Epiphone SG Special

I’ve never really liked Gibson guitars, or SGs. One, SGs just look completely rediculous to me. Two, they are really expensive. And three, everyone I know that has an SG, has broken it. From cables pulling out on stage and ripping the jack out of the wood, to headstocks just popping off, its not a confidence inspiring thing to spend a lot of money on. Then there’s the headstock heavy aspect of them, the way the headstock pulls the G and D strings to cause binding in the nut…

So when I played a used Epiphone SG Special, which is pretty much the cheapest SG epiphone makes, and loved it, I was surprised. It was light, played great, and didnt seem fragile. It also had a bolt on neck, and was $50. So I took it home, hit it with the belt sander to remove it’s horrible gloss finish, took out the neck pickup because I don’t need it, and I had myself a pretty decent guitar.

Did it play great? No. Did it stay in tune? not really. But was it better than ANY SG I had ever played? yep.