guitars built with these electronics. And I own both of them. 

TGC:  I notice you went with a Bigsby tremolo.

LP:  I like Bigsbys. They stay in tune if they are maintained well, and they have a nice 50s vibe. And you don’t have to rout out the guitar to install them like with most tremolo systems. You can’t do dive-bombs with them of course.

TGC:  Any insider stories about the goings-on at Heritage?

LP:  The old Gibson factory that Heritage took over has a lot of ghosts! Lights would turn themselves on and off, footprints would appear on the floor. Orville Gibson himself is said to wander around the factory. Almost everyone in the staff has at least one Orville story.

TGC:  Did you have any encounters yourself?

LP:  One winter day, during a bad blizzard -- this was in my second year at the company -- only about a third of the staff showed up. My boss came to me and told me that once I was done with what I was doing, and if the blizzard didn’t subside, I should go home.

It was about 10 in the morning. The last thing I needed to do was take a rack of guitars to the finishing department upstairs. I rolled the rack to the elevator. And sitting in front of the elevator, partially blocking the door was this dolly with a 20ft long piece of mahogany on it.

It probably weighed about a ton and I definitely couldn’t move it by myself. So here I was wondering where I was going to get someone to help me move it – there was hardly anybody around. And then the dolly with this huge piece of mahogany just moved about 8 inches by itself!  Just enough so I could get the rack into the elevator!

TGC:  Did you go up the elevator then? I would have split!

LP:  I went up and then I went home. I met Orville. Everybody at Heritage has an Orville ghost story.