I wasn’t in the market for a new guitar, but I had the opportunity to sell my 2023 Reverend Roundhouse to a nice, young Tesla engineer on Craigslist. Tesla is headquartered in Austin, a little over an hour from my home in Central Texas. He came here so he could play the guitar in my barn studio and have a nice setup to play through. As is the case with all of my guitars, I’d kept the Roundhouse and its “Tear Drop” case in pristine condition. It was one of only a couple of guitars I’ve acquired that I never really bonded with. It happens. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the guitar, Reverend makes only good ones, but I just couldn’t fall in love with it. He was pleased as punch with the condition of the guitar and its cool features, so much so that he messaged me later with some pics of the guitar in its new surroundings. There’s something gratifying about selling a guitar to someone so utterly thankful and respectful. I suppose that I’m pretty intimate with my guitars and selling one leaves me with a feeling that I’ve just parted with a small piece of myself. Guitars are funny that way! I have a couple of people whom I’ve sold to in the past still message me, on occasion, just to say hi.
The Les Paul Special first came out in 1955 and has been a part of Gibson’s lineup ever since. There are just two color options: a “TV” Yellow and a Vintage Cherry. Mine is the latter. “TV Yellow” was a color that would show up brightly on the black and white TV sets of the era.
After receiving the guitar and taking time for my usual “Unboxing Ceremony”, I played it that evening for a couple of hours and the guitar and I took to one another right away. I played a bit of rock, some country, and my favorite, the blues for the last hour, or so. This thing had solid tones for each genre and is definitely a “do it all” guitar. Super chimey clean tones to plenty of grunt when switching to the bridge P-90. This is a guitar that could be played with no effects, just plugged directly into a good tube amp. But it took to my pedals well and, for awhile, my wife had gone grocery shopping so I took the opportunity to turn up the volume and gain and configure my pedals for my favorite blues-rock tones. What a fun guitar to play!The shop had set it up for me to my specifications and, between the perfect action, killer tones, and that nice, chunky neck, I had a blast playing the guitar!
The link will take you to some truly wonderful photographs of the guitar and a writeup of the buying experience and some additional specifics about the guitar.
photos.app.goo.gl/MLpYJaGmNjPMLiDS7
