When I saw the shot from Camp Bestival with the Airline guitar and again yesterday with the pedal board picture, I thought it might be interesting to try and compile a list of the gear Polly has played over the years. She has used some cool instruments. Might be some guess work involved but thats half the fun.
Mic’s
Shure 57’s
"Working For The Man" mic
Spoiler! :
Strings
Baldwin Era Gretsch Broadkaster
Spoiler! :
Gibson Firebird VII
Spoiler! :
Sunburst Fender Jaguar
Spoiler! :
1967 Black Fender Telecaster (borrowed from JP during her early career)
Spoiler! :
Mid 60’s Black Fender Telecaster (bought in 2000 when she received the Mercury Prize)
Spoiler! :
Blue Fender Telecaster
Spoiler! :
Sunburst Fender Telecaster
Spoiler! :
Early Fender Precision Bass
Spoiler! :
Autoharp
Spoiler! :
Gretsch Jet Firebird
Spoiler! :
White Airline
Spoiler! :
Effects
The Vocal Pedal: BOSS DS1 Distortion & DD5 Delay, in Custom Housing (?)
Here's another pic of her pedal board, not sure which year. These are mostly or all Boss pedals, I can make out a delay and a tremelo. As one would expect.
I know she has something seperate to the Yamaha QY20 which is like a drum machine im quite sure. I noticed it when i saw her last year. You can see it in the pic of her with the Airline guitar aswell. I think she uses it for the drum beat in Angelene/My Beautiful Leah when playing solo. And she uses the QY-20 for the bass synth riff in My Beautiful Leah.
As for her new guitar. It's not rare. At all actually. It's just an Eastwood Airline '59 w/ custom 3 pickups, which anyone can buy new, and for a very decent price. I was interested in one a year or so back.
And i know that her black Tele's are tuned to drop D. Based on all the songs she uses it for. How did you find out about the year models of the Tele's...? Was there an article about it somewhere? To me they look like they are relatively recent, unless they are superbly looked after guitars which seems odd for people who tour so extensively.
To Hell and High Water, most of the pedals in that picture are Ibanez (or Maxon). The only Boss pedals there are the DM-2 on the far right, and TR-2 on the far left. And the one in front of the TR-2 which is hidden of quite well, but it's a Boss design, and white, so probably a Boss DD-3, DD-5, or DD-6. I have a feeling that's not her board because there is too much on there for what she does. Analog delay? Tremolo? A bunch of vintage Ibanez pedals? Seems like someone else who played for her. I could very well be wrong though.
And don't forget there is a Harmonic in her instrument collection aswell :P
Pedals can all kinda look very similar, especially Boss, Ibanez and Maxon. But based on the controls looks and position, the placing of the input and output jacks, and the on/off switches, they are very different. Even though these pics don't show the exact same effects as the one in the picture, the various Ibanez pedals here are from the same series as some of the Ibanez pedals in the Polly pic.
I can see the difference in the stomp pads now. That photo is from one of two shots, the other is of Polly's show. I suppose someone made a leap thinking they were related that way.
Here's the shoe picture, I just installed a spoiler feature and want to try it out!
Spoiler! :
The author of this had a link to a sample, but the web site was down due to a *shudder* database error. So it made me a little nervous, but it seems to work!
DrDark wrote:^ I don't think they're Polly's pedals. I vaguely remember us talking about that (2004) pic and deciding they were Josh Klinghofer's.
Yeah i remember that now. I thought they looked like someones elses.
Also, Polly's new Eastwood Airline is the same as what Jack White uses. Except his is red and only has two pickups.
You sure about the eastwood thing? I know the first one JW played was real (with the missing pickup). Maybe the other one he plays is a copy, don't know. I honestly don't think the one Polly is playing is an Eastwood.
Opened a big ass can of worms with this thread didn't I
Last edited by bluesman on Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
Well i can't be 100% sure, but based on appearance they are identical in every way...
That's the Eastwood Airline '59 with 3 pickups. I don't see what else it could be. There are different versions of this guitar from the Eastwood company. Pj's and JW are some of them. Even the writing along the headstock is the same, so it seems pretty safe to say that Peej's new guitar is the one in the picture. Unless there is a more close-up shot that shows otherwise.
Would love to know for sure but yeah I guess it could be one of Eastwoods.
Jack's is a little off topic but it's a '65
Jack: "I would never buy a brand new guitar off the rack. I always want something that has some soul to it.
Jack: I got my first one from Jack Oblivian. Jack Yarber is his name, and he's in a band called the Oblivians, from Memphis. He was playing in Detroit, and I went backstage. He said, "Hey, look at this guitar that I got." And he opened the case, and I was like, "Oh, man! That's amazing! That's......my color!" And it's plastic. I love it so much!" And he said, "It's for sale. I wanna get an Airline with three pickups." I had, like, 200 bucks or something. [laughs] Can't get 'em for 200 bucks anymore
"Jack White has a favorite guitar: a 1965 Airline model, made out of fiberglass called Res-O-Glas. In the Sixties, you could buy one in a Montgomery-Ward catalog for $99.95. But finding it today is difficult--unless you're the biggest White Stripes fan in the world. In late August, New York native Frank Anselmo discovered White's preferred ax on eBay. Without hesitating, he snapped it up for a whopping $3,000. But Anselmo also knew that White's '65 Airline had been looking pretty bad at recent gigs. 'It was missing parts,' he recalls. So he tracked White down and offered to give him the guitar. After viewing e-mailed photos of the Airline, the Whtie Stripes frontman agreed to meet up. Backstage at a Stripes show in New York's Roseland Ballroom, Anselmo presented his gift. 'Jack was speechless,' Anselmo says. 'Then he whispered in my ear, 'Frank, when I was a little boy and I did something good, my dad would say, 'Jackie, you're a gentleman and a scholar.''"
Last edited by bluesman on Mon Aug 24, 2009 8:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Yeah that's a pretty good read. I do remember hearing that Eastwood started manufacturing Airlines based on some old guitars after JW made them famous again. So there is a chance that PJ's is one of the rare, original models, but going on the condition it appears to be in, it's either an extremely well looked after vintage guitar, or it's an Eastwood. I would put my money on it being an Eastwood, but that i can't say for certain.
All that other information seems spot on. I didn't even know she had that many Tele's. It would be interesting to know what kind of mic she used for some songs back in '95, ie. Working For the Man @ Glastonbury. The sound coming from that thing is damn amazing.
Just to clarify, i don't consider myself an expert in these areas nor do I think we will come up with The Definitive Guide to PJ's Gear. I've seen some guitar/effects topics pop up once in awhile and thought it would be nice to toss it all in one thread. Maybe kick around some ideas about whats what or ask questions. Have to admit I get excited seeing her with a new guitar. At the very least we end up with some pics of her playing different instruments. Maybe linking up the black tele's to pics isn't a good idea, just because she was using one of John's back in the day certainly doesn't mean she's holding it in the pic at Peels place. Interesting quotes though, makes me wonder what else was discussed in that GP article.
I've also wondered about that mic from '95 by the way.
Thanks Hell!
I take it this the Gretsch Jet Firebird Dan was talking about in that thread? Don't know much about them (as he tries the new spoiler button)
Polly's Gear Thread
