Unexpected choice of guitar

It always seems wrong when I see Randy Rhoads with a Dean.

 

Yea I think that’s a serious stretch

 

Duane on a Strat

 

Remember Niles Rogers and his clear Strat? What was the point of that?!

 

I hope that bass players may also be mentioned.

Albert Collins as usual with a Fender Telecaster, BUT: Jaco Pastorius with a Fender Precision Bass looks really weird somehow.

 

Seeing Jaco with anything other than the Bass of Doom feels wrong.

 

One might expect Les Paul, the man himself, to play a classic '59 or '60 LP, but no, he preferred The Recording Model.

I actually got to play the guitar in this pic. It had a built-in mic pre and mount for a goose neck mic holder. Never saw him use that though.

 

D-28! love that model...

 

i think the point was it looks really cool.

 

it's looks different...kind of cool?

 

I have a Brian May - one of the Burns ones from the early '00s. It's a sweet guitar, I've used it in my own bands. But when you get down to it, it's really made to get that Brian May sound. It doesn't really *do* any other guitars - nothing like a Gibson, only kind of in the ballpark of a Fender.

These are also kind of unusual design in that they're a shorter scale and the necks are *huge* - the regular retail models even having a slimmer neck than his original. So for anyone trying these out, that's likely a dealbreaker. I have huge hands, so it's totally fine for me.

I guess you have to be into Brian May and want his guitar to have one. It just so happens that he was a player who designed a guitar for himself, and both he and the guitar happened to get famous.

 

Not entirely unexpected to see a Gretch in a rock band (thinking of The Stray Cats), but to see one in a band as heavy as The Cult was a bit surprising to me.

Duff's White Falcon

 

Keith and his Flying V...

 

Not really, various guitars, particularly hollow bodies, came up through use in country, jazz, rockabilly, r&b, etc., and required some finesse, and added tonal and textural variety. Since the late 60s to present as volume became more and more important the musicality and finesse that hollow bodies could contribute has fallen by the wayside. So, we get a more and more limited palette of possibilities. These limits have a way of becoming rules, as we have seen through the deification of certain players, and pieces of equipment, and the constant silly genre splitting of what is rock and what is not.

 

Johnny Ramone with a Rickenbacker instead of his trademark Mosrite:

 

warren ellis played some odd guitars when he wasn't using his violin in unintended ways



he also had eastwood build him a custom because the mandocasters he was paying were too rare to beat up





he also has an electric bouzouki

 

Mark Knopfler with a Gibson SG

 

Raymond McGinley from Teenage Fanclub used a Guild Red Special throughout the 90s.
" The sound on Grand Prix is derived mainly from ... Norman plays a Gibson Les Paul Custom, and I play mainly this really tacky Brian May guitar made by Guild. I've got one of those because I couldn't resist it. I thought no one else is gonna have the courage to play one of these on stage. (laughs) I had to go for it."

I read somewhere that he sold the guitar after May performed on top of Buckingham Palace, which made him too embarrassed to play it in public any more.

He can be seen playing it from the first song in this video:

 

Sure but ‘finesse’ is just one possible aspect of music and not nearly the definitive quality of good music. Most of my favorite genres wouldn’t exist if we hadn’t progressed from the hollow body

 

I think Lennon himself referred to it as looking like a toboggan! The winter sports guitar of choice!

 

Sounds like a wider listener range may be needed. Peace

 

Most likely a jam where Jaco didn't bring his own bass.

 

Steel Mill days....

 

I had sixteen guitars to choose from and when doing a lead break for a song I almost always went for my Gretsch Chet Atkins. Really nice sounding guitar