Is the reason I started playing in the first place, the man is a genius in his own right and many others agree. I am highly thinking of getting the black chrome new one out but I would love to hear of other LP fans out there, esp. those who may already have one.

I feel like a false follower. I play some guitar, but as a bassist I only ever got the Les Paul Special in Worn Ebony. It looks like a pair of faded jeans. Kinda cool, actually. But I still spin his music pretty often, especially his work with Mary Ford. =)

I started to get into music from a History class project I ended up doing one year in school. Just going back through the history shows how much its changed what we listen to now and hear coming from those younger than us.

I might not play as much as I would like, but I am always learning about it and studying so in the future the things I learn now will be of use then. And the work with Mary was insane, along with some of the photos I have found online.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/Lesmary1.jpg

I think that is my favourite of them all, seeing as back then most times ladies were not allowed to do "mans work".

Whoa! I didn't think I would meet some Paul fans here. How nice. By the way, what do you mean by getting the black chrome new one? Black chrome new one are you talking about? I didn't get it you see. And who' that Mary? Looks like an old photo.

Les Paul the person did an extensive amount of recording with Mary Ford. He was a jazz guitarist who invented multi-track recording and a whole bunch of other things we still use in mostly the same way today. He did all this while, as I said, still being a MONSTER jazz artist. You should definitely check out some of his work, takatenamano, and see if you like it. I highly recommend it.

There is no doubt that Les Paul should be mentioned in the same breath as Jimi Hendrix and Eddie VH as somebody who profoundly changed the way people play guitars and music as a whole. Les Paul is way before my time, but I'm not afraid to recognize that Les Paul (and his namesake guitar) was at the forefront of guitars being the main instrument in a band and was responsible for making music "louder". As a die-in-the-wool metalhead, I owe a major debt of gratitude to Les Paul and his guitars.

Les was one of the first, if not THE first, person is to play a lick with the tape at half speed so it sound like he was playing twice as fast and really high when the tape was played at normal speed. A useful trick that George Martin used on the Beatles "In My Life." He couldn't play the solo he wanted to play on piano at the correct speed, so he cut the tape speed in half, played it an octave lower, then went back to full speed. Voila! Instant virtuosity.

So that brings up an interstesting discussion: When a musician uses studio technology to give the impression of having a special ability, does that tarnish what they've accomplished? Does it give the impression that they "cheated"?

Hmmmm. I guess I'm from the old school that says a band should be able to replicate live what it does in the studio. The Beatles stopped touring, in part, because their recordings could no longer be performed exactly the same way live. Of course that was before we had keyboards that can sound like any other instruments, and I just heard McCartney in August and with a five-piece band, he sounded very close to the Beatles later recordings. Technically, I guess it is "cheating" to use varispeed recording to allow you to play a guitar solo at blinding speed that you can never play live, or to have a multitrack guitar solo that can't be reproduced by the lone guitarist in concert. However, that didn't keep me from enjoying acts like Deep Purple or Hendrix or Cream or Led Zeppelin, where the single guitarist just adapted his live soloing. I frown much more on bands that put out a "live" recording that they have "sweetened" by fixing mistakes in the studo.

I'm a huge Rush fan and I love watching concerts of them from the '70s and early '80s when each one of them would have to play multiple instruments to replicate the album. On the "Exit...Stage Left" live video, Geddy Lee plays bass guitar, rhythm guitar, keys, bass pedals and sings during the song "Xanadu." These days, he just hits a button and the instrument is triggered. Technology definitely makes it easier for the performing musician, but IMHO it takes away some of the fun of going to the concert to admire what they're doing on stage.

I like having the "pros" make mistakes live -- it enriches the experience for me, unless it's a really terrible mistake. I've seen Graham Nash and McCartney forget the words to their own songs and they joked about it so good naturedly that you had to laugh. They are human, after all. But it's also good to hear a band where every note is exact. Saw Rush last year and it was great, but horribly loud, even with earplugs.

Most of Jimi Hendrix's guitar playing was by "mistake"...but he poured every ounce of emotion and soul into every note that it didn't matter if his guitar was in tune or not or if he hit the right note. It's kinda cool how Hendrix, who embraced the use of studio tools and new technology with amps and effects, was still able to keep the human element to his music.
I can't handle indoor concerts without wearing earplugs...outdoor shows aren't that bad for me since the sound travels and isn't enclosed. Actually, I don't think the problem comes from the band's PA, I think it comes from the high-pitched whistling and clapping from the crowd. If I'm standing next to one person and they do a catcall-type whistle, it's like a razor blade being swiped across my eardrum.

I saw Rush in an amphitheater and it was still loud with plugs -- and we were in the last row of the seats. I'm not shy about volume, but I thought they were crazy loud. I never saw so much air drumming in my life, from men and women of every age.