"You had an Sg, and it was the same as somebody else's SG"

[S. Cane]

Robby Krieger talking about his SG and how he got it from a pawn shop. It was the cheapest guitar in the shop.

"...there were no collectible guitars, you had an Sg, and it was the same as somebody else's SG"



I always remember this when I meet people who say that only CS guitars are the "real deal".

[ch willie]

Many of the guitars we think of as icons came straight off the walls of a music shop, just "stock" guitars.

[HighPlainsDrifter]

Really cool to listen to Robby talk about some lesser-known details.

Man... 1965/ 1966... walking out of a Pawn shop in Santa Monica with a newly acquired SG. Sometimes life is just okay... but sometimes life is fantastic!

[ch willie]

I love the story of how Clapton walked into Sho-Bud and bought 6 50s Strats for $100 each in 1970. George Harrison got one, and Clapton put together Blackie out of the three he kept.

[DanTheBluesMan]

I love the story of how Clapton walked into Sho-Bud and bought 6 50s Strats for $100 each in 1970. George Harrison got one, and Clapton put together Blackie out of the three he kept.

I know. That just blew my mind when I first read it.

[S. Cane]

I love the story of how Clapton walked into Sho-Bud and bought 6 50s Strats for $100 each in 1970. George Harrison got one, and Clapton put together Blackie out of the three he kept.

Yes! I also enjoyed reading that in 1965 Lennon and Harrison sent a roadie to buy two Fenders, he went and brought the two standard sonic blue strats they used in some records like Nowhere Man.

[ch willie]

Yes! I also enjoyed reading that in 1965 Lennon and Harrison sent a roadie to buy two Fenders, he went and brought the two standard sonic blue strats they used in some records like Nowhere Man.

Mal Evans. A big burly gentleman from their Liverpool days, tragically shot to death by police who thought he was a robber. He made the alarm clock ring on A Day in the Life and hit the anvil on Maxwell's Silver Hammer. I can't remember which song, but he contributed to the lyrics on one of the songs on Sgt Pepper.

[renderit]

Just keep this in mind... In the fifties and early sixties, Gibson and Fender weren't making fifteen different models of the same guitar in order to fit many different price points. They simply made an "SG", or a "Strat", or a "Les Paul"... While some guitars were arguably better than others, the INTENT was to simply build a guitar... They also weren't a lot of money, so if you didn't like a particular guitar, you could sell it, give it away, or toss it in the trash...

Having said that, and truly NOT trying to make a justification for any $6,000.00 Custom Shop guitar, from either brand, the fact remains, regardless of whether or not you or I can afford it, they ARE the closest that you are going to get to what those models actually were back then...

Would I pay that much for them? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! And in fact haven't, nor would I ever...

I agree with everything you wrote and I have spent the money many times, but I think the point has been missed here. If you start and/or are a major contributor to a specific style of music and that style becomes wildly popular ANYTHING you play in the seminal albums will be THE SOUGHT AFTER GUITAR! I don't care if it's a plastic Roy Rogers model.

[Don]

Just keep this in mind... In the fifties and early sixties, Gibson and Fender weren't making fifteen different models of the same guitar in order to fit many different price points. They simply made an "SG", or a "Strat", or a "Les Paul"... While some guitars were arguably better than others, the INTENT was to simply build a guitar... They also weren't a lot of money, so if you didn't like a particular guitar, you could sell it, give it away, or toss it in the trash...

Having said that, and truly NOT trying to make a justification for any $6,000.00 Custom Shop guitar, from either brand, the fact remains, regardless of whether or not you or I can afford it, they ARE the closest that you are going to get to what those models actually were back then...

Would I pay that much for them? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! And in fact haven't, nor would I ever...

I was trying to come up with how to say this myself. Regardless of how I feel about the original designs, build techniques and materials (I love them), I won't pay vintage or custom shop prices for them and do not feel that they are required to make great music.

We're in a new golden age of guitars. You can get anything you want. Even some of the very cheap guitars are very good.

I love hearing these guys talk bout the details of those times. I just watched a 45 minute show on Laurel Canyon in the '60s.

[S. Cane]

Mal Evans.

Yes!

[chuckocaster]

I love the story of how Clapton walked into Sho-Bud and bought 6 50s Strats for $100 each in 1970. George Harrison got one, and Clapton put together Blackie out of the three he kept.

I Googled a couple inflation calculators... He was buying guitars for about $630 each in today's money! So, it'd be like buying used late 90's MIA Strats. And they thought of them the SAME way we do, "Ahh, it's just an old beat up guitar..." LOL Maybe in another 20-30 years we're going to have the same reverence for those 90's guitars as we currently have for 50's/60's instruments?

[ch willie]

I Googled a couple inflation calculators... He was buying guitars for about $630 each in today's money! So, it'd be like buying used late 90's MIA Strats. And they thought of them the SAME way we do, "Ahh, it's just an old beat up guitar..." LOL Maybe in another 20-30 years we're going to have the same reverence for those 90's guitars as we currently have for 50's/60's instruments?

Sergio already does! Seriously, those 90s Fenders weren't shabby, and you can find great Fenders during every decade, even during the much maligned 70s era. I still maintain that one of the sweetest sounding Strats I ever heard was a mid-to-late 70s natural colored Strat.

[DanTheBluesMan]

back when I got my new Stratocaster in 1974, that's all there was. One model. There were some solid colors i remember, the majority were sunbursts and maple necks. I didn't even know about hardtails until many years after I started that's how rare they were.

[redisburning]

a stratocaster was 1/10th before tax salary for a whole year in the years they came out.

a brand new r9 at street price is 1/12th the median income in the US.

so actually from a relative perspective a brand new R9 is a cheaper guitar than a stratocaster was in 1954.

also the next time someone runs into a "only CS instruments are good enough" black&white person in the wild that actually plays the guitar (even if they suck) tell them to PM me on here. I've literally NEVER met anyone like that, never even seen one on a forum, though of course I seem to hear a lot about them from people who also coincidentally seem to find themselves in every custom shop instrument thread.

[renderit]

a stratocaster was 1/10th before tax salary for a whole year in the years they came out.

a brand new r9 at street price is 1/12th the median income in the US.

so actually from a relative perspective a brand new R9 is a cheaper guitar than a stratocaster was in 1954.

also the next time someone runs into a "only CS instruments are good enough" black&white person in the wild that actually plays the guitar (even if they suck) tell them to PM me on here. I've literally NEVER met anyone like that, never even seen one on a forum, though of course I seem to hear a lot about them from people who also coincidentally seem to find themselves in every custom shop instrument thread.

100% agree. I have been seeing that claim a lot lately and I don't honestly ever SEE it happen. Ever.

[Don]

also the next time someone runs into a "only CS instruments are good enough" black&white person in the wild that actually plays the guitar (even if they suck) tell them to PM me on here. I've literally NEVER met anyone like that, never even seen one on a forum, though of course I seem to hear a lot about them from people who also coincidentally seem to find themselves in every custom shop instrument thread.

I haven't met this person either, though I have met people who are this way about vintage instruments. There was a time when I believed this as well- it's what I was taught in the late '70s and was kinda true, but these are different times.

[Don]

Not trying to be argumentative, but those numbers are irreverent... If you look at the economic growth from 1950 to 1990, in terms of annual income and real estate values, that data tells a very different story... In fact, if you were to narrow the time range from 1960 to 1980, those were very prosperous times... Unless you lived in East Nowhere, houses were going up in leaps and bounds, and so was the average income... Even IF you made a few major financial mistakes, they would rectify themselves in a short amount of time...

So... What am I actually saying? Guitars were cheap back then, relatively speaking, because even though people were more fiscally responsible, they weren't all that concerned about going bankrupt...

One day we sat down with my grandmother and my father and realized that the cost of my house and my grandparent's house were roughly the same percentage of our income. My father's house (the one that I grew up in) was a much smaller percentage of that, not because he was rich, but because they were good times, financially. My grandmother and wife had to work to make this possible. My mother did not.

That takes a big bite out of the guitar budget!

[redisburning]

Not trying to be argumentative, but those numbers are irreverent... If you look at the economic growth from 1950 to 1990, in terms of annual income and real estate values, that data tells a very different story... In fact, if you were to narrow the time range from 1960 to 1980, those were very prosperous times... Unless you lived in East Nowhere, houses were going up in leaps and bounds, and so was the average income... Even IF you made a few major financial mistakes, they would rectify themselves in a short amount of time... So... What am I actually saying? Guitars were cheap back then, relatively speaking, because even though people were more fiscally responsible, they weren't all that concerned about going bankrupt...

the figures I posted were median incomes, so I dont understand your comment at all.

you say the numbers are irrelevant, then you tell me to look at annual income. but they literally are annual income?

also to your point about systematic changes in income over time that is why I selected median income rather than average. because the distribution of income has shifted to be significantly more polar over time, median is more likely to describe the same "typical" in both years.

also statements about fiscal responsibility of generations are not well supported by research. carried debt is a function of access to credit markets, not necessarily anything to do with people themselves. as such ideas about generational differences in that are more perception than reality made my conflating carried debt with responsibility anyway. also not sure how that would have anything to do with the purchase price of an instrument but ok.

[redisburning]

I'm sure that you've got some fancy algorithm that figures this all out, but the fact is, you haven't been on the planet long enough to have any idea what I'm talkin' about...

genuinely, are you actually serious with that comment?

do you actually believe that you being older than me in any way outweighs the fact that I have an advanced degree in economics and am professionally employed as a statistician?

I mean if you have a secret econ or sociology PhD and a ton of published peer review articles that you dont like to talk about ok sure. but the way you talk doesnt really suggest that. and if not, I would like to point out that you just went off on people who dont ride bikes but talk about bike performance like they know something.

[redisburning]

Serious as a heart attack... And quite frankly, I don't give a shit about your degree...

it's a shame in your many years on earth you've never learned the concept that some people know more about certain things and less about others.

bet I know less about what you do professionally than you but I can say with existential certainty that I know 100x as much about this subject as you do and you should probably not flout ur ego like you know something.

[ch willie]

I wonder if you're both right. While prices are relatively the same, I've read somewhere that more people now have salaries and so more can afford to buy instruments at that price.

[redisburning]

I wonder if you're both right. While prices are relatively the same, I've read somewhere that more people now have salaries and so more can afford to buy instruments at that price.

you can type median income followed by the year in google and you will find the results very quickly.

I took the price in that year and calculated what percentage of that year's median income it represented.

you will find that as a function of that income, an Gibson CS R9 is the most comparable instrument in price to a standard stratocaster with case in 1954.

food for thought.

[Offshore Angler]

Median incomes are irrelevant. Mean incomes are. Mean, median and mode all are different things. You're the statistician, you should know that.

[redisburning]

Median incomes are irrelevant. Mean incomes are. Mean, median and mode all are different things. You're the statistician, you should know that.

why? because you say so?

I gave actual reasons why I chose to use median, you could make an argument for average income if you wanted (which you haven't, by the way).

how about you demonstrate that the variance in incomes between the two years is equal so we can be sure our comparison is apples-to-apples since you're so set on using average.

or you know, you could not spit your high school stats facts at me.

p.s. the census reports median income for YOY comparisons guess a whole army of PhD Economists is wrong because Offshore Angler the internet expert said so.

[redisburning]

Median incomes are irrelevant. Mean incomes are. Mean, median and mode all are different things. You're the statistician, you should know that.

btw I would be so embarrassed to make a statement like that and get so btfo.

I would bet literal money you dont understand that the definition of median you were given in your high school stats class is a useful property of the median and not the actual statistical definition that makes it the appropriate measure here.

[chuckocaster]

I think y'all should try and hug it out... 🙄 Have fun!

[Don]

I think y'all should try and hug it out... 🙄 Have fun!

Where's a "Like" button when you need one???

[S. Cane]

Yeah, you're all good guys, no need to get upset or argue...

[OldStrummer]

I forgot. Was this about guitars?

[S. Cane]

Yeap. And it still is!

Speaking of SGs...



I SO need a Toneking Metropolitan.

[HighPlainsDrifter]

Yeap. And it still is!

Speaking of SGs...

I SO need a Toneking Metropolitan.

Oh man...I wonder how much that beautiful beast sold for?! That's a great video to showcase both amp and guitar... nice chops too.

[OldStrummer]

Oh man...I wonder how much that beautiful beast sold for?! That's a great video to showcase both amp and guitar... nice chops too.

I agree! Lately, I've come to think of SGs as hard rock guitars. Nice to see that they can be made to play nice, mellow stuff as well!

[Cogs]

I love the story of how Clapton walked into Sho-Bud and bought 6 50s Strats for $100 each in 1970. George Harrison got one, and Clapton put together Blackie out of the three he kept.

I had heard it was Gruhn's Guitars

[ch willie]

I had heard it was Gruhn's Guitars

I had heard Gruhn's too, but wikipedia (for whatever it's worth) names Sho-Bud.

[chuckocaster]

This IS Wikipedia we're talking about, I really only believe about 80% of the things I read on there!

[Cogs]

[Kris Ford]

Yeap. And it still is!

Speaking of SGs...



I SO need a Toneking Metropolitan.

For a moment, I thought '69...until I saw the high I dot and neck heel..

[Offshore Angler]

This IS Wikipedia we're talking about, I really only believe about 80% of the things I read on there!

I have an old magazine from the 80's with a Clapton interview where he claimed he went to several stores in Nashville to get the donors for Blackie. I'll see if I can dig it up.