Remember that black Les Paul that Noel Gallagher was playing during Oasis’ stadium-filling reunion shows? Of course you do, it was the mystery electric guitar that got everyone talking, what was this thing?
And then Gibson launched a limited run of 25 Murphy Lab replicas in August, available exclusively via the Gibson Garage London. That Custom Shop special, built to Gallagher’s specifications, was no cheap date. It was a high-end electric guitar priced for the collector’s market.
Well, if you had FOMO about all that then, today should offer a measure of compensation because now you have the chance to buy one as Gibson has just added the Noel Gallagher Les Paul Standard to its regular lineup.
This is pretty much spit of the original Murphy Lab model minus the ageing – that you will have to do yourself – and the aged nickel hardware (which was apparently a tough nut to crack, even for the Gibson Custom Shop).
But this does have the dual P-90 electric guitar pickups, the chrome washer on the three-way pickup selector, chrome Grover Rotomatic tuners with the ‘kidney bean’ buttons, and the black ‘top hat’ control knobs with silver inserts.
And there’s something about those chrome housings on the P-90s that make it look kind of punk, edgy, and for want of a better word, cool. Lee Bartram, Gibson’s head of commercial and Marketing EMEA, says it is here by popular demand.
“This guitar is simply too iconic and cool not to be released more widely and made available for more fans to get their hands on,” he says. “Noel’s original Gibson Custom version of this Les Paul was the first guitar he played during the biggest rock ’n’ roll reunion of the 21st century. This Gibson USA version embraces that legacy, capturing a historic moment in British and global live music.”
It is also a signature guitar that doesn’t just sell itself to the artist’s fans. You do not need to be have a bucket hat and a Stone Island parka in your wardrobe to enjoy a full-fat Les Paul Standard with no weight relief and P-90s. We’d like to run this with a fuzz pedal and throw around some Leslie West riffs, or tune it down and see how it sounds.
If you prefer a thinner Les Paul neck, you’ll find a kindred spirit in Gallagher. This has the SlimTaper profile, giving it that ‘60s LP feel.
Elsewhere, it’s as you were: ABR-1 bridge with Tune-o-matic stop-bar tailpiece, 12” rosewood fingerboard, 22 medium-jumbo frets, acrylic trapezoid inlays, the 24.75” scale length... It’s a Les Paul. You know the drill.
It's finished in gloss nitro, Ebony with cream binding, and it comes in hard-shell guitar case, with a relatively normal Gibson USA Les Paul price tag of £2,699/$2,699.
The Noel Gallagher Les Paul Standard is available now. See Gibson for more details, and if that price is still too steep, don't lose hope. It is not outwith the realms of possibility that Gallagher's Les Paul Standard is released as an Epiphone guitar, too. It has been known to happen.
