Guitar Story #16: Gibson Billie Joe Armstrong Les Paul…
Details
- 2006 Gibson BJA Les Paul Junior
- Year Purchased: 2007
- Price Paid: $900.00
- Notes: my #1 live guitar for many years
This was a Guitar Center “Impulse Buy” and the only guitar I ever bought from them. I went in for strings and saw it sitting on a guitar stand by the checkout. I picked it up and loved the weight and the vintage vibe. The neck had a sizable bow in it so I asked for a truss rod wrench. I straightened the neck out and played it for a few moments before asking the dude how much. I ended up getting it for quite a bit less than retail with a gig bag because it had been sitting on the floor for awhile (the bow in the neck most likely didn’t help).
It’s a 2006 Gibson Billie Joe Armstrong Les Paul Junior. I really didn’t know much about it at the time other than it was WAY closer to a 50s Junior than the standard Gibson Junior and was a fraction of the price of the Custom Shop Junior.
Other than the bowed neck which I fixed in the shop it was setup pretty well from the factory. What I did though was – filed and polished the fret ends to make them feel more like an old guitar, replaced the wraparound which was doing a sitar thing on the g string, and bypassed the stupid bottom coil in the worthless H90 pickup – that made it essentially a P90 which should be the ONLY pickup in these guitars.
The first winter I stored the guitar under the bed in its case. One particularly cold day I opened the case and the top of the guitar turned milky white and cracked all over. Not the gentle weather checking you see on 50s examples but the PAUL STANLEY mirror guitar type of checking. It still looks cool. The bridge studs and wraparound have worn considerably after probably years of gigging so the whole thing looks old.
I have since learned that these guitars had different runs, with this 2006 example being the first. They were supposed to come with a leopard skin lined case but this one didn’t. A lot of people freak out over that case.
This 2006 Gibson Les Paul Junior has done me well in the 13 years that I’ve had it. It has been my #1 live guitar since I got it. It is effortless to play and impossible to make sound bad.