February Birthdays 
Not sure how many Pink Floyd fans are on here, and there is zero surf content in this post but as you may or may not know, David Gilmour is auctioning off a large portion of his guitar collection 100% for charity through Christie's on thursday.
I had the rare and incredible opportunity to closely examine and plug in and play several of his iconic guitars. Our bass player made it happen, and we made a band field trip out of it.
We were allowed to pick which guitars we wanted to check out, and what an amazing selection to choose from!
First up, one of the most incredible guitars I've ever had in my hands,
One of the very first Stratocasters ever made, serial number 0001 !!
This guitar is a 1954 pre-production prototype gifted by Leo Fender to Rex Gallion - the musician that suggested that Fender put contours on the body. This guitar was used for the rhythm track of "Another Brick in the Wall" It's without a doubt the best playing guitar I've ever touched! It sounded out of this world too, it really sings. I was completely blown away by it. Absolutely smokes any guitar I've ever played!!!
Next up, the star attraction, the legendary Black Strat:
This is THE guitar that recorded "Dark Side of the Moon"!
It's a 1969 strat with a later replacement neck and pickgaurd. It features prominently on most of Floyd's 70's output, and can be heard on the radio several times a day all over the world. It was used for "Meddle", "Dark Side of the Moon", "Wish You Were Here", "Animals", "The Wall", and can be seen in the "Live at Pompeii" film. I can't really express what a totally surreal experience it was to play this guitar, I've heard it most of my life. It plays and sounds wonderful. Of course I couldn't resist and played a couple of Coffin Daggers songs on it...
Here it is on the stand next to a Vox guit-organ, and a 1950 Broadcaster
The Broadcaster was another amazing axe. It felt so good and almost plays itself, absolutely effortless. It sounds incredible too! So musical and full. I'm not a Tele guy, but this one made a believer out of me.
The Vox Guit-organ has the electronics from a Vox Continental organ built in and sensors on each fret. It's practically unplayable because of the super thick aluminum neck. I didn't plug this in as it needed a special cable to connect to it's power supply, but I always wanted to see one in person anyway.
I also got to check out these three super cool instruments:
A 1955 all gold front and back Les Paul that was used for the solo on "Another Brick in the Wall" it has a stop tailpiece, a 1953 goldtop with a Bigsby vibrato, and a 63 Hofner violin bass.
I decided to play freddy King's "Hideaway" on the 55 goldtop as I felt that was appropriate.
The Hofner bass weighs only around 3 or 4 pounds and is incredibly easy to play
Here's our drummer Alex watching me play the '53 (probably pondering his choice of instrument)
Some guitars I didn't get to play but are part of the auction:
A very early 1959 Jazzmaster, and a 1954 sunburst strat
Here's me and Coffin Daggers Organist Rob Morrison with a couple of guitars we're not worthy of being in the same room with, let alone play!
Enormous thanks and gratitude to our bass player Peter for pulling the right strings and making this happen. Much respect to Mr. Gilmour for his great and charitable genorosity. The money raised by this auction will surely do a world of good. It was a mind blowing experience to be able to play all these great instruments in one day. I mean forget who owns them, just the historical value in and of themselves alone is overwhelming. They really put some kind of special voodoo into those 1950's guitars!
https://www.facebook.com/coffindagger
http://coffindaggers.com/
http://thecoffindaggers.bandcamp.com
Last edited: Jun 17, 2019 18:36:37
