Mike Bloomfield Prototype, Live in New York

If you're like us, you were wiping the drool off your chin looking at the gorgeous Gibson Custom Shop Mike Bloomfield Les Paul Prototype unveiled a few weeks ago at NAMM. And if you're in the New York area, you have a chance to see and hear this particular guitar in person at B.B. Kings on February 7th, played by Jimmy Vivino, according to Allen Bloomfield's blog. Allen Bloomfield is Mike's brother, and he is the rightful owner of the prototype Bloomfield Les Paul. It's cool that he's loaning out that beautiful Les Paul to do what it's meant to do. Jimmy Vivino will be performing at B.B. Kings to celebrate Al Kooper's birthday.

Jennifer Janesko's Pinup Art Guitars

We were just, you know, living the "Gibson Lifestyle" when we noticed this article about Pinup Artist Jennifer Janesko. Whaddya know? The guitar she calls "Video Vixen" (above) is currently consigned in our pre-owned section. It's a great looking guitar, in pictures and in person.

NAMM 09: Gibson Booth

The first stop for us each year at NAMM is upstairs where Fender and Gibson set up shop. We started with Gibson, who this year had a much larger room than last year which made for much easier viewing of the new stuff. Let's just get this out of the way: our favorite guitar in the room was this killer Michael Bloomfield Les Paul (above). Wow! A lot of attention in '09 will be paid to the 50th Anniversary 1959 Les Paul Reissues, which feature the first comprehensive revision to the specs (over 20 changes) since 2003:



The new '59s will be very limited, in both numbers and color. Only Cherry Sunburst and Dark Burst will be offered. We played a bunch at the booth and they feel great. They really were sweating the details to make this the most accurate reissue Les Paul they have ever produced. The soft V to the neck felt great, and, we didn't get to plug them in but we hear that the taper of the pots is finally just right. Contact us for a complete list of the updates to the entire Historic Les Paul line.

Here is a pretty new '59 335 Reissue:



And a Trini Lopez (with the trapeze tailpiece):



Another very cool Les Paul coming this year are the new '54 Oxblood Jeff Beck Les Pauls. They will be in both Signed/Replica and VOS trim, and the signed versions are coming back from London very soon, we hear. We'll have them! Have a look at the top-line replica on display in the booth:



Gibson spared no expense setting up a lavish interactive display for the Dark Fire Les Paul. The Dark Fire is essentially the second generation Robot Guitar, a self-tuning guitar that can store and instantly achieve alternate tunings. We spent a little time running one through it's paces, and we had a lot of fun. It's pretty cool to watch it instantly tune itself into an open G tuning, and then to dropped open D, and then... The Dark Fire:



Gibson Montana was showing in full force, with some cool signature guitars like this Elvis Costello:



Check out the mother-of-pearl fingerboard:



The acoustic Gibson that flat knocked us out was this 1942 J-45 Legend Special, a NAMM-only Special we'll be getting. It's made with hide glue just like the good ol' days, and sounded like a cannon going off: