Gibson or Feline that is the question!

OilCityPickups

SlopeSoarer said:

OilCityPickups said:

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

We all know there are plenty of guitars which play and sound better than Gibsons, but it's not really the point; you're never going to scratch that 'guitar hero of your youth' itch if you don't get yourself a '74 Gibson Custom, or at least something of a lookalike with a Gibson logo on the end of it. 

Bear in mind that in spite of appearances, the guitar in question wasn't originally cream, it was arctic white, but years of cig smoke had made it more cream in colour. Jones got it off Malcolm McClaren, who got it off Sylvain Sylvain when he was managing the NY Dolls as they imploded whilst making the Red Patent Leather album, whereupon he came to London with the intention to use the Dolls as the protoype for the Pistols. The stickers on the  Gibson were put on by Sylvain, but Jones left them there.

You can get repros of those stickers if you really wanted to go that far, as you can of the Our Lady of Sorrows sticker on fellow Doll Thunders' LP Junior.

But it won't be Steve Jones Les Paul  and you won't be a teenage Steve Jones. I have to say I really don't understand the "guitar hero of your youth' itch. To me that would be like giving up trying to be 'me' and settling for being a poor and aging impersonation of a famous teenager from my own teenage. 
Nope, the concept passes me by ... 

There's nothing like pissing on people's chips!

TDubs said:

SlopeSoarer said:

OilCityPickups said:

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

We all know there are plenty of guitars which play and sound better than Gibsons, but it's not really the point; you're never going to scratch that 'guitar hero of your youth' itch if you don't get yourself a '74 Gibson Custom, or at least something of a lookalike with a Gibson logo on the end of it. 

Bear in mind that in spite of appearances, the guitar in question wasn't originally cream, it was arctic white, but years of cig smoke had made it more cream in colour. Jones got it off Malcolm McClaren, who got it off Sylvain Sylvain when he was managing the NY Dolls as they imploded whilst making the Red Patent Leather album, whereupon he came to London with the intention to use the Dolls as the protoype for the Pistols. The stickers on the  Gibson were put on by Sylvain, but Jones left them there.

You can get repros of those stickers if you really wanted to go that far, as you can of the Our Lady of Sorrows sticker on fellow Doll Thunders' LP Junior.

But it won't be Steve Jones Les Paul  and you won't be a teenage Steve Jones. I have to say I really don't understand the "guitar hero of your youth' itch. To me that would be like giving up trying to be 'me' and settling for being a poor and aging impersonation of a famous teenager from my own teenage. 
Nope, the concept passes me by ... 

There's nothing like pissing on people's chips!

Piss 'n' chips

Nothing worse than too hot a chip ... I'm doing a public service :-)

Roundwound

Not knocking Feline, Ivison etc etc.

But Mark Knopfler, Slash, Al DiMeola, Peter Frampton, Charlie Starr, Justin and Dan Hawkins, Jason Isbel and many more current touring artists way better than I’ll ever be still manage to make their shitty Gibsons sound decent and still manage to play them despite the awful ergonomics. Mabye the gulf between Gibson and Feline isn’t all that huge?

Offset

OilCityPickups said:

Personally I'm enough of an old punk (I was 17 in 1976) to not want what everyone else has ... so that gives a Feline the edge in my book :-)  My grandad was fond of saying: Don't copy other people, make others copy you. 

With you on that.  Main reason I don't want a sig guitar :-)

DrCornelius

Buy a Gibson if heritage and possible future ‘sellability’ is more important or buy the Feline if playability and supporting a smaller boutique outfit are bigger factors

Fortheloveofguitar

Feline all the way if you’re going to get something custom built and you’re definitely going to keep it. 

Musical_Mystery_Tour

Leaving aside stealing one as an option, actually it would be a bit more more 'punk' in the anti-establishment sense to get a Chibson, certainly cheaper if you just wanted a wallhanger lookalike, unless you considered the Chinese establishment too, in which case it woudn't be even remotely anti-establishment.

Steve Jones was pretty much going against the grain playing a Gibson; most punk bands had Columbus and Hondo copies, or if not, they had Melody Makers when you could get them cheap from second hand shops, which ironically, has now made them fairly expensive to get hold of.

These days, what would actually be more 'cred' in the punk sense, would be to get up on stage and blow people away whilst playing a sub-two hundred quid Jet, Harley Benton or whatever and not giving a toss about what logo was on the end of the thing. 

OilCityPickups

Roundwound said:

Not knocking Feline, Ivison etc etc.

But Mark Knopfler, Slash, Al DiMeola, Peter Frampton, Charlie Starr, Justin and Dan Hawkins, Jason Isbel and many more current touring artists way better than I’ll ever be still manage to make their shitty Gibsons sound decent and still manage to play them despite the awful ergonomics. Mabye the gulf between Gibson and Feline isn’t all that huge?

Not many of these acts are under 45 though and Frampton is 74 ... so is Knopfler ... younger folks ... of say Steve Jones age when he joined the Pistols go for Fender or PRS or Schecter or Ibanez  or any one of dozens of companies ... 

bertie

CHRISB50 said:

Jonathangus said:

Don't think Jon does custom orders any more.

He does according to the website

https://felineguitars.com/pages/custom-guitar-easy-payment-plan

why not ask him direct on here ?

ALR

The lion custom black beauty currently on the site is sweet! I’d have that over the gibbo any day of the week!

TDubs

OilCityPickups said:

SlopeSoarer said:

OilCityPickups said:

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

We all know there are plenty of guitars which play and sound better than Gibsons, but it's not really the point; you're never going to scratch that 'guitar hero of your youth' itch if you don't get yourself a '74 Gibson Custom, or at least something of a lookalike with a Gibson logo on the end of it. 

Bear in mind that in spite of appearances, the guitar in question wasn't originally cream, it was arctic white, but years of cig smoke had made it more cream in colour. Jones got it off Malcolm McClaren, who got it off Sylvain Sylvain when he was managing the NY Dolls as they imploded whilst making the Red Patent Leather album, whereupon he came to London with the intention to use the Dolls as the protoype for the Pistols. The stickers on the  Gibson were put on by Sylvain, but Jones left them there.

You can get repros of those stickers if you really wanted to go that far, as you can of the Our Lady of Sorrows sticker on fellow Doll Thunders' LP Junior.

But it won't be Steve Jones Les Paul  and you won't be a teenage Steve Jones. I have to say I really don't understand the "guitar hero of your youth' itch. To me that would be like giving up trying to be 'me' and settling for being a poor and aging impersonation of a famous teenager from my own teenage. 
Nope, the concept passes me by ... 

There's nothing like pissing on people's chips!

TDubs said:

SlopeSoarer said:

OilCityPickups said:

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

We all know there are plenty of guitars which play and sound better than Gibsons, but it's not really the point; you're never going to scratch that 'guitar hero of your youth' itch if you don't get yourself a '74 Gibson Custom, or at least something of a lookalike with a Gibson logo on the end of it. 

Bear in mind that in spite of appearances, the guitar in question wasn't originally cream, it was arctic white, but years of cig smoke had made it more cream in colour. Jones got it off Malcolm McClaren, who got it off Sylvain Sylvain when he was managing the NY Dolls as they imploded whilst making the Red Patent Leather album, whereupon he came to London with the intention to use the Dolls as the protoype for the Pistols. The stickers on the  Gibson were put on by Sylvain, but Jones left them there.

You can get repros of those stickers if you really wanted to go that far, as you can of the Our Lady of Sorrows sticker on fellow Doll Thunders' LP Junior.

But it won't be Steve Jones Les Paul  and you won't be a teenage Steve Jones. I have to say I really don't understand the "guitar hero of your youth' itch. To me that would be like giving up trying to be 'me' and settling for being a poor and aging impersonation of a famous teenager from my own teenage. 
Nope, the concept passes me by ... 

There's nothing like pissing on people's chips!

Piss 'n' chips

Nothing worse than too hot a chip ... I'm doing a public service :-)

With your mushy pee?

NCo

Getting a custom guitar doesn't mean it'll be the best fit for you, whether it's from Fender Custom Shop, Gibson Made to Measure, or any other guitar maker.

If you're spending a lot of money on a guitar, I think it's really important to try it out first. There are loads of choices out there from all sorts of brands, including Feline and Gibson. Since Gibson has made loads of guitars, you've got a better chance of finding one that you'll really love.

Jonathangus

bertie said:

CHRISB50 said:

Jonathangus said:

Don't think Jon does custom orders any more.

He does according to the website

https://felineguitars.com/pages/custom-guitar-easy-payment-plan

why not ask him direct on here ?

Do pay attention, 007... 

https://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/3805177/#Comment_3805177

Jonathangus

ALR said:

The lion custom black beauty currently on the site is sweet! I’d have that over the gibbo any day of the week!

That is pretty fine...

FelineGuitars

In the meantime the OP has had his eye on something else and mulled over and made a purchase.

We are grateful for the purchase and will have it all nicely set-up and awaiting dispatch to join his Lion Cub DC next week.

Thankyou for the positive praise folks - we have seen the resale of our guitars climbing in recent years which has been rewarding emotionally.

I think that there are some great Gibson guitars out there and enough on the marketplace to pick and choose one that is right for you. We love working on them and bringing out the best in them and having fun trying upgrades too.

Roundwound

OilCityPickups said:

Roundwound said:

Not knocking Feline, Ivison etc etc.

But Mark Knopfler, Slash, Al DiMeola, Peter Frampton, Charlie Starr, Justin and Dan Hawkins, Jason Isbel and many more current touring artists way better than I’ll ever be still manage to make their shitty Gibsons sound decent and still manage to play them despite the awful ergonomics. Mabye the gulf between Gibson and Feline isn’t all that huge?

Not many of these acts are under 45 though and Frampton is 74 ... so is Knopfler ... younger folks ... of say Steve Jones age when he joined the Pistols go for Fender or PRS or Schecter or Ibanez  or any one of dozens of companies ... 

“Gibson or Feline that is the question”

drphibes

Had a good chat with Jonathan at Feline this afternoon and decided to go with the 59 Amber that he has spoken about in this thread. I thank you all for the opinions and in the end I decided to let my head rule my heart and go for the sensible option. The wife totally agreed so that kind of gave me the go ahead to buy what will be a special guitar for me.

Looking forward to having it in my hands next week. 

elstoof

I’m sure it’ll be everything you wanted and more

guitaraj

drphibes said:

Had a good chat with Jonathan at Feline this afternoon and decided to go with the 59 Amber that he has spoken about in this thread. I thank you all for the opinions and in the end I decided to let my head rule my heart and go for the sensible option. The wife totally agreed so that kind of gave me the go ahead to buy what will be a special guitar for me.

Looking forward to having it in my hands next week. 

Great decision. I did the same at the end of last year. Always liked the idea of a Les Paul but consistently found (as a Strat player mainly) that I couldn’t get on with the weight, balance and a bunch of other things. 

Then, while I was down at Feline dropping off a purple Feline Panther (purchased on this forum) I tried a few of Jonathan’s Lion models. Effortless playability, wonderful balance and incredible details like the neck heel carve and tummy cut. I loved two of them and ended up taking home the Lion 30th Anniversary droptop #10 when I picked up the Panther. They are hands down my two favourite guitars to play. Really addictive. Should really do a belated NGD. 

My guess is that you’ll be very happy with the choice you made.

OilCityPickups

drphibes said:

Had a good chat with Jonathan at Feline this afternoon and decided to go with the 59 Amber that he has spoken about in this thread. I thank you all for the opinions and in the end I decided to let my head rule my heart and go for the sensible option. The wife totally agreed so that kind of gave me the go ahead to buy what will be a special guitar for me.

Looking forward to having it in my hands next week. 

You won't regret it ... stunning instruments ... I just regret we are coming to the end of an era. Buy em while you can! 

S56035

drphibes said:

Had a good chat with Jonathan at Feline this afternoon and decided to go with the 59 Amber that he has spoken about in this thread. I thank you all for the opinions and in the end I decided to let my head rule my heart and go for the sensible option. The wife totally agreed so that kind of gave me the go ahead to buy what will be a special guitar for me.

Looking forward to having it in my hands next week. 

As always, it'll be shite and I won't be in any way jealous :-D