SG John
Ambassador of Cool Guitars and Amps.
It was built by my friend Brian Kavanagh who goes by Javamagic on EverthingSG. He built the guitar around 2008 when he wasn't working and had time to kill. I was probably his biggest fanboy when he was building it. I had visited him at his home in Ireland where I had the chance to play the guitar for several days, along with some of his other guitar and amplifier builds. We also get together often when I visit London as he was living south of London with his brother because work is so difficult for him to find in Ireland. Now that he's retired, he's trying to stay in Ireland.
Before one of my visits, he asked about the ability for me to bring a guitar back into the states from England. I thought nothing of it as he said one of his distant cousins lives not far from me, and he had been begging Java to build him a guitar. I thought I would be transporting a guitar for him because we always buy stuff and ship to each other's houses, then I'd usually transport them.
When we met for our usual day out that starts at Foyle's Book Store, then through every guitar shop on Denmark Street, and then ending at The Angel Pub in St. Giles, he was carrying a Gibson case. I found that odd because he said he was going to give his cousin one of his Tele builds to shut him up. When he asked if I wanted to see what I was bringing back with me, I was completely floored. I was in a state of shock for a few days. I had always said I would love to make him a non-insulting offer for it, and never thought it would really ever be mine.
He said it didn't like the damp environment of southwest Ireland, and thought it may like New England better. It's a fantastic guitar. It needs a bit of work, as I have been on the road too much over the last several years for work, and way behind on things in my own life.
It's funny that most of the pictures on the internet of John's guitar are actually this one. Susan Tedeshi even posted it on her page. I had to let her and fans know that it was actually a copy. The big give-away is the control knobs. The real one has Mercury head dimes, as John was a Virgo. Virgos are governed by Mercury, and Quicksilver is a metaphor for the element mercury. There were four Virgos in Quicksilver Messenger Service. However, if you look closely, there are Irish 5p coins on my (Brian's) guitar. The head of the coin has a bull, which was used for the volume controls. The tail of the coin has a harp, which is used for the tone control.
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I'm going to keep looking, it just hasn't been a priority lately. I also want one with P90s, or even a Jr with a single P90. I've never seen either one of those out in the wild.
