Ellie Erickson's rebuilt Bloody Les Paul style guitar [photos] - created 01-21-2008
Erickson, Ellie - 01/21/2008.22:01:30
A bit of long boring history:
My first guitar was a 1973 Gibson Les Paul Custom I bought off the street from a guy who wanted to go buy a bag of weed.
It was in Milwaukee in 1975
It was heavy, I had no clue how to make it sound good, or an amp that didn't have huge orders of suckitude.
I hated it, so I dumped it for twice the money and gave up guitar playing, bought a camera and became a photographer and didn't learn to play for decade.
I still can't play with a polished edge, but I make up for it by leaning into things and getting out on the edge.
Now we jump forward to 2006:
I got kicked out of my long time band last year for leaning into the music a little too hard for the rest of the middle aged farts I play with, and when that happened I decided that it was time to head for the other side of the electric guitar ditch, put those Elliecasters in the closet that I'd been using and go somewhere new.
I had two different people give me cheap Les Paul clones last year, old made in Japan versions. Seemed like a message to me, although from whom I have no clue.
I also have several amps now with no discernible orders of suckitude. So I embraced onboard filthy distortion, the Humbucker and started rethinking my unreasonable hatred of the Les Paul.
I love my black Japanese no name Les Paul, but it's got a pressed plywood hollow top, and after playing some real vintage Les Pauls my pals Erick and Gene had, I thought I'd see if I could find something to rebuild that wasn't hollow.
Mark Swanson swapped me this old stripped down Roland Synth guitar for a bunch of odds and ends.
It had a ton of holes to fill, a really, really beat up and thick polyester finish, and a cracked neck. We fixed the neck, and then I came home and filled the holes, routed new cavities on the back for controls, and sanded it down to bare wood and hacked the headstock, then covered it with a combo of red dyed shellac,some of my blood, sponged on nitro lacquer to give it a CSI sticky blood look.
It's a heavy beast, and a little too clean sounding for my taste.
Right now it's got a gutiarfetish multi distortion booster unit in it, a pair of placeholder P-90's from them as well, although I'm getting Clint to make me up a set of black and blood red P-90's for it.
The old bigsby clone is a bit stiff and sticky, I have to figure out what's wrong with that. It's got two skull knobs on it.
And it's perfect for the black lipstick crowd somebody once said I built for.
This is the body with some holes filled.
Filling the old, empty holes:
I recorded a sample of the various distortions today, I'll post a link to a non commercial site in the next day or two if anybody wants to hear this thing.
It sounds pretty good, but I still think I like the strange hollow and cheap sound of the black bolt on copy I have here.
The only thing missing is the tape on the bloody carpet going around the body.
I think you have maintained your high standards Ellie!
Ellie, I think that's quite possibly the coolest work I've seen out of you. I love the Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibe.
If you really want red to look like blood add just a little green.
Awesome resurrections...
Very cool!
>Seemed like a message to me, although from whom I have no clue.
Robert Fripp?
My first guitar was a Sekova Les Paul Custom copy... with hollow bent plywood top. I also did very weird things to it. I made an aluminum pickguard that covered much of the top like a Zematis, and painted it red with black stripes like EVH. It had a transistor preamp I built from a plan in Guitar Player mag, and I modded that to have built in distortion by adding some clipping resistors. Oh and it had a patent label Gibson humbucker and 70's P-90 from an SG.
Wish I kept that thing.
Just had a minute to pop in and I see THIS! Ellie, that thing looks sticky... I love it! I'm glad to see your getting over your Les Phobia with a vengence. Great work once again.
PS, if you add any green to the blood, you will need a highly amplified creeking hinge to go with it. Bah, ha, ha... It's ALIVE!
I hated it, so I dumped it for twice the money
Does that mean you got enough for 2 bags of weed?
Pretty wild and I love the Bigsby. I look forward to the samples but anything with P-90s and a skull on the headstock is bound to sound good.
PS, clip those string ends before you put out an eye!
-Ralph's Dad
Cool, I like red guitars. Big improvement to the headstock too.
It looks good, Ellie! I'm glad something came of that guitar, and it lives to scream again!
Nice and twisted... I like! I had a friend back in the day that took a guitar body down to the meat house and had the butcher coat the bare body in cow blood, then he took it to a body shop and shot a good amount of clear on it. In the end it just looked like a brownish red dye job.... this one looks way more bloody and icky. :)
and had the butcher coat the bare body in cow blood
I hope you're joking. Not only is that disgusting, its a bit twisted... in a "Saw II" kinda way.
Anyway Ellie, I like what you've done there. Its a pretty cool looking guitar with the generic Bigsby and the P90's.
Yeee Haaaa!!! Ellie!
Glad you guys appreciate a little gore.
This is about 2 megs of download, and should open right up when you click on it.
I played the same thing five times, starting with the booster on clean, then what's supposed to sound like a cranked Vox, then the Fender tone, then the Marshall tone, then the mega saturation tone.
We recorded it with a Tascam USB 122 into a laptop at 24 bits,with a large CAD E-200 mic using Sony Vegas, through a vintage Bandmaster Reverb. The volume was on three or four, all the tone controls cranked up to ten, and the reverb was on about two or three.
It was then rendered to mp3 using Vegas at 256k.
It sounds pretty decent. Is that a silverface bandmaster Reverb, looks like a bandmaster head only really tall?
Cool axe, Ellie. Maybe a couple of hatchet wounds for effect if you make another one like this
I think it was a silverface, although it was in bad and seriously altered condition when we got it, having been re worked into a one piece unit made from baltic birch.
The guy had reworked the faceplate, so we never knew for sure. But the Fender Field guide numbers off the chassis say it's a Bandmaster, and it's got a single 15 inch Jenson in it, although I've re worked it into a head/sealed back cabinet combo. In fuzzy leopard fabric, of course.
Oh, that thing! Yeah, the bandmasters usually came with a separate 2-12" cab.
I like the first the best. Excellent toneage.
>I hope you're joking. Not only is that disgusting, its a bit twisted... in a "Saw II" kinda way.
No I'm not kidding, You'd have to know the guy, that's among the more tame ideas that he followed through with. C'mon man we were playing Metal back then... the Mo'Twisted the better right?
I'm bummed - Media Player and Quicktime won't play it on my PC!
It works with the windows media player on my machine, and it's a standard MP3, Jamie. I'm not sure what would make your machine not play it.
Try off clicking on it, then hit: Save target as:
Then try opening it up from where ever you stashed it.
Tried that, still won't work. =(
Sounds like you may need to update your media players.
Sounds to me like you've got some setting or program on your computer blocking it.
Could be. It's a company computer and they block sites like Youtube so I wouldn't put it past them.
I tried to download it directly to my MP3 player and when I try to play it I get a file error.
Wow! Being one of your black lipstick followers I love it!
The head stock kicks monster ass!
"Mr. Tod... did you sell your Les Paul to that Ellie person?"
Now that I can see it I have a better idea of where to go on the pickups. Gonna over wind them a bit to get the darker low end. Yes... yes... it's all coming to me now! Mwahahahahaha!
Very cool! Build more!
Unlike the plethora of shockingly ugly non-ergonomic oversized ridiculously shaped pointy crap that comprised much of the metal guitars from the eighties; yours looks twice as 'heavy' as all of them combined and still retains something called 'class'...
Well done!
Yeah!!!! That blood patina is HOT!! Love it.
Dexter Morgan would be proud. (google him)
I was thinking more along the lines of multiple decades of unfortunate powerchord strikes than Sweeney Todd, Clint. But that works too.
I think it would be good to have darker pickups for this guitar, it's almost too bright already.
Hey Ellie -
I like it. Looks like a fun guitar to play.
Also noticed the tip of the hat to James Larson. Blood/Guts
Rick
Does that mean you got enough for 2 bags of weed?
1975?? hummmm...that rings a bell..exactly what was the 1970's..some form of time units??
I think it means she got $40 if what "they" say is true and a three finger baggie of weed cost $20 retail and I...er..we......er..."they" got to pick there own..but...what do "they" know about the seventies fog.
"... pressed plywood hollow top..."
Be still my beating heart... that would be a Hondo II, circa mid to late 70s. My second electric guitar was a white Hondo bolt-on Paul with a top exactly as you described. I discovered one day that the pretty chrome humbucking covers actually held really really cheap single coils, and that the pots were garbage. DiMarzio pickups, new pots, Schaller tuners and a black/white/black pickgaurd later, and I had a half-decent guitar that sounded great and didn't weigh a ton. I would sell just about anything in my house to get that guitar back :-).
Only thing that red number needs now is a City Morgue inventory tag hanging from the pickup switch. :-)
" ... the plethora of shockingly ugly non-ergonomic oversized ridiculously shaped pointy crap that comprised much of the metal guitars from the eighties... "
They're back:
I went to the Orlando,FL vintage guitar show this past weekend and took these photos. All had Fender Squire necks.
This was my vote for silliest looking guitar with a fender neck:
And finally Silliest guitar w/ a Gibson neck:
Hey, I think that back-asswards Flying V looks pretty cool.
John, that might even be a [often-used expletive] "A" model - very rare, but discontinued due to its bad rep
The chap who built that guitar must have been a ham into wire antennas - that's clearly an inverted V.
73 de WA4UF
>They're back
SHUDDER
Bruce, that one was probably made this last year, one of Gibson's limited edition 'Reverse Flying V's.
Oh yeah.