Gibson Les Paul BFG Review
By MNJ
| Posted in Guitar
The Gibson Les Paul BFG is an extraordinary-looking guitar, there’s no denying the fact. You either want to pretend you’ve never clapped eyes on it, or you want to grab it and find out just what the designers at Gibson were on when they decided to green-light this peculiarity for production. It would be easier to list which features it doesn’t have rather than the ones it does. The BFG has no binding anywhere and no figured top. There are no pickup rings, no truss rod cover, no toggle switch rings, no fretboard position indicators – dots on the side only – and it has wooden knobs that have no numbers. The top looks like a junior woodwork project – uneven, unsanded, distressed and just odd. Everything that could be messed with has been - the perfect example of a product designed by committee where everybody has at least one favourite feature included, just to keep proceedings totally democratic. It’s an oddball alright, but strangely attractive at the same time. It does have some redeeming visual qualities – it looks mean, aggressive almost, and using a car analogy, if a Les Paul Custom is a Merc, the BFG is a banger car. It’s a guitar that’s been stripped back to the bare essentials – two volumes and one tone knob control the high-powered Burstbucker 3 pickup in the bridge and a P-90 in the neck. The traditional toggle has been rewired as a kill switch, while a mini-toggle by the volume knobs covers pickup selection. The wiring in the control and switch cavities is on view – courtesy of clear perspex covers – and the bridge and tailpiece have a tarnished finish, all adding to the ‘scrapyard’ feel.
The BFG Les Paul feels light, the chambered body giving the instrument yet another un-Les-Paul-like feature, but it’s balanced well and as soon as I’d picked it up, I could feel that the guitar was gagging to be plugged in to make some rock noise. The neck is a good 50′s style handful and the lack of fingerboard dots is disconcerting at first but I was soon finding my way around. The P-90 neck pickup was very smooth indeed when clean but with an edge of overdrive dialed in, proved it would be gutsy enough for any siuation. The zebra-humbucker Burstbucker was hot, and produced some fat-sounding tones through my Orange Tiny Terror test amp. The guitar comes with a Gibson Shopworn hardcase.
This particular sample is a one-off and is signed by Les Paul on the headstock in silver, hence the hefty price tag. However, this little rock and roll beasty is a fine guitar, and as long as you manage to preserve the hand-written logo, the Gibson Les Paul BFG should become a niche collectors item in the future.
Tags: les paul bfg