1971 Gibson SG from Adalita

Here's another hire guitar you can all get your grubby mits on. This one holds a special place for me as it was owned by my friend Adalita from Magic Dirt.


I started doing work for the great Australian band Magic Dirt back in the early 2000's and quickly became good friends with them. I have done lots of work for them over the years including effects, guitars and speaker cabs as well as stage teching and just generally helping out when they tour. I consider them all to be very good friends.


A few years ago when Ad said she wanted to swap her old SG for some new gear for a big tour they had coming up, I couldn't believe it. I'd known this SG for years as Ad had toured with it relentlessly since buying it in San Fransisco in the early 90's when the band toured there on their first release. It was beaten and broken but I knew what a great guitar it was and it is a piece of Australian Rock 'n' Roll history.


This guitar has been at every recording session and tour Magic Dirt has done since buying it. I've fixed it several times over the years as anyone who has seen Magic Dirt will know Ad's not that kind to guitars. She treats them like tools to make noise, and it's a beautiful noise she makes on them.


This guitar is "mostly" original with pretty much just the tuners being replaced with Gotoh machines for reliability. The guitar has however, been broken quite a few times over the years, but it's still one of THE BEST SG's I've played. It has .......... something and that something is great. It has the typical early 70's thin neck and big headstock which I'm a fan of anyway. The neck feels "just right"


You'd think with being repaired so many times it wouldn't have the sustain or tone, but I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'd take a well repaired, great playing and sounding Gibson over an immaculate, non repaired average Gibson any day, and I have many times. To me a good repair doesn't effect tone or playability at all, just resale value, which I'm not interested in. Guitars are for playing, not trading on the stock market.


This guitar has been round the world and played but still shines through. This is a perfect example of those people who say "don't buy a 70's Gibson, they're all shit" or "it's had a headstock break, it's not worth anything" and I hear this ALL THE TIME. Every guitar, regardless of brand or year, must be taken on it's own merits.


When Ad was playing it it was covered in stickers and when she sent it up I opened the case and it was "clean" There was a lovely note inside about the guitar and how she'd taken all the stickers off and cleaned it for me. I was a little ......... disappointed because it was such an iconic guitar in the Australian music scene.

I've done lots of other work for Magic Dirt over the years so I'll do some stories on some other stuff I've done for them soon.

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