of new friends and the eye of the beholder

I've mentioned her a few times now, but realise that she's not actually been formally introduced. I have a new friend. Back in December, I bought myself another guitar, a Gibson Les Paul Studio.

It was an act that encompassed a couple of firsts. 

First, I've never bought a guitar sight unseen or, and more to the point, unplayed, direct from the Internet before, and found spending that amount of money on something I was intending to invest so heavily in emotionally quite unnerving.

But I was after a specific make and model of guitar for a specific reason, and none of the local shops had what I wanted. All Gibson Les Pauls are made in America, at their company's headquarters in Nashville, TN. So I guess if you're going to buy sight unseen, knowing exactly where it came from is some reassurance. And as they've been making these guitars there since the 50's, you'd hope by now that they'd know what they were doing.

I'd decided I wanted a Les Paul. The idea had been haunting me since early November, but always thought the Les Paul Standard was a bit, well, gaudy. Then I read about the Studio, which is essentially a Les Paul, but retains only the elements of that contribute to tone and playability. This includes the carved maple top and standard mechanical and electronic hardware but not the ornamentation, including the body and neck binding.

In other words, the gaudy bits. I guess beauty is, as they say, in the eye of the beholder.

The other first is that I've never agonised over the colour of a guitar before. The version that first caught my eye was the Tobacco Burst finish, and across some weeks of mulling over should I shouldn't I, I was certain that was the guitar I was looking for. And then, in the final few days as I approached my decision, I found myself being drawn more and more to the Wine Red version. 

I found myself completely torn. Over something as inconsequential as lacquer and colour scheme. It was totally ridiculous. 

So, as I do with all matters of taste and style, I resolved the question by asking my wife.

So on 15th December, a wine red Gibson Les Paul Studio turned up on my doorstep, just in time for our last gig of 2021. 

And she is an absolute delight.