Best comment I’ve received so far in regards to my guitar playing. This came from a 56 year old dude on Facebook. #feelsgoodman

Justin I’m into Robben Ford (old) and John Mayer (young), but will always pray at the alter of Aktins, May and Clapton. They’re my three heroes. BTW, Justin, I’ve watched your videos and can say that you’re a handy player. I like the way you flog that bass and mid-range to hammer out a chunky rhythm. Although not my style, I can see your talent. Kinda reminds me of one of my heroes…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRf3KhJZRzU

Oops.

Just a little back story: I was in a metal band in high school and throughout university I was in a 3 piece grunge rock band. In the mid 90’s I got into electronic music (The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers), left the band soon after and in the late 90’s I had pretty much stopped listening to traditional rock music altogether. In 1997 I bought a Korean made Squier Strat and have pretty much played clean (no distortion) since then.

This year I’ve really dedicated myself to becoming a better guitar player. Earlier this month I turned 46 years old and bought myself my dream guitar, a US made Fender Strat. I also bought a budget Strat with a Humbucker in the bridge to see if I could get some fatter dirty tones out of it, but it just didn’t really click. As much as I’ve been really enjoying playing bluesy stuff on my Strats, an itch to own a Les Paul came outta nowhere.

I just bought the most expensive guitar I’ve ever bought (the Fender Strat) so a genuine Gibson Les Paul would have been a stretch. I started looking at the Epiphone Les Pauls but then I came across a whole lot of YouTube videos that took me down the rabbit hole of Gibson’s “play authentic” campaign, quality control issues, Chibsons and in the end I just pulled the trigger on a local designed but Chinese made Les Paul style guitar for $238 Australian Dollars.

Within minutes I realised the effects I was running on my Strat through my Boss Katana didn’t quite suit this LP style guitar, but it didn’t take me too long to realise that all I had to do was plug it straight into my old Marshall Valvestate amp, crank the gain up, no pedals, no post processing and MAN! My Strats could never sound like this! This thing chugs! It’s just brought that whole era of my life back and for the past few days my Spotify playlist has gone from mellow to AC/DC, Faith No More and Guns N’ Roses.

Really happy to break the Strat chain (my last 4 guitar purchases have all been Strats) and really happy to be listening to rock and metal again. More than happy to diversify and entertain owning other legendary guitars in future too, but the itch to own a real Gibson Les Paul is now greater than ever. Time to start saving!

Just some dirty tones from my new Artist LP60 plugged straight into the Marshall, all knobs at 12, no reverb, no pedals.

I have a marketing/design background and man, this passive aggressive “Play Authentic” video by Gibson Guitars absolutely makes me cringe: https://youtu.be/2VgjLDX9F4o

Whilst I’m 100% sure that there’s got to be something magical about certain Gibson guitars, I can’t say that I can easily separate what I’m passionate about to how a product is marketed, or how a company is run.

The very first guitar I had in my hands back in the early 90’s in high school was a Les Paul. I’m a huge Slash fan and I’ve always loved how Les Paul guitars look. I’ve always thought that one day I would own a collection of classics. A Fender Stratocaster and Telecaster, a Gibson SG, 335 and a Les Paul.

For the past week I’ve had multiple tabs open on my browser, each one to either Gibson Les Paul guitars for sale, or Epiphone Les Paul guitars for sale, but after watching a tonne of negative Gibson quality control videos I ended up closing all those tabs and pulling the trigger on an Artist Guitars Les Paul style guitar on eBay instead!

The guitar I bought was marked as a factory second for $238 (the Epiphone, also made in China, costs $1,249). I knew it was going to have some imperfections; maybe some high frets, maybe the intonation will be out, maybe the pickups will be trash, or the action will need to be lowered (all easy things for me to address), but after watching the many videos I’ve seen on the nasty quality control at Gibson guitars I figure I could face the same issues even if I bought the real deal.

Is this Artist LP60 a Les Paul though? Nope! Will it satisfy my desire to one day own a real Gibson Les Paul, probably not, but I think it’s a good step in between. Of-course I’m already thinking about modifying the guitar; I’d love to remove the pick guard (or get a black one), swap out the pickup surrounds for black ones and get some black knobs too, but before I spend any money on it I’ll set it up right to play well; change out the strings, polish the frets, lube and (if I have to) file the nut as there’s some grabbing going on at the nut on the high strings as I can hear pinging when I’m tuning.

EDIT: I wrote a review of the guitar on the Artist web site and Artist Guitars reached out to me to see if there was any way they could do to make the problems right for me. They couldn’t give me store credit, or a discount towards my next Artist guitar, so they ended up giving me $24 in return on eBay. That’s just such awesome customer service!

2 wines in!

Made in the USA!

Installed on the Dark Night.

Really happy with these Fender Strap Blocks which prevent your strap from ever coming off your guitar. Peace of mind for cheaps at $8 a set of 4 (enough for 2 guitars!).