Gear? Here!

What made that Nihilistics sound?

An unabashed gearhead, attuned to the equipment employed by my faves to get “that sound” (and inspired by Andy Babiuk’s gorgeous books covering Beatles and Rolling Stones gear), I thought I’d launch a series focussing on the guitars, amps and accessories I used in the Nihilistics… beginning with the most pivotal weapon in my arsenal.

Christmas 1976: Me & my Ibanez 2350

1976 Ibanez 2350-WH (Les Paul Copy)

My first “real” electric guitar was a Christmas ’76 gift from my grandmother, Evelyn DeBono (Nana). I use the modifier “real” because a few years prior, when Rodney (a family friend) repossessed the Harmony H48 Blonde Mercury Stratotone…

…I’d been relentlessly playing unplugged (he’d deposited it at our house, maybe because it was hot), Nana took pity and bought me my first electric guitar: a Kay copy of a Gibson SG…

Purchased from a chintzy music store in Roosevelt Field Mall, the cherry red Kay came with matching, equally shitty solid-state amp, all for $99. Equipping a budding guitarist with an inferior instrument that can’t be intonated, won’t stay in tune, has horrible action and is a struggle to play can derail them permanently. The Kay was Frustration Incarnate™, more toy than instrument, and its accompanying amp would’ve disintegrated if it got wet. I must’ve begged and pleaded with Nana for a second chance (“I can’t even PLAY this thing!”) and she took pity once more. By now, I’d fallen in love with Led Zeppelin and my goal was to get the same guitar Jimmy Page played:

I’d done my research in the pages of Guitar Player magazine and knew I was after a sunburst Gibson Les Paul… but had no idea how much one cost.

On a wet winter’s day Aunt Iz drove us in her brown Dodge Valiant to Sam Ash in Huntington Station. Sam Ash made my local music store, Music Land, look like a music store starter kit. It was crammed to the ceiling with guitars and I honed in on the object of my desire, bidding a salesman to bring me “That Les Paul.” In 1976 a sunburst Gibson Les Paul Standard sold for somewhere around $529: roughly $3,000 today. Nana took one look at the price tag and said Put it back. The salesman recognized a drop-sell situation when he saw one and immediately pointed out a quartet of Ibanez Les Paul copies…

1976 Ibanez Catalog – Page 4/5

…hanging high up on a wall.

We have these. They’re less than half what the Gibsons go for…

Shit. Ibanez?! I’d seen ads in Guitar Player but did Jimmy Page ever use one? No. Still. I’m not the one paying…

Ibanez was one of many brand names slapped on mass produced guitars cranked out by a few Japanese factories in the 1960s and ‘70s. Before innovating their own body styles and hardware, these manufacturers lifted the look (and patents) of established brands (Fender, Gibson, Gretsch, Martin, Rickenbacker, etc.), thoroughly undercutting them on price.

Do you have any like this?

I pointed to the sunburst Gibson he hadn’t yet rehung on the wall.

Oh, sorry, man. We’re out of that finish. I don’t know when we’ll get more. What we have is what you see up there.

(Unbeknownst to me, Ibanez had recently been sued by Gibson for duplicating their “open book” headstock design, giving rise to an overworked, generic title for any Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, etc., guitar copy: “lawsuit” guitars. Ibanez had already changed their headstock profile: in the next few years they’d move away from copies entirely. These may have been the last of the Ibanez 2350 Les Paul copies Sam Ash would ever get.)

Inspired by the guitar Bill Nelson cradles on the back cover of the Be-Bop Deluxe debut, Axe Victim…

…I pointed at my second choice.

Can I see the white one?

Unlike Bill Nelson’s Hoyer Les Paul copy, the Ibanez 2350-WH (designating “White”) featured gold hardware, which I wasn’t thrilled with. But after strumming the Ibanez through an amp, I realized it was light years above the Kay in quality and as close as I’d get, gear-wise, to Jimmy Page or Bill Nelson. Nana forked over $200 and we left Sam Ash with my prize, replete with that new guitar smell. The 2350 was so superior to its predecessor, within days I gleefully smashed the Kay to splinters against the wall of Southside Fish & Clam, down at the end of our block (and site of my first job: busser).

I quickly fell in love with my white Ibanez, playing it in my first band, Cobra, then subsequently transforming it to be more like Bill Nelson’s Hoyer via a series of modifications. First, I pulled out the iconic Super 70s pickups, desoldered and removed their gold-plated covers (I’m sure I read an article saying uncovered pickups were louder or some such shit) and reinstalled them. Then I swapped all the other gold-plated bits–bridge, tailpiece, tuners–for chrome versions (losing all the original hardware along the way). I also tracked down a chrome-plated metal pickguard and switch-surround (sometimes called a “poker chip”). Finally, Gibson speed (or “barrel”) knobs replaced the Ibanez “witch hat” knobs on the volume and tone controls. The 2350 accompanied me into the Nihilistics and is the guitar used through most of the band’s run, onstage and in the studio. Here it is on the back of our debut LP, held by a horrifically grimacing me:

In 1983, when my 1968 Gibson Les Paul (soon to be dubbed “Debbie”) fell in my lap, I stupidly sold the Ibanez and its hand-painted case (featuring the Nihilistics logo) to my next door neighbor, Lenny Castiglione. Like Bill Nelson selling his Hoyer, I came to regret letting go of the Ibanez. Unlike Bill Nelson, my white Les Paul copy and I will never be reunited. Since moving off Long Island in 1986 I’ve reached out to Lenny multiple times about my Ibanez, to no avail. He long ago sold my guitar to a friend, who took it to Florida, never to be seen again. Two years ago, while taking a ride past the house I grew up in, I randomly ran into Lenny. His mother had just died and he was cleaning up the family home to put it on the market. Lenny and I swapped contact info and a few days later I again reached out, leaving him a voicemail about a guitar I hadn’t set eyes on in 40 years. I never heard back. I’m sure Lenny was tired of giving me the same answer.

In the intervening years I’ve bought and sold many guitars (and will document Nihilistics-specific models here) but there’s only one I’d gladly buy back, price be damned. I’ve had a shot at other white Ibanez 2350s (there’s one on EBay right now), even came close to bidding on one, thinking I could trick myself into believing it was mine. But what would be the point of such transmogrification?

A dozen years ago, up in the attic of my childhood home (my brother and sister and I were clearing it out for sale), I found the sole surviving remnant of the one that got away: the box it came in. Tearing off the cardboard flap denoting its model and serial number, I discarded the rest of the box and stashed the scrap… just in case I cross paths with my white whale again.