July 2nd - Ordinary Tuesday

Lunch today was leftover pasta with spinach, mushrooms and bacon. It hit the spot.

POLL - Tour de France
Has anyone been watching Le Tour? I admit that my favourite part is watching the scenery - the race is fantastic too though. I’ve particularly been enjoying the beautiful images of Corsica over the last few days. This time last year the GF and I had planned to have a holiday to that exact part of the world. We ended up abandoning the idea when she changed jobs and was uncertain of where we’d be financially now. Man, I wish we’d just booked it. I can taste the salty air and simple wine… I wonder if wine sales go up worldwide during the tour? I know that I always get the urge to crack open a bottle whenever I'm watching it.

Guitars Of Various Decades

Which guitars, are your favourites of various decades?
‘50s: Telecaster. Stratocaster. Les Paul. It's impossible to pick just one of these.

‘60s: Burns. The guitar a Jazzmaster wanted to be.


‘70s: Yamaha SG1/2000. I’m no Santana fan, but love these.


‘80s: G&L SC2. Yeah, I like the SC shape a LOT! It doesn't really represent the pointy-guitar-with-a-Floyd-Rose look that I'd say would be the lasting image of an '80s guitarist, but it looks good. I'll stop banging on about them now, promise


‘90s: Parker Fly. They’re strange looking, but when I first played one in the mid-90s I was dead impressed by the space-ageyness of its carbon fibre neck and loved the look of them. Even today, I still have soft spot for it.


G&L: The Volvo of the Musical Instrument World.
I’ve been doing some car shopping recently and have decided on a Volvo wagon. In browsing many ads, I have observed several similarities between Volvo and G&L:
- Very well built.
- Poor resale prices. Dunno what the prices are like in your part of the world but the model I’m looking a, a 10 year old V70 in excellent shape, can be had for less than 10% of the cost of a new one.
- Never been the “in” thing. I know this all too well – my first car was a Volvo 240GL belonging to my parents, that I drove to high school when they didn’t need it. The teasing died down eventually. That same car saved my sisters life when she crashed it, drunk, into a power pole.
- Generally pretty heavy.
- Repeat customers. Seems that a lot of people who are selling one Volvo are selling it because they have bought another.

Here’s another photo from the other day. You couldn’t have put the driveway in a better place. It’s been like this for at least a year now, they must be having a nightmare of a time getting the council and power companies to move the pole!

i love watching the tour. but the wine consumption does not go up on my account.

50's srat

60's sg

70's ibanez artist

80's charvvel san dimas

90's tom anderson

2000's g&l

I love watching the tour too, even with all that doping thing.
I discovered this sunday that my 4 Year old daughter likes to watch it too

years, let's think about it...

50's telecaster

60's strat

70's ibanez artist too

80's don't know

90's ibanez S series

00's G&L

No tour for me
no volvo for me
Guitars
50's Telecaster
60's Sunburst green Tiesco with 4 pickups
70's stat
80's G&L
90's G&L
2000's G&L

Wonder which was there first the garage or the utility pole. If my mother was around the utility pole wouldn't last long. She took out the one in front of my house and it's nowhere near the driveway

Tour de Frank:
If I happen to see some race coverage I'll follow for a bit. But no real interest here.

I won't say that these are necessarily my fav guitars of the decade, but maybe what I associate with that decade.
50s: Tele
60s: Ric
70s: Strat
80s: Jackson or Ibanez or some pointy looking thing
90s: G&L
2000s: G&L

Volvo:
My father has driven nothing but Volvos since the early 60s. He's still driving one now. He buys a new one every 10 years or so and then sells the old one to a family member. In the 60s and 70s they were mostly unknown around our town and my friends wondered what sort of crazy, exotic car he was driving. One of my first cars was a big green Volvo station wagon. I guess they are kinda like G&Ls. Solid, dependable, and a good value for the money, especially used.

Jeff

I am marginally interested in the Tour de France. I don't watch it since there is no network coverage for me to watch, and I really don't hardly watch TV anyway. The doping culture kind of turns me off. I hope they can change that and turn it back into a fair competition.

‘70s: Yamaha SG1/2000. I’m no Santana fan, but love these.

In the US the SG1500 and SG2000 came out together around 1975. The SG2000 had gold hardware and 'block' inlaid; the 1500 had chrome and dots. In 1976 I went to a store to test drive a Les Paul custom and ended up buying an SG1500. It played and sounded better than any of the Les Pauls I played. I got the 1500 since I don't care for gold hardware, and the black looked classy but deadly.

Just 3 days ago I took my SG1500 out of its case for the first time in a couple of months. As the strings were getting ratty I took them off, cleaned off the fretboard and restrung it. I had Ernie Ball 9-42 on it before and I put on D'addario 10-46. I also tweaked intonation as a couple of strings were a bit off after the string change. I have always loved this guitar, but I haven't been playing it much since I needed a tremolo on a few songs in my hobby band. Just a few minutes with the guitar and it feels like an old friend again and I've been playing it a lot over the last 3 days. I intend to keep this guitar forever; I just hope my wife or children won't sell it off for $50 at a garage sale after I'm gone.



Kit

I'm a tour fan, mainly for the scenery and colour of the event. Like the Olympics, or most modern sport, the doping is a given unfortunately.

Louis' list is just about right for me. I think I'd drop in a PRS instead of the Tom Anderson tho.

That's a gorgeous Yammy SG1500 Kit. I'm a big fan of 1970's and 80's Yamaha guitars.

Never watched the tour, I generally don't watch TV.

Yamaha has built some fine guitars. They had a 335 type that was awesome.

I am with Philby on the guitar list. Louis is close but I agree on PRS as it is a production guitar.

The garage wouldn't work for me. Ginnys clients wouldn't be impressed!-- Darwin

Meh, the Tour de France does nothing for me, and I'm an ex-competition athlete (running - my asthma got the best of me)! With all of the blood doping that's gone on in the 'Tour (and I don't just mean Lance Armstrong), it's become a big turnoff for me.


Kit - nice looking SG1500! I remember when those were more commonly seen. They weigh a ton!, but do sound pretty good. IMO, Yamaha guitars have always been underrated.

i love watching the tour. but the wine consumption does not go up on my account.

50's srat

60's sg

70's ibanez artist

80's charvvel san dimas

90's tom anderson

2000's g&l

Well said, though I think the LP deserves a time - as does Rick in its own way.

My second good electric was a Japanese-made Charvel, and looking back with 20/20 vision, I might well still have that gem if it nodded a bit more toward the traditional in in styling and lines. With my eyes closed though, it was a pure delight. But I never for a moment thought it reflected anything at all about me, visually.

The original SC body shape, on the other hand (which now kind of defines "my" '80's), grabbed me the first time that I saw it and hasn't let go. Years ago, I used to post that G&L ought to distinguish itself by running with this body style, since it's harder to gain traction as manufacturer of Tele or Strat "copies" (though we know this isn't the whole truth), while the "Mustang" shape was beautiful/different and seemed like G&L's for the taking. I also lobbied for customer-directed / wide-ranging pickup configuration options.

Long story short: Now that the SC-2 has been reissued, and the Fallout (huh?) has seen the light of day, I'm not only happy for G&L, but I (and others like me) surely feel vindicated. I only wish I had the hair I had in the '80's - and that's kind of sad in and of itself! - ed

Louis - The SG is a real beauty, but I've never bonded with them, personally. But what a classic shape.

Xavier - A friend of mine has that exact Tiesco. The trem arm was long gone when he got it, so he uses a butter knife!

Cuzwilly - The pole was there looooong before this house Its probably a hydro lab anyway, the shutters are always down.

Jeff - Has your old man ever crashed one of his Volvos? Or have any of them rusted apart?

Kit - Awesome guitar. Deadly indeed!

Phil - They should really just make doping legal. Stupid, but legal. There was a great doco on the other night about the tour, even way back they were all on amphetamines. Professional athletes are so spoiled.

Ed - I'm with you all the way on anything to do with the SC. Where do I sign up ?

Jeff - Has your old man ever crashed one of his Volvos? Or have any of them rusted apart?

Other than minor fender benders he hasn't had any real accidents. My niece was just in an accident with one of his old cars a couple of months ago. She was struck from behind while stopped at a red light. Visibly, the car didn't look all that bad but was considered totaled by the insurance company. The car was a 1996 850 with more than 250,000 miles on it. It still looked and ran great up to the day of the accident.
About 10 years ago a friend rolled his Volvo multiple times. 3 people in the car all walked away. The most serious injuries were some cuts/lacerations requiring multiple stitches. I've never seen any of his Volvos rust out. Some were in the family almost 20 years.

Good luck shopping.
Jeff

The only guitars I have not bonded with, in any era, were the LP and the SG. I am more a strat flavoured individual, as far as what from what era, I don't pay that much attention to what people are playing, instead I focus on how they are playing.

No tour for me.