Quite a collection....

[duhvoodooman***]

Here's a shot of my work buddy Dave's collection of Les Pauls. Dave has been a gigging musician for about 20 years now, including touring in the US and Europe and a couple of CD releases. He currently fronts a power trio called Bad Karma, where he plays guitar, does most of the singing, and writes pretty much all of their original material. He has amassed a prodigious quntity of guitars over the years (he currently owns about 50), but his favorites are Gibson Les Pauls. He has some real beauties, as you can see. I've always been partial to cherry-burst, and I have a serious lech on for that Custom with the premium binding and gold hardware. Unfortunately, it's pretty well obscured in this particular shot. The honey-burst in the center-front with the quilted maple top is seriously gorgeous, too.

[Spudman***]

That's waaaaay nice! Yummy actually. What a great looking collection.
Bbbbbutt...where are the whammy bars? I don't see any whammy bars.

[Tone2TheBone]

Nice Gibsons. They should be photographed one at a time!

[sunvalleylaw]

I seem to be partial to the honeyburst, or even the rootbeer colored agile LPs. I seem to be liking the clear wood finishes the best right now of LP shapes. Looking at all those, how does a guy decide what to play?

[Jimi75]

Those white ones are really beautiful guitars.

[Plank_Spanker]

Dem's some nice Lesters!

[duhvoodooman***]

Here's an interesting tidbit on the black LP at the bottom left of that photo. That's a '78 Custom and it used to belong to Bob Mayo, who was Peter Frampton's keyboard player and 2nd guitarist for a period of 25 years. Bob also played with Joe Walsh and Foreigner at different points in his career. Tragically, he died at the age of 52 of a heart attack while on tour with Frampton in Europe in 2004. Apparently, Bob's family lives somewhere around here in upstate NY (he was a NYC native), and his son sold or traded in the guitar to a local music store that Dave does a lot of business with. They knew his penchant for LP's and asked him if he'd be interested in it. Dave loves black LP's (as you can see from the above photo!), but was a little concerned about the condition of the instrument. Though you can't see it in the photo, it's beat up pretty well, naturally "road-reliced" from years of touring. The store owner suggested that Dave take it for a few days, gig with it, and see if he wanted to buy it, and he took him up on the offer.

Apparently, the guitar was in worse shape than it looked, because while Dave was playing it on stage a couple nights later, the headstock spontaneously snapped off!! He took it back to the store and explained what had happened and swore up & down that he hadn't abused the instrument in any way--the headstock just broke while playing the guitar normally. Must have been a crack in it that just picked that moment to let go. Fortunately, the store owner knew him well enough to believe his story. They had the headstock repaired by a local luthier who's a real craftsman, and Dave tells me that unless you knew what had happened to it, you'd never even notice the repair. Dave decided to go ahead and buy the guitar, and got a good price on it because of its condition. There are chunks of wood missing in spots, numerous dings, scratches & gouges, and the paint is worn down to bare wood in spots on the back. But it also has Bob Mayo's signature on the back, written in silver Sharpie. A pretty cool old axe with some genuine history and character!

[Tone2TheBone]

Thats a neat story Voo. Takes a real good luthier to make broken headstocks playable and lookable again. Zakk has that one custom that had broken at the headstock too and he plays the crap out of it...it still rocks. Thats a great story of your friend's LP!

[duhvoodooman***]

Nice Gibsons. They should be photographed one at a time!

Now, how could I ignore a good idea like that one! Here's a few more shots--singles, doubles, trios, and even a 5-some. I'll have to break it into two posts....

Attachment 951 Attachment 952 Attachment 953

[duhvoodooman***]

Three more shots. Check out the beautiful wood grain on the honey-burst in the middle:

Attachment 954 Attachment 955 Attachment 956

[Tone2TheBone]

Now thats much better. You couldn't see the ones in the back on the first group shot. That Gecko Burst kinda grows on you after awhile. I agree that Honey Burst is beautiful.

[duhvoodooman***]

BTW, I had posted pics previously of the black one with the cream pickguard and the amber one when Dave brought them in to work. Both are "Classic" models. His band often practices in the evening after work, so he brings the "axe of the day" into the office, rather than leave it in the car. Here are the links to the earlier posts:

Black LP Classic w/ cream pickguard

Amber LP Classic

[SuperSwede]

Sweet! I really like that 3 pickup custom.

[elavd]

[tot_Ou_tard]

That's some serious Les (is MORE) porn, there Voo.

drroooOO00000OOooooooolllll!!!

[Iago]

my favorite is definitely that Honey Burst.. really beautiful top!

[sculpin]

Wow! What do you even say about something like that?

Great collection of LP's. Cool background story.

Thanks for posting the pictures!

Sculpin

[Brian Krashpad]

Cool. So, this guy's a work buddy-- do you two rob banks?

[duhvoodooman***]

Nah, nothing that glamorous. We make integrally-geared centrifugal compressors. Try saying that fast 5 times.

Actually, Dave has since left the company for greener pastures, as they say. But he's been an actively working musician of some reknown here in the Albany NY area for many years. He's a very good player, and is endorsed by Dean Guitars (he has about 20 or so of those!). HERE is a link to his main band's website. He's also playing guitar and singing backup in another band with a female vocalist, so he's gigging at least once most weekends.