Epiphone's "E" Logo on truss rod covers and pick guards
The Epiphone "E" logo as I've mentioned before is one of my favorite logos as far as guitar brands go. I just like that E, what can I say.
There are two E logos that Epiphone has. Standard and italic.
Much the same way Fender uses the old-style "spaghetti" logo and the modern "transition" logo, Epiphone does the same by using both E logos depending on what guitar they're featured on.
Where is the E logo used on Epiphone guitars?
The only Les Paul that Epiphone makes that actually has an E logo is the Les Paul Junior, of all things...
Yes, as in the dirt cheap single-humbucker LP Junior that usually comes with a "game bundle" (as in video game bundle).
Other than that very specific Epi LP, none of the other Epi LPs have the E logo. And as for the SG, no Epi SG exists that comes with an E logo anywhere on it either.
Usually, the only time you ever see the E is on archtop Epiphone guitars, starting with the Epiphone Wildkat on the truss rod cover; it uses the italic logo version.
And no, a truss rod cover made for a semi-hollow/hollow-body Epiphone guitar will not fit on the Les Paul or SG, because the shape and the screw hole positioning are different.
You start seeing the E logo on both the truss rod cover and the pick guard on the Epiphone Dot "Royale" Limited Edition model.
This is a weird one because yes, the standard E is on the pick guard and the italic E is on the truss rod cover - on the same guitar. Epiphone just does weird stuff like that. While I'm sure there's a reason why there's a standard E on the guard and italic E on the truss rod cover, I couldn't tell you what that reason is because I don't know.
With the more expensive Epiphone models you start seeing the E a whole lot more, but on the lower end it starts with the Wildkat and special edition Dot models.
The Gibson 2-screw and Epiphone 3-screw "bell" truss rod cover of a Les Paul/SG
On Gibson Les Paul and SG guitars, the truss rod cover is in the shape of a bell and is mounted using two screws.
On the Epiphone version, the truss rod cover uses 3 screw holes instead of two, and the bottom is flat instead of having the "bell ringer" hole placement.
What this means is you can't buy a Gibson cover and put it on an Epiphone because it just won't fit right no matter what. And yeah, I'm certain this is done by design to make it more difficult for people to "reengineer" an Epiphone into a Gibson, so to speak.
Using the "big E" on the truss rod cover of an Epiphone Les Paul
I have no interest whatsoever in "reengineering" my Epiphone into a fake Gibson, but I do have interest in getting that big E on the headstock like the archtop Epi guitars have. It is an Epiphone, after all.
Fortunately, I found a cover for an Epi LP with the big E and bought it.
It should arrive in a week. Total cost was $8.50.
Being my Epi Les Paul Special I P90, the cover should be a near-perfect if not a totally perfect drop-in (or rather screw-in) fit.
Was it easy to find this truss rod cover?
No, it wasn't. I had to dig around to find one, and that's why I was willing to pay $8.50 just to get the thing.
And by the way, if you were to buy a real-deal Gibson replacement cover for a Les Paul, guess what? That's 13 bucks at the time I write this. Yep, 13 bucks for a piece of plastic, and that's not including tax or shipping. So when you look at it that way, $8.50 (which was my total final cost) really isn't that bad. I mean, yeah, it is bad to pay that much for a dopey piece of plastic, but still... I'm still better off compared to buying the Gibson version.
Why is an E-logo truss rod cover so difficult to find for an an Epi Les Paul or SG?
Probably because with the exception of that one Junior guitar, nearly all Epi LPs have the truss rod cover actually state the model name of the guitar, such as "Standard" or "Studio" or "Studio PRO" and so on.
Why do I even want the big E on my Epi's headstock?
Well, first of all, my truss rod cover on my Epi is just black with no logo, so pretty much anything is better than nothing, looks-wise.
And of course I dig the fact that I'll probably be one of the very few Epi Les Paul owners that has an actual Epiphone E logo on the truss rod cover. A little bit a bragging rights there. Not much, but hey, it's cool.
Quick Review: Fender Modern Player Jaguar
I went to Guitar Center Tampa to pick up some strings and picks, and while there scanned the guitars for the refreshed 2013 Squier Affinity Stratocaster series (new headstock logos and new colors). They didn't have any, but there was a "2 Color Chocolate Sunburst" Fender Modern Player Jaguar, which comes with Fender's version of the P90, the MP90.
Being that I'm into single-coil pickups, I tried it out.
The strings weren't stretched at all, so I spent a few minutes doing that.
After I was done stretching, I plugged into a little Bugera amp and started noodling around on the MP Jag.
Surprisingly, I really liked the way this guitar played. Yeah, it has a gloss-polyurethane neck coating with tint, but play-wise it was really easy to get used to this thing. It definitely "felt like a Fender".
Also, the body on this particular Jag is insanely comfortable. The shape just molds right to your body because there's not a single sharp edge to be found anywhere. The Jag body is even more smoothed out than a Strat body is (which is already smoothed out to begin with). Very easy to get used to sitting or standing. And the weight of it is just right too.
The "Chocolate" sunburst looks far better in person than on the internet. Every internet photo I've seen of the MP Jag in this color makes the guitar look like it's unfinished (as in "not completed"), but when you see it in person, oh yes, it's totally finished and a very nice looker; it could easily pass as an expensive-looking Fender.
Speaking of price, that's my first of three knocks against this guitar.
The only reason this guitar has a $399 price tag is because there's a Fender logo on the headstock. This is a China-made Fender, remember. If the only thing changed were the headstock logo from Fender to Squier, this guitar would be priced at $275, which in all honesty is what it's really worth. Even if it were priced a little higher at $325, that would also be acceptable. But $399? Nope, too much.
My second knock against this guitar is the "Gibson-like" setup. It's basically set up just like a Les Paul except it doesn't have 4 control knobs. Three-way toggle on the top horn, master volume and treble below the pickups, bridge + tailpiece just like a Gibson (which Fender calls an "Adjusto-Matic"). This guitar would be so much better off with the 3-way on the bottom horn instead of the top, because on top it just feels weird being there. Also, the control knobs just feel all wrong (black "top hat" knobs or textured metal knobs should have been used).
My third knock are the MP90 pickups. What a P90 is supposed to do is "growl" while at the same time have some "honk" to them. I know that sounds weird, but if you've played enough guitars with P90s in them, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
The MP90s do growl, but they don't honk at all. Now it could very well be that the little Bugera is what was causing the MP90s not to honk like a P90 is supposed to, but I doubt that. The honk of a P90 (usually heard best when using the middle bridge+neck pickup selection) can usually be easily heard no matter what amp you're using. But on the MP Jag all you've got is growl, which would be fine for some, but not for me because the tone just doesn't have a character I go for.
Final verdict: If the knobs were replaced with the kind with proper texture to them and the pickups replaced with P90s that have some honk as well as growl to them, this guitar would be a winner. The price is a bit steep for an Asian build, but it's a solid guitar all around that only needs very little to sound as great as it plays.
xanga's impending doom, yet another web 1.0 internetting casualty
Xanga.com originally launched in 1998. Yep, it's that old. And in July 2013 it will probably shut down. Either that or it will "pull a Friendster" where it will be rebranded/retooled into something else and totally lose the flavor or what it originally was...
...and so goes yet another early-internet site.
Xanga is a blogging site, and people do like to write stuff on the internet whether it's short-form like Twitter, semi-short form like Facebook or long-form like Blogger or WordPress. Whatever it is, people do like to express their thoughts online in their 'personal space' in one way or another.
The problem with personal space web sites is that they all ultimately fail due to herd mentality. GeoCities was at one time 'a thing', as in trendy, as in The Thing To Do On The Internet, and then the herd got bored with it and moved on. LiveJournal was 'a thing', and the herd moved on from that. Friendster was also 'a thing', MySpace was 'a thing', etc.
Xanga was also, of course, 'a thing' at one point in time with a monster amount of active users. But that time has since long passed and the herd has moved on.
Right now 'the things' are Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram. And every single one of them will at some point fade into obscurity and the herd will move on just like it always does.
The really crappy part about sites that die off (or change enough to where anything left of the original is gone) is that any content you posted there usually goes away forever. Yeah, the site will probably send out a broadcast email that says, "Hey, on [date here] we're shutting down go grab your stuff off our site before that happens!", but the thing is that for really old web accounts, the original user probably signed up with an email address he doesn't even use anymore and just forgot to update to the current email address used, so the notification is never received. Then the end date passes, the content gets whacked, and... yeah. Totally screwed.
What a lot of site owners have found out - myself included - is to always host everything yourself whenever possible. I basically host everything but video because video files are too huge and consume too much bandwidth, but as for text, images and audio, yep I have all that here. Sure, I share it out to other sites (like the way I share out Radio Free Menga to iTunes), but the point is that there's always a copy here just in case the places where I share stuff out to goes down.
I used to tell people to get a free blog, but I don't do that anymore. What I tell people to do now is to register a dot-com/net/org/whatever instead, pay the yearly registration fee and pay for web hosting. Hosting for most companies get either be paid by month or by year. Better to pay by year if you've got the cash because it's cheaper that way, and starts at between $75 to $100 for a full year of hosting depending on what you use for a web host.
Yeah, hosting your own domain is a totally computery, totally nerdy thing; it's not easy and not free either. But at least you know what you put there stays there and doesn't vanish like a fart in the wind because the site you were using just up and dies due to herd mentality.
This is, incidentally, why sites like DreamHost (a web host provider, and you can also register your dot-com/net/org/whatever there too for true one-stop-shop domain'ing) have been in business since 1996. The only way I know of for a web host provider to up and die is due to massive fiscal bungling since every account is a paid account. But that's so rare it's not even funny. Registrar/Host providers like DH have way, way, way more staying power compared to any free blog service because they're actually making money on every account. Yeah, you pay, but your stuff stays and won't vanish just because a particular free web service ceases to be trendy for whenever that happens. That alone makes it worth paying for.
Epiphone Les Paul Special I P90 proves what's really collectible and what isn't
In my experience, there are a few hard truths when it comes to collectible guitars.
Any guitar promoted as a collectible from the start really isn't a collectible. An example of this are any of those high-end Fender Custom Shop "Heavy Relic" guitars.
Electrics that are sold as being collectible from the moment they first appear on the market are already overpriced from the beginning.
First of all, unless a kid was born with a silver spoon up his ass, there's no chance whatsoever that a kid would receive one of those Fender Custom Shop guitars as his first guitar. Not happening.
Second, custom shop guitars like I mentioned above have zero player's value as they're nothing but furniture.
Third, and most important, there's absolutely nothing magical about those multi-thousand dollar guitars.
"Guitars can be magical?"
Yes. Certain guitars are magical in the respect that they bring back fond memories of days gone by...
...but only the ones that people could actually afford back when they were new.
Ultimately, it is the cheap guitars that end up being magical years later and not the expensive kind.
"The one you remember" is usually the most difficult to find
Take the Epiphone Les Paul Special I P90. I own one of these, bought new for $89.
I did a search for this guitar just just to see if it was still available, and yeah, it is, but not the TV Yellow version. That guitar in that color is absolutely 100% gone. The yellow version didn't even last 7 months on the market. Very short run.
Maybe Epiphone will re-release the guitar in that specific configuration in that specific color again at some point in the future, but probably not for a while. I may be mistaken and they may release it again next year, but the point is that the 2012 models are now literally extinct.
Now of course you know there were a whole bunch of people who happened to be in Guitar Center when the guitar was there and they bought one, and it was probably a parent who bought one for their kid as their first guitar. That kid will play the guitar for a while, probably beat it up, not take care of it and eventually sell it. Years later, that kid will become an adult and kick themselves for originally selling that guitar and go out on eBay and try to find another one exactly like his first. Same year, same color, same configuration, same everything. At that point, whoever has one can command a high price for it because people are willing to pay big money for rare guitars - especially if it was a guitar the buyer used to own as a kid.
I'm not saying the '12 Epi Les Paul Special P90 is some masterfully-built guitar or anything like that. But I knew from the moment I saw the listing for it that it would sell real quick. And it sold out fast.
You know in 10 years that the kids who play these guitars today and eventually get rid of them will seek them out again when they become adults. Why? Because they're going to be looking for the stuff that recaptures their childhood; that's where the magic is, and that's why the cheap guitars are the true collectibles.
Remember, Fender Strat used to be "the cheap guitar".
Have you renounced your metal citizenship yet?
Metal music is cool and all that, but one thing that has always ticked me off about the metal community is how snobby many are. Anyone who's into metal music knows what I'm talking about. Metalheads just love their classifications where something is "totally metal" or "somewhat metal" or "not metal enough" or whatever. Very annoying.
I listen to a ton of different stuff for three reasons. First, I enjoy it. Second, I don't like being pigeonholed into liking just one thing and only that one thing. Third, it makes me better as a guitar player.
For example, I like the song The 2,000 Pound Bee by The Ventures. A lot. That song (or songs, rather, as there is a part 1 and 2) was the first commercial release that featured the fuzz effect on the guitar. And it's awesome. I also like Six Days on the Road by David Dudley. Total country trucker's song. And it's cool. I also dig the "Outlaw Country" sound like Christine's Tune by The Flying Burrito Brothers, and I'll even listen to Love's Theme by Barry White every now and then, because it's a great song.
And yes, I will mix this in to listening to metal songs.
There was a time in my life when I listened to nothing but metal. Metal, metal, metal all day long. After a while that gets really boring real quick. And I'll tell you exactly why it gets boring.
If all you do is listen to metal, metal, metal, what happens is that it all starts to sound the same. Every riff, every chug, every "face-melter" scream, every fast drum track, every solo... all of it. Totally boring if that's all you listen to.
And yes, the exact same thing can happen to any other style of music that exists. However, metalheads make it a point for whatever stupid reason to only listen to metal and absolutely nothing else. That's stupid. And what's even more stupid is that if you dare go outside of the only-metal rule, you're actually made fun of for it, as if you "betrayed the community". Whatever.
From the guitar player's perspective, nothing will put you in a rut faster than only listening to just one kind of music exclusively. There will be days you'll pick up your guitar and just not be able to come up with a single new idea, and you will get bored and put the guitar down. It will happen...
...unless you're willing to listen to other stuff. And I don't mean other styles of metal music. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about actually listening to totally different genres like jazz, country, disco, orchestral, big band, swing, rockabilly and so on.
A whole new world of inspiration is opened up when you ditch the metal-only "rule".
In addition, also from a guitar player's point of view, a whole new world of guitars are opened up by ditching the metal-only rule.
For example, if you dared showed up to metal band practice with a Squier Mustang, you would instantly be made fun of for showing up with that because it "doesn't look metal enough". Because the guitar doesn't have a "badass" look to it, well then, it just "sucks" then, right? Wrong. You play what you want because you're the one spending the cash to buy the guitar.
I stopped being a metal-only guy years ago, and to be honest I wish I had done it a lot sooner.
Like I said, metal is cool and all that, and I do listen to metal music from time to time, but it is absolutely NOT the only thing I will listen to, nor do I base my guitar buying decisions off of it either. And neither should you.
On a final note, here's why you should renounce your metal citizenship:
Think of your favorite food. Now think if that's the only thing you were ever allowed to eat. How long would it take before you got sick of eating the same thing? Not long at all. It doesn't matter how you prepare the food, what temperature it is when you eat it or how it looks when served to you because it's the same thing over and over. Day in and day out, same thing. Totally boring.
As the old saying goes, variety is the spice of life. Well, you can't have any variety if you're always listening and playing the same stuff now, can you? Of course not.
"Metal 'til I die" is a joke, because those who sincerely believe that are already dead inside. Try other styles for a change; it's not a sin to do so.