Denmark St: Got anything in purple velour?

[Hot_Grits]

Hi all,

Was over in England for a bit of this:



...and managed to get to a few shops. Denmark street was pretty cool, apparently not what it once was but still plenty of decent shops with good secondhand and vintage. Picked up this:



-It's a 2007 'guitar of the week special run 50s neck LP in Antique burst. Chambered and very light, rings like a bell.

Didn't take a lot of pics this time, but a few things stood out:

World's best repair shop name:



Really sweet (and well priced) Canadian teles:



And this fabulous purple velour tremoverb. Good luck selling that, guys:



One shop that really impressed me was Vintage and rare, 50 metres away from our airb'n'b in Shoreditch. demo amp was a very sweet tweed deluxe:



Brown!



Check out that V front Super:



Ex-Jimmy Page:



Clearly a house amp:



Sweet maple neck 12:



Cropper approved converted Esquire:



..And that's all I got. I'll finish up with a nice pic of a dodo from the natural history museum:

[Zaulkin]

Awesome guitar cabinet things. Looks like a good trip

[kdawg2a]

I loved that street and Vintage and Rare when I used to live there. That was pretty much my weekly weekend pilgrimage.

[Hot_Grits]

I loved that street and Vintage and Rare when I used to live there. That was pretty much my weekly weekend pilgrimage.

I'd heard it was in bad shape but still plenty of nice stuff and the shops are cool. Still lots of independents. Prices were ok, too.

London is a bit annoying for new gear as a lot of it is a train ride to the wops. I wanted to look at the Cornford guy's new Victory amps but couldn't be arsed traipsing to Guildford. Not surprising though, I'm sure ground rent in Soho is horrifying.

[Bg]

That Mesa clearly used to belong to Murph and the Magitones.... Some awesome tweed stuff there, off for a quick hand shandy....

[Rog]

WTF? You had a chance to get a purple velour Mesa and you passed? Are you fucking mad? That would match my suit so well...

[bender]

All that Tweed and Brownface... Horrible.

[GrantB]

Cheers for the photos.

What was the stand-out for that '07 Les Paul that meant you had to get it?

[Bg]

WTF? You had a chance to get a purple velour Mesa and you passed? Are you fucking mad? That would match my suit so well...

yeah baby...

[Danger Mouse]

It was cool enough when I first went back in '92, although as I considered a USA Jackson Soloist to be a dream guitar at the time I didn't appreciate that one shop had a genuine 50-something Les Paul and a couple of pre-CBS strats on the wall behind the counter.

The GFC hammered it hard though, cool was replaced by cheap, mass-produced lines, but thankfully it meant most shops survived.

[Olderama]

Great photos mate

[Hot_Grits]

Cheers for the photos.

What was the stand-out for that '07 Les Paul that meant you had to get it?

Been looking for a player-grade lightweight Les Paul with a fat neck for a while, and struck out on my Paris and Chicago trips. The shops in Denmark St had three, including a chambered R8 and a 2007 std. There were some R9s that weren't too heavy but heavier than I wanted.

The CR8 was very nice, as was the '07 standard -I was close to buying that one. I was in Wunjo and the store guy handed me the GOTW. After a quick blat on the shop floor into a Fender amp he took me upstairs and grabbed a 60s Marshall 18 watter. He also grabbed a 65 non-reverse firebird (perfect brightness -you would have loved it) and a Jimmy Page sig les paul on consignment from the guy from Reef. All the guitars sounded great but I kept coming back to the GOTW -it had all the nice Les paul tone things going on but was very balanced, even and articulate compared to the Page, which had almost too much midrange. I haggled it down to a very nice price, too.

Been playing it non-stop since I got back. Sounds killer though all my amps and pedals and really feels lively -louder and more ringy than your average LP when played unplugged. In comparison to an excellent custom shop or vintage Les Paul it's probably a tiny touch less fatter sounding and the sustain isn't endless, though still very good. If I was being even pickier I'd say the neck isn't the fattest 50s neck I've played and I'd have preferred a solid colour or plaintop. But those are minor compromises for a guitar that plays and tracks great and weighs less than everything in my racks bar the Adrian Korina snakehead tele.

Wunjo had another standout -a Fender Telesonic. Sounded fantastic and I was tempted, but had a skinny Am std-style neck and they wanted more than the LP cost.

[Molly]

Thanks for the pics. Interesting stuff.

Wasn't Shaftsbury Avenue another one full of guitar shops? Not being a Southern Softie I never ventured further south than Birmingham so am not sure. I used to go to Electro in Doncaster. Proper Naaaaarthen guitar shop tha knows.

[Hot_Grits]

Thanks for the pics. Interesting stuff.

Wasn't Shaftsbury Avenue another one full of guitar shops? Not being a Southern Softie I never ventured further south than Birmingham so am not sure. I used to go to Electro in Doncaster. Proper Naaaaarthen guitar shop tha knows.

Dunno. Hadn't heard of Shaftbury.

Lucked onto the place in Shoreditch, which turned out best visit of the lot. But mostly it seems most other shops are the better part of an hour away by train.

Passed through Birmingham on the way to Libpool in a bus (trains flooded out). looked pretty average -the kind of place you'd invent heavy metal in.

Liverpool was surprisingly nice.

[Bg]

Thanks for the pics. Interesting stuff.

Wasn't Shaftsbury Avenue another one full of guitar shops? Not being a Southern Softie I never ventured further south than Birmingham so am not sure. I used to go to Electro in Doncaster. Proper Naaaaarthen guitar shop tha knows.

Shaftesbury Avenue is full of theatres and cinemas isn't it? You're not even a real northener, jesus I could throw my pie crusts over hadrian's wall.