Googolplex | soldguitars

GJ2 Arete 5-Star

"Googolplex"

THIS is an awesome guitar. The history? Well, read some of the stuff above about what a legend Grover Jackson is. He pulled Wayne Charvel out of the shit when Charvel Guitar Repair was about to go out of business, then trained up a few kids that came to work with him ... Mike Shannon, Todd Krause and Mike Eldred. The three of them are now Master Builders with Fender / Charvel. Todd Krause now makes guitars for Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. Grover IS responsible for the guitar scene in the 80s, and was at the top of his game for a long time. So, after selling the Jackson company, and taking a break to raise his kids, he came back with a new company ... GJ2. These are all hand made in USA by Grover's small team (just a couple of dudes), and each one is worked on personally by Grover. Which is ENTIRELY awesome. He is keen to point out that these aren't just "rock and metal" guitars, but are designed for all types of music. He might be right, but whatever ... I'll be using it to play rock and metal, thank you very much. It does it SO well. This one is the Arete 5-Star, which is the top of the line, and was one of the first batch to be brought into the UK. Its made ... unusually ... out of basswood. A three-piece through-neck, with body wings added, all of solid basswood. The headstock face is a thick slab of ebony, with the GJ2 logo inlaid in pearl ... very nice. The neck is a beautiful full 'C' profile, frets are perfectly finished, and pretty much EVERYTHING is just awesome. The pickups are made in-house too ('Habaneros'). They're strong, rich and full of harmonics, without being muddy ... and not too high-output. What else. Yeah, the trem is a German Floyd, and the tuners are Gotoh's, all of which is good. All in all, this is a cracking guitar, which is pretty much what I expected it to be. Nice one Grover.

One minor downer is that these are supplied with a gorgeous padded leather strap, with the GJ2 logo. Great straps lads, but you'll have to make them 6" longer if you want big folks like me to actually be able to USE them! Just a thought!