Episode 27 - A 1959 Les Paul, Gary Moore's Marshall, and a Dream

0:02 You got the verb, dude. Look, I got boxes back here. What's in the box? What's in the box? What's this say? What's it say up there, dog? Oh, boy. All right, here we go, baby we. Got to step down. Learn that from Joe. Look, dude, it's like Deja vu. We're we could step up or step down today we're going to step down because yet again, we have something from England, the UK. Oh Blimey.

0:38 Blimey, this room was made for this amp. Luckily, they're sawing down trees all around the neighborhood after this big freeze, so we're going to blend right in three. 2. We may hear a reverberation on our voices. It's because we're in my garage. That's the only place loud enough. So, Joe said don't use a flashlight, just put it somewhere near the middle. What would Joe?

1:03 Do I love how all of my guitar knowledge is now? What would Joe do? It's all Bonamassaisms. Do you want to go upstairs and hit some chords? Because I'm going to make sure this thing's sounding right in the room. Listen, if you're going to play with the big toys, you got to realize that unfortunately people are not going to like me saying this, but in order for Tyler to get the sound, I'm going to have to sit down here and just hear a little bit. So it is going to get loud, but we're not going to sit with the amp.

1:30 We're doing it in the garage to protect our hearing because I know a lot of you out there are thinking what I'm thinking, save your ears. We're going to save our ears, but we want to hear this thing in all of its glory. We want 1966 Blues Breaker JTM 45 Gary Moore tone. Are you alive? I'm still here, dude.

3:54 Dude. I'm coming. That's just pure amp. That is a 1966. This is like pre Hendrix, pre all of it. Hey, I have more stuff to show you though. What? What do you mean? I brought you more things to check out. What? Well, this is a really nice Les Paul, yeah. I like it man. Yeah, it's really cool. I brought one that looks kind of like it. Do you want to see it?

4:16 I just brought that. It was in the back of the Suburban. I figured I'd bring it in. This is a very It's a leather bound case you have. Here, that's a leather bound case. There you go, buddy. Whoa, uh huh. What is it? It's a Les Paul. I can see that. From the year of 1959. What? Yeah, dude, that is a 1959 Les Paul standard. For real.

4:39 Yeah, it's called the Gabriel Burst. Let's play a game which. One's old. Look at the color difference. They both. Look like 2 peas in a pod. Two peas in a pod. Hey, there's one other thing. You know, I probably shouldn't have misplaced this last piece. Where did I put it? Why don't you bend over and I'll show you.

4:56 You obviously have the 59, but I'm not. Will you marry me? No, I'm just going to check this out. So we have the Blues breaker. You have a 59 last pole. Yeah, this is Gary's governor pedal. That was Gary's secret tone bomb, dude. So. Dude, Christmas was like a couple months ago. You're like coming in with Santa Sack.

5:19 So here's all. Over again. So here's the thing, dude. Now we have Gary Moore's JTM 45 in the house. Gary Moore's Governor Pedal. This is the tone with a 59 last pole. You know what we should do? Plug it all in. Let's go crazy. We got to plug all this in right now. The first thing I'm doing is cracking this death. Dude, that's the best sound.

5:40 I mean 59 Les Pauls sound cool. Yeah, guitars are cool, but. Gary Moore's amps are great, but there's nothing like a sweet swig of death in the morning. I don't know if I've said it yet, but Liquid Death. I don't know if we've said it, but we're not sponsored by them. We're not. But boy, do they fuel our pods. Jeez Louise, we love Liquid death. We're in the Guitar Heavens toy store today. The toy store is what's happening here and Oh yeah, I don't even know which thing I'm the most excited about. I'm mainly hoping my house doesn't fall down because I've had some trials and tribulations. I've had some problems with my house recently. If you're a podcast follower, but. Nashville got hit hard with that

6:21 storm and you got hit hard. This area got hit. Hard now I have a jet engine in my garage so hopefully it doesn't bring down the foundation. We have a high-powered Marshall in the garage right now, ready to tear souls. So give us the one minute overview of how you came into possession of this. Gary Moore. Oh, this?

6:40 Breaker. So check this out. A really good friend of mine, a friend of the pod, a fan of yours, a great, great human. Chris. He goes by Fried Okra. Chris Blakey. He is the best. He's got a crazy collection down in Mississippi. I met him years ago. He owns some of the most rare Les Paul Strats. I mean, he has like Leo Fender's original pickup Winder.

7:02 The guy has crazy stuff, but he's also, he loves it like we do. So between all these guitars and all this stuff, we just bonded on a musical level. And when the Gary Moore auction was happening, just like our friend Joe Okra got in there and he scooped up the 66 JTM 45, the Blues Breaker and Gary's original Governor pedal, which is just crazy. So he calls me, you know, we, we go talk, you know, once a week or whatever, but he calls and he goes, Hey, dude, I'm coming up to Nashville.

7:30 I'm like, what's up? Because whenever he's coming up, he's got like a mission. And he goes, I got Gary Moore's amp, his pedal, and I'm bringing you some other stuff to, to mess around with. And I was like, all right, man, we'll see you this weekend. So him and his wife, Tanya, they came over and they're friends with Amanda and Jet.

7:45 And he brings this and then he goes, Oh, by the way, I brought you a guitar to pick around on. Maybe you want to hang out with it for a while. It just happens to be this guitar. The Gabriel burst, it's a 59 standard zebras. I mean, this thing is amazing and and I said, man, I can't just take that and you know, like have it at my house and just pick on it.

8:08 He goes, no man, put some scratches on it. Have fun with it. I think they call that being a custodian of gear, yeah. But okra, he's so cool. He's got like Paul Kossoff's guitar. I actually, you know, he's a friend of the POD. And at some point we will reveal him to the world and maybe we should take a ride down to Mississippi because we would have the most epic guitar safari.

8:31 We wouldn't buy anything but stuff to see be insane. We can try A5 finger discount on an old fried okra. Hey, okra, what's that over there? Look over there. Have a 64 strap, put it in your jacket. Oh man, well that's really generous and cool of him. That's the. Best part is no one's ever heard this amp either.

8:49 Cool. Since. Gary had it. Every time I hear these fat toys where it's like this rock historical moment is about to enter your life, I'm like, yeah, OK, give it to me. I I can't really appreciate it until it's hitting me in the ears necessarily. So I say we reveal the format of this show, which is we're going to crank this amp, we're going to get our Gary more on and we're going to use this rig, this 59 into Gary's governor pedal into his JTM to execute some of our favorite 59 riffs ever recorded.

9:22 This is a really cool list of gunslinging guitar players across time that we'll do our best to emulate. But it really it's all about the feel and the vibe of getting to play this awesome gear and going through our guitar geek library inside our minds. And also one just preface, we just love this stuff like you do.

9:41 So this whole 59, Laura, I know that there's going to be players that are going. I'm so sick of it. But you guys just remember, like us, at the end of the day, we're all just fans and it's fun. And the fact that we have this amp, this pedal and this guitar in the same room, we have the blessing of the owner to literally rank it and just RIP it up. So that's what we're going to do. This is on behalf of all the people who will never play this stuff, and we're going to demystify it completely. And I think we're on the record saying gear is in whatever you make it.

10:12 So with that being said, we're going to play some gear that most people don't even get to touch, let alone play in the most perfect environment, a garage. Yes, dude, just as intended. Oh, baby, the floor is shaking. First things first. It's like, it's like that. The hangover when he goes in the bathroom and there's like a tiger. Yeah, he's like.

11:30 with this stuff too? And I love it. And obviously this is the kind of my this is my wheelhouse. But when you play a chord and you go, much there. It's like it's not even like how you're it's just the the tambour of a crazy loud tube amp sorry I'm getting carried away. It's funny because I'm hearing your fingers right here.

12:22 I'm hearing it out of the monitor and I'm feeling it downstairs. This is like a new spatial audio experience that I thought I could only get this in Dweezl Zappa Studio. And I'm like, whoa. Bro this is like what is it Atmos time? Yes. Exactly. This is garage Atmos. This is like when you went to the movie theater and it like sprayed you with water.

12:39 Remember it was like a 3D movie. It's. Insane. This is so cool and I'm already geeking out. I'm having so much fun. Let's see what Gary Moorelicks are built into this amp. So are are you going to hit the pedal? Yeah, we should. What is it? Put everything just in the middle. I don't know what he was running, but I know that that pedal is a really, really mean pedal.

12:58 All right, everything's in the middle. Bombs away, dude. Are you ready? Go ahead. Oh yeah buddy, I just start to play in a way that excites me and few instruments just right off the cuff make you feel that way I think. It's this spontaneous, like reaction of like joy, but also you realize it's a mental thing too because like I've said a million times, play gear that inspires you.

14:23 But there's this mental game where you go, I'm playing through like Holy Grail gear, and you just get excited. I think this is the right energy to approach a little bit of a Gary Moore jam. How? Let it go, dude. This isn't even dramatic, but I'm making it dramatic. We. Must record our best Gary Moore. No pressure, yeah.

17:24 I just absolutely. It's like a shred fest, dude. Oh my God, how far is? That. We're going to recover from that and bring the amp upstairs and spare my neighbor to be able to find us. But before it's too late, they'll be like, where was that coming? From there's this weird looking suburban and. It's making, but maybe it's coming from there. Honey, are you OK after what we did to you? Are you there?

17:50 Yeah, she's here. She's. Still here. I apologize to my neighbors but not really bring her up there. Come on little lady. Clearly see it clearly. This thing smells like an old tube. We just did have it cranking. Yeah, she loved it. Dude that might have been my favorite thing we ever did on the pod so far.

18:12 We just keep, we keep finding new peaks. That was so cool. This is awesome dude. It's like a dog drinking water. There we go. Those are alien aliens talking to each other. Goes like this and then we'll go. And then when one gets really mad, it goes, yeah. Anyway, anyways, 59 riffs when it comes to a 59 left like. 59 like we're. Going to play 5959 riffs.

18:55 There are a few that projected this guitar into historical contexts and we have some common suspects here on the list that many people will recognize, but maybe some unknown. 59 slingers across time Slingers. What do you think of when you think of a 1959 Gibson Les Paul other than it costs as much as a house? Well, there's a few things I think about. I think about the popular, popular riffs that we know from the 59.

19:24 The first thing that comes to mind and the reason I believe these guitars, not only because of the quality in the construction. Jimmy Page, Jimmy Page, Peter Green, Dwayne Allman, Paul Kossoff, Eric Clapton, Of course, I mean the list goes on of 59 players. My list goes to 10. So I have 10 guitar players that I went through researching just to try and do more than half ass Internet research because sometimes I get things wrong.

19:52 Jared, I don't know if you know. Well, it's not SLOW 100, it's SLO 100. I saw the comment. Correct me, by the way, you're like, this guy's got his house flooded. I'm just going to let that one slide. I said, you know what, just let him be. Of course I know it's SLO but I'm reading stuff and making making sure I don't miss things and then I read it like a moron. So sorry about that.

20:13 I can't be perfect, but what I can? Do. I'm sorry, Mr. Perfect. Sorry, Mr. Perfect. I forgot you never ever make a mistake. So I am striving to be better with this stuff. But it's important to be open to making mistakes and learning new things from them. So with 59 riffs, we can confirm a lot of different pieces of the mystery. So Jimmy Page clearly used in 1959, Gibson, Les Paul, whether it's recording or live, that's where these things start to get a little difficult to pinpoint.

20:45 But we know he played it live and we know those are some of the most iconic sounds ever recorded, which is what this whole thing is about. Slash or any of these kind of players, it's the image, it's the look of it. A lot of people are going to chime in. They're going to go, well, if you like Jimmy Page, you're listening to a Telecaster, you know, I get it.

21:02 I get it there, there. There's a whole certain thing I read recently that I think it was You Shook Me Off Led Zeppelin 1 was recorded with a Karina Flying V Oh, wow. Yeah. So like there's all this mystique of being in the studio and I got to record with Eddie Kramer. Heartbreaker was recorded that that middle solo, you know, the that was recorded at a different studio, I believe Olympic Studios months later.

21:27 So like cool with stuff like that. It's hard to pinpoint, but it's that live aesthetic and sound of a roaring 59 with page slash these people. That's what I think was kind of the, you know what I mean, the golden ticket. Got you. So with that in mind, we won't necessarily match these iconic tones, but we will match that mojo as best we can.

21:50 And maybe we might get lucky and hit the exact note and frequency that makes us go and she ghost appears in the room with us. So we'll find out. But the first Jimmy Page exploit, I'm going to say a whole lot of love is what we should break out on this thing. That was kind of the first thing I thought. I have my 2021 Les Paul here for some backup. And I'm going to, I'm going to click on the government. some people, some people complain about this riff, how nobody plays it right.

22:56 Are we playing it right or not? I don't know. Someone tell us. Probably not here. Let's see, Jared. You're not even using a guitar pick. How could you be playing it? You played it. Your way, I'm going to play it wrong my way, and then we'll get double roasted. I think someone call me out. It's like when when I listen to Zeppelin and all these riffs, you uh oh.

23:26 Whoa. Because you just lost. Power. I hope that's not the whole house. We got that on camera. Oh my gosh, the first thing I thought it was the amp. The amp, well, the amp is on. Yeah, but I thought the amp did it. All right, let's find out if it's. Contained the power of the 59. This is Jared talking to you in the dark.

23:48 The power. That's never happened. Dude it just happened bro. Turn off the amp. I did we're back now. You think you're watching the scripted podcast, right? But I'm here to tell you right now I don't know what's going on. Holy the. Cameras don't die when the power goes out. That freaked me out.

24:12 Gary. Gary. Honestly, you guys, we could have been visited by the by the, I don't want to say ghost. But it's some sort. Of presence. Some sort of presence is here. I think we just left. Or it was the fact that we were playing the LEDs up and riffs so wrong. Yeah, and they say cut these guys off.

24:29 What are you guys doing? Turn my computer back on. Put the computer back on. We ain't done. Yeah, cameras are still rolling, baby. Those are off the grid. That was crazy. Let's go to another 59 riff because we have a few more names to get to. And Peter Green, you mentioned already, there's a famous 59 Les Paul called Greenie, which a lot of people know about. Is it green or is it because he's Peter Green? Because sometimes the yellowing turns to green on some of these Les Paul's.

24:59 What's the deal here? Why is it called Greenie? Well, Peter Green, OK, Greenie Blues for greenie. Got it. But also that guitar, I've been lucky enough to spend some time with a guitar. You've had it and it's insane and there is some green to it. So it's like that thing's like a relic. It's like a WAR relic. It's insane.

25:17 And that is obviously one of the coveted 50 nines of the world now owned by the ever so awesome Hammett. And yeah, Peter Green was a, you know, a lot of these players just like Jimmy, he played Telecasters. You would see him play, you know, these different guitars, but he's always associated with that burst tone.

25:35 It's all about that burst tone. And Peter, with the Fleetwood Mac stuff, I mean, there was so much that he was doing that was like just like clapping, a pioneer of that sound. Now we're going to get to Peter in just a SEC, but Gary played greenie. Oh yeah. So Joe Bonamassa has Gary's amp, and people were saying that him and Kirk should get together and combine those two pieces of guitar legend into one room. So maybe.

26:01 Kirk, open invitation too, man. You want to play the JTM? Dude, come on over. Yeah. I love you, buddy, for sure. So let's have you go for the Peter Green thing, Peter. Green thing. All right, let's go like this. Hey, hey, hey, hey. How you doing? That kind of bad. That's awesome. It's pretty. Sick. And you're just riding that volume on. Like what?

27:29 I'm on like 8. And that's cool because with an amp like this, we just played how loud it was and you're just like barely touching it. And it'll do that for you. But it still feels like it's giving you a lot so you can let those notes stay. Now that's what's so gorgeous. Like if I go, like if I just play like a sounds crystal clear, right? And then if you want to turn it up to Those pickups, there's something in there that I PAF. That PAF sound is, it's really the real deal. It's makes a huge difference in your touch and in your phrasing. As a result, because you are so much more comfortable, you end up playing the stuff that maybe you couldn't quite access. Yeah, dude.

28:24 And there's so much lore about PAF pickups and people go, oh, I have, you know, PAF copies and stuff. And there's so many incredible pickups out now. And I know that comment your favorite PAFS, but something about these old ones, they're not perfect. And that's part of the mystery is you know, you'll get that little snarly. So we already I have Gary Moore on my list, but we've already I. Got Gary We.

28:50 Covered him as 59 guitar player, a 59 Les Paul player of note, and we're going to move along to another acquaintance. Friend. I would like to meet him one day. I've had I've heard you talk about him enough. Billy Gibbons. Oh, come on. He's played a 59 Les Paul or two in his day. What would you say is like the Billy Gibbons 59 riff I was thinking?

29:16 Of many different. Questions because it's it's really just you can say LaGrange. Oh yeah, LaGrange. Look, this is what I did last time and I did that. In person, that's when we're in France playing LaGrange, when you play LaGrange. Has played on a Squire LaGrange. Has played on a 59 Les Paul. What's cool about Billy, too, is he was always, he was kind of one of the kings of double tracking.

29:38 So he would play a riff, right? Like all these kind of sweet. Billy Gibbons deal is also built into that tone when you really start getting that that ride and you. Really had that cool thing where you'd always be backed off to that. Moving on to another esteemed 1959 Gibson Les Paul player, Paul Kossoff.

30:59 Big time. Everyone knows. That's the 59 chord. All those big chords, now don't forget you're hearing a 59 Les Paul just straight into that JTM and that's that sound. What do you know about Mike Bloomfield? Mike Bloomfield, Another insane player Paul Butterfield Blues Band Mike Bloomfield played with Dylan. He had a crazy career, but he was such a great Blues player that when he would play, you know, like he's had a beautiful vibrato.

33:02 Another ruler of the birthstone. He was one of the first kind of early dudes to adopt it, and Bloomfield was sick. Definitely an avid guitar appreciator and collector too. Because I went to Emerald City Guitars in Seattle, got to play supposedly Jimi Hendrix's guitar. There are no pictures with him. There's only like 4 guitars on the earth that have ever been pictured.

33:22 It still exists, so this one wasn't pictured, but it floated around in Hendrix's studio. He had like dozens of black strats and this was one of them. And Bloomfield owned that Strat. Whoa. He flipped the the tuning or sorry the the strap pegs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Flipped it. We could play it. Played it right-handed. So when I played it, it was right-handed, but even though it was a Hendrix studio guitar, right? So yeah, Bloomfield is just like not only an incredible guitarist, but he is engulfed in the rock history and has kind of seen it all.

33:54 Big time. He was one of those guys of the time too that like Super Session was with Al Cooper. There were so many records and things that he was a part of and he was just like a heavy player. Yep. Well, Bloomfield's great. You know who else is great? Eric Clapton. Yeah, heard of him. There's a guitar, multiple guitars, I guess you could say 50 nines that he played, but one of them was associated with a specific tone. The bino tone.

34:17 The Bino tone, yeah. Do you know about this tone's lore and legacy or? Yeah, so think about this. This is now anyone that wants to chime in, correct me or or add to the story, but basically the Blues breaker amp, John Mayall and the Blues Breakers that sound you're going for a J TM45 and a 59 Les Paul. But here's the thing.

34:39 He is one of the first people, if not the first to turn one of these basically all the way up with a 59 Les Paul to get that sound. And if you go back and listen John Mayall and the Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, they called the Beano album because for reading a comic book, like English comic book called and it says Beano on it.

34:59 But that sound, dude, is that it's, it's beautiful. things on there. On that record, such a great sounding record. And he was the first guy I remember hearing the story too, that when they were in the studio, the engineers were like, you need to turn this down. And he's like, no, no, no, just put the microphone further away, move the microphone. But he had that sound that a, you know what I mean? How loud is the amp on right now? Right now we are sitting at about. 1:00 OK, so if we were to turn that thing up, you can turn it up. It won't again, but yeah, that.

35:41 Was kind of the sound. And then obviously clapped and kept going. And then it was cream. And you know, a lot of that Cream stuff, there'd be times where he'd be playing a burst, and it was just like the whole lore of early Clapton really kicked off this guitar. didn't the Beano tone he also has like what?

36:59 The woman tone? Oh no, did it again. What is it? It's. Got to be the amp. That's the only common denominator. Well, it would have to be the transformer then. Another 59 player. Joe Bonamassa, I think it's well documented what he's done. We actually just had him on the podcast and he talked about Skinner, Skinner. Skinner burst.

37:18 Skinner burst. We won't try to sound like. Him right now I couldn't have, especially with the power going. Out. We're trying to. Kind of close this episode out, you guys. We have had some. Serious bugs in the room. Yeah, electrical bugs. But it could be the the amp, it could. We don't know. We don't know what's happening. Mike, let me tell you, we're having fun. Yeah, I'm.

37:36 Having a great time the house. Didn't fall down, it just powered off. So dude, it just keeps happening. We'll just we'll. Go through a little. Rundown. You can use your imagination on some of these. Let me say too, there's so many. Burst players, I mean, there's so many, so chime in your favorite burst players below.

37:55 I mean, we got Joe Walsh. We have Dwayne Allman. I mean, there's so many. Let us know who we're missing on this little list, this condensed list and put your favorites. We don't know how many 1959. Gibson, Les Paul's remain on this earth. You know the joke, right? Maybe you should check. Your grandma's closet.

38:12 Though I don't know. Yeah. When you're when you're at grandma's house, check there. Was a joke. I think it was like you know there was only 900 something 900 made and only like 1200 exists today. Oh wow, what a strange. Guitar math number, that is. I say we take this episode out while we still have power with a slash jam.

38:30 Let's do a slash jam. Yeah, What have we got? One of my favorite guitarists. Let's see. What we can do with them? Come on. Do you want to play the burst on this? Let me. Play a little burst. Come on, dude. This is what we get to take it home. Hey, this is what we call. Burst hogging, I bet. Hogging the bird burst hogging.

38:43 All right, let's see what kind of slash licks we can find. What's a riff we can jam on that slash?