Meet The New Boss

[albertjohn]

Enjoy

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5yymadwxj8

[Gilliangirl]

This is one of those videos that makes me think I should take up lawn bowling. AMAZING! Favourited!

[BigKahune]

The new boss is indeed the old boss!

 

Now that's how you handle a big a$$ J-200. Big dynamics - quiet articulation to thunderingly aggressive strumming.

 

Pete's the boss man! B)

[E-minor7]

Pete Townshend got himself a J-200 in 1968, that he more than liked.

 

"I picked it out from about five at Manny's in New York. It had a crisp sound and an easy neck. It was only later I found how well the J-200 records when you play it hard. Like the Everly acoustic, it has a rather dead soundboard and that allows you to really dig in when strumming. They are hard to bring to life with piezo pickups because the sound is so distinctive in real air, but the body shape, the necks and the sheer strength of the guitar are all very important to me. They also look utterly beautiful." Townshend 2004.

 

It followed him for many years, but suddenly in the later 80'ties disaster struck. 2 witnesses recall the situation slightly different :

 

"I don't have romantic misconceptions about musical instruments — they're just wood, probably far more useful as pulp than anything else. There areactually a couple of instruments that I would miss, and in fact a weird thing happened to the J-200 that I've had for a long time. Half way through Iron Man it got wet in the studio and exploded, and it was almost like the guitar getting back at me — the only guitar I cared about dying on me!" Townshend, 1990.

 

"So I went over to Eel Pie and met him. Pete asked one of his engineers to get hisGibson J200 and when he opened the case the guitar just snapped: thebridge flew off! … I said, See that Pete; you just look at a guitar and it just smashes itself up! This must tell you something!" Steve 'Boltz' Bolton, 1994 (co-guitarist during the period).

You can actually hear the guitar if you search the sub-line on the video above. He plays Won't Get Fooled Again in that old clip too. Don't know, but

it sounds a bit richer in tone – then again there's a second guitarist. The story goes the

J-200 never refound itself and ended at some museum.