Reconciliation

Once upon a time, I had my mind set on a gold top Les Paul. It was a '57 reissue & available at Swee Lee's Bras Basah branch (the unit is now occupied by Art Friend's rear extension). I tried it in store twice just to confirm it was what I wanted but that fat neck made me re-consider my options. At that point in time, Ibanez & Fender were what I was used to & those neck profiles were nothing close to what the '57 felt like. Then the PRS happened.

At that point in time, Davis GMC was still fresh with the PRS dealership & there was a McCarty in store but it was flame-y & sunburst-y which was not my thing. I like flat colours & embraced a non-distracting top early. My idea of owning a guitar is one that would propel my talent & artistry, not something that distracts others from my incompetence. Playability & tone above all else; it's like this from the start.

The LP consideration was called off because my wife-to-be back then offered to get the McCarty for me if it could be customized to my specs & that was an easy feat for Davis GMC to handle. I have no further custom specs in mind as I already liked how the McCarty plays & sounded so I opted for a gold finish as the only 'custom' option. Back then, the McCarty was indeed offered in a gold finish but limited to its P90 version (above). I finally took ownership of this guitar in 2003, it didn't make it on time for the wedding.

Sixteen years on, the gold top Les Paul made it to the fold. I avoided getting one any earlier because the price was just wrong. One would have thought that a gold top would continue to manifest an inflated price tag but the Gibson CEO change in 2018 led to a deserving price cut. I see this as the coming of age; I couldn't erase the gold top memory totally. Some distractions happened along the way but handling the gold top way back then left a haunting mark on me. It became a bucket list item & rightly re-visited now when I am more financially stable to review what I missed. It took a while to understand that one instrument could not be a perfect replacement for another.