1985 Gibson Les Paul Custom

This was the first Les Paul I've ever owned

In 1985 I was in Los Angeles shopping for Les Pauls, and I went to the Guitar Center in Torrance where I saw a nice Cherry Sunburst Standard.  The sales guy originally said it would go for around $1,000, then he sleazily changed the price to something much higher.  That was my first bad experience at Guitar Center.

Next, I went over to Amendola's Music.  The shop was small and a lot less ritzy than Guitar Center, and came highly recommended by my Uncle David.  They had two Les Paul Customs there, a black one and a white one, and they were both priced at around $1,000.  I opted to pick up the white one you see here, primarily because Randy Rhoads also played one.

Mr. Amendola, while I was sitting in the shop, brought out an incredible early 50s Telecaster and put it in my hands.  Though I still didn't know that much about guitars at that point, I knew that he put something really special (and expensive) in my hands.  I wish I had the cash to purchase that guitar.  I think it was something like $2500 at the time.  Of course now they are worth 5 figures easily.

I brought this guitar back home to Hawaii and started playing it.  There were several reasons I didn't like it.  First of all, the guitar was really heavy as most Customs are.  Second, the frets were way too low, making bending harder.  The G string went out of tune quite a bit.  The pickups were microphonic and squealed really easily.  The quality of the guitar was mediocre at best.  One of the inlays seemed cracked and glued back in.  The pickup ring broke.

I attempted to sell it at a few Musician's Swap Meets, and the exposure to the sun really yellowed this guitar.  I ended up trading it to a guy on eBay for a PRS Custom 22 sometime around the late 90s.