Gas Supply
Our pick of the month’s most delectable and wallet-bothering new gear
That’s a very nice-looking Gibson jumbo!
As the product name suggests, this is the Gibson Noel Gallagher J-150, a signature electro-acoustic for a mildly mannered singer-songwriter whose work you might be familiar with. It’s a tribute to Noel’s Vintage Sunburst J-150 – the acoustic he’s used on stage as well as a go-to songwriting tool. You might also recognise it from Oasis’s Little By Little video. We’ve heard rumblings about this guitar for the past couple of years, and now it’s finally here, released as a 200-unit limitededition model.
So, what’s the, ahem, story behind the original guitar?
Noel chanced upon his original J-150 in a guitar shop. “It was just hanging up and I picked it up and I did this [plays an open E chord], which is what I always do. ‘I’ll take it!’” he told Gibson. “The guy started laughing and said, ‘Do you want a plectrum?’ I was like, ‘Nah, it feels fucking great. I instantly fell in love with that guitar. When I think back now to the songs I’ve written and the time I’ve spent holding [the J-150], whether it be on stage or in hotel rooms or at home… I mean, it becomes part of you. There’s just something about it. I find it very, very easy to write songs on this guitar.”
How close is the signature to Noel’s?
We’ll let the man himself make that call. “I was shocked,” he says. “[The signature model] looks like it looked the day that I bought [the original]. When Gibson brought the prototype down and I saw it there on the floor I was like, ‘It looks the bollocks, man.’ But then it sounded exactly like mine – I was blown away! The back of this looks better than the back of mine. To me, that makes me want to pick it up and do something with it.”
So, how is the J-150 different from an SJ-200, then?
Good question! The J-150 takes its super jumbo outline and most of its spec sheet from the SJ-200. In fact, the main difference is cosmetic, with the J-150 originally launched as a stripped-back alternative (yes, this is ‘stripped back’) to the classic Super Jumbo. Here, you get a lot of the recognisable visuals of the SJ-200: solid
Sitka spruce top, AA maple back and sides, moustache bridge (two-bar rather than four-bar), mother-ofpearl crown fretboard and headstock inlays, and that distinctive floral engraved scratchplate (in this case, borderless). The main touches that have been removed are the SJ-200’s neck and headstock binding, and the back stripe.
You said it’s an electro? So, what’s under the bonnet?
That would be a rather nice LR Baggs Anthem mic/ piezo and preamp section. The TruMic part is mounted around 3mm underneath the bridge and works sort of like a boundary mic to give a sound that Baggs reckons is comparable to an externally mic’d studio acoustic tone. This combines with the Element under-saddle piezo and Anthem preamp – which is mounted under the soundhole and complete with blend, volume, phase inversion and mic trim controls – for some versatile options.
I’ve clocked the price tag…
Make no mistake, this is a premium guitar that has been designed to be pretty much indistinguishable from Noel Gallagher’s. The limited run means these aren’t likely to hang around, and if the Epiphone Supernova from the 90s is anything to go by, we imagine these guitars will become a collectible investment in years to come. That said, we’re hopeful that at least some of these models will see some action, and possibly create some anthems of their own. The package is clearly aimed at fans with the inclusion of a custom case, signed label, Adidas sticker and reproduction Little By Little lyric sheet. [SW]