Al di looks like Bruce Willis these days. So yeah, not cool. And he was way cooler back in the Les Paul days.
I was watching an Eagles DVD the other night (yeah, I'm uncool too) and I kept drooling over a guitar that Joe Walsh was playing. At first I assumed it was a PRS (he was playing a PRS Hollowbody too, changes guitar after every song ;)) but it turned out to be a Carvin. I actually think the Carvin looked better and I didn't notice his tone being any better or worse over the PRSes.
Maybe that's just because Joe is "da man" and could get good tone out of a cigarbox, buy hey, I know it isn't. He sounds awful on strats and teles. He still rocks though.
As for Gibson vs PRS, Gibson wins for me too but that's not so much in terms of quality as it is of design. With PRS, there's always something that looks completely wrong to me. The "stretched" shape of the McCarty, the lower horn on almost all their models, "moon" inlays that look like dots if you're more than two feet away, the un-intonateable (is that a double negative?) bridge, the square shaped heel that they do for no apparent reason, and a few minor things. And I really don't see why I'd drop the price of a custom job (or more) on a guitar that isn't doing it for me on several points.
With Gibson the price is lower for one thing so it's not such a big deal to "fix" the parts that suck. I do have my pet peeves with some of Gibson's designs, like the gap between the neck and pickup on an SG in which they could easilly fit two more frets, but generally their classic designs are just the way they should be. If I bought a $2000 PRS I'd probably end up changing as many parts as I would on a $1000 Gibson. And with the Gibson I wouldn't feel bad about getting a few dings in the finish. ;)
(I do hate Gibson as a company though. Billie Joe Armstrong and Tom Delonge signatures... -_-)
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