Merlot | guitars

2001 Gibson SG Standard

"Merlot"

I played an SG Standard for the first time in 2004. I'd owned my Les Paul for about 4 years by that time, and remember thinking how great the SG felt and played. Very similar to my Lester, but lighter and with great access to the dusty end of the neck. Lovely. I was staying in Edinburgh on business, and had taken my wife for a couple of days away ... she was going to "do" the zoo an get in some serious shopping while I was working. Fair enough. But she wasn't initially aware that our hotel was within sight of a bloody great big guitar shop (Red Dog Music on King's Stables Road). Poor dear ... she didn't stand a chance.

I can still see that SG hanging there, even now, over a decade later. Deep, wine red, crown inlays, lovely neck binding, and a "batwing" guard. Beautiful. I put it back on the wall of the shop after giving it a very lustful once-over, and agreed to think about it overnight and to go back the next day with the (... thinks) £600 or so asking price. So, the very next day, we went back to the shop, and something VERY odd happened. I'm not sure what it was. I'm pretty sure that I wasn't pissed, or high, but SOMETHING certainly went tits-up, as I ended up leaving the shop NOT with a shiny new SG, but with a red USA strat, which cost the same as the SG, to within a few quid. What the Hell?!

I never bonded with that strat. Not at all. Perhaps it was the deep-seated thoughts of "you were supposed to be an SG".

Anyway. Once this "collection" thing got to develop some momentum, I ended up with my (beautiful and excellent) Gordon Smith SG1, "Zippo". That is such a great guitar that it cured my SG-gas for many years ... if I started to have "gotta get an SG Standard" thoughts, I'd play the SG1 and all would be well. Then I snagged "Joe", an SG Tribute with P90s ... that was also a great guitar, although not in the same league as Zippo.

Fast forward to 2015, and following on from the dreadful 2015 sale-mishap (... I lost my mind for a while and got rid of several guitars), I jumped back on the band-wagon with THIS. I decided that it was finally time for an SG Standard, and saw that the new 2015 models were selling for virtually NO money ... I suspected that the issue was the tranche of "improvements" made by Gibson in 2015, such as the wider neck, the brass adjustable zero-fret, and (ouch!) the lack of binding nibs and (double-ouch) the'G-Force' robot tuning system. The thing is, those improvements put off prospective buyers by the thousand ... and I was one of them. So, the 2015 was a non-starter. I flirted with a few more, including a nice 2013, with the small pick-guard and pickup rings fitted. However (sighs) ... although I kinda like the aesthetic of those, part of the allure of an SG Standard is the chrome-covered pickups emerging from a bat-wing guard. So, I waited it out until this showed up ... a 2001 batwing. It was as perfect as it was beautiful.

I bought it during a trip away on business (... how fitting), and ended up paying more than I was REALLY comfortable with, but you know ... sometimes you've just got to swallow hard and go for it, right? Besides, used value of the turn-of-the-century stuff has risen recently as a result of the "improvements" mentioned above ... gone are the days when you could pick up a Standard in decent used condition for £500. Whatever, it's only a number.

So. What's to know? It's a stock SG Standard! It's still wearing the original pickups (all solder joints look original) which I guess would make them a 490R and a 498T, which I like very much ... they're good, solid pickups, regardless of the flack that they often get from the cork-sniffers.

What else. Erm ... it's wearing Kluson machine heads, reflector knobs, and is lightly and sympathetically worn-in, with wear to the gloss nitro in the places that you might reasonably expect, but virtually none to the frets. On that note, fretwork is really very good, and the nibs in the neck binding finish it off beautifully.

A great guitar, make no bones about it. Plug it in, and you get it with BOTH barrels! Crispy snarling lead tones from the bridge hum, with beutiful woody, rich warmth from the neck. Oh yes.