With regard to wood, finishes, pickups and SOUND

George Harrison and John Lennon bought Epiphone 335's (don't know the Epi name for them, Tivoli? Emporer?). George said he and John stipped the finish off of them leaving the bare wood and that they sounded much better.

OK.

Keith Richards said you could give him ANY guitar to play and any amp to play it through and he would still sound like Keith Richards. He insisted that the sound came from his hands.

OK.

Stanley Clark said that after a Fillmore gig in SF Rick Turner (then with Alembic) came up to him and told him he was a great player but his sound was horrible. Rick turned Stanley onto the advancements that Alembic was making with active electronics. Stanley has since been with Alembic. Of course, Phil Lesh and Jack Cassidy were already using Alembic electronics in their heavily modified Guild Starfires.

OK.

John Entwhistle, well...they didn't call his amplification set up "Little Manhatten" for nothing. And how about those Rotosounds? You do realize that if it weren't for John wanting his bass to sound more piano like we'd all be playing flats (no offense to you flat wound players). And those Fenderbirds? He used those at the time because he couldn't get enough treble out of the standard P-basses he had been using. He too would switch to Alembic after picking up a used Series 1 (due to the electronics). Of course, his last bass was a completely graphite Status Buzzard. He said he didn't miss the wood sound AT ALL. Have any of you seen or heard his bass solo from the Royal Albert Hall DVD from five or so years ago?

So, what's my point? Simply that if it feels good, DO EET. The pursuit of sound, be it from your electronics, guitar material, strings, amplifiers, callouses, what have you, is one of the great joys of playing an electric instrument, because, let's face it, we are not limited in the way that acoustic players (strings, winds, brass, percussion) are. We are total geeks about it, constantly tweaking, blending, debating and pursuing our muse.