Guitars sold
Fender Musicmaster Bass 1972 Ex Noel Gallagher
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History has a funny way of repeating itself. When Fender released the Musicmaster Bass amp in 1970, they wanted to design something for bass players playing at home. But in the same way that guitarists became enamoured with the evocatively named Bassman in the fifties, those same guitarists are the ones who got hip to the Musicmaster Bass, basically a low-power twelve-watt combo (featuring two 6V6 power tubes) with a twelve-inch speaker.
That amp could almost be seen as the ideal answer to all the guitar players who would modify their Princeton by putting a bigger speaker inside it. Indeed, that kind of tool is perfect to get a big ample sound without crushing the room with volume. Had that amp not been sold as a kit with the Musicmaster bass, and had it be named in a more consensual way, it might have become a Fender classic.
Noel Gallagher is among the players known to dig that lesser-known model, and this beautiful 1972 combo was his. It’s hard to know in which context he used that lovely silverface, but he certainly took it out on stage, probably as a complement to a more muscular amp, like his Orange OR-120. Noel’s settings still show above the knobs if you’re looking to capture his sound, and the tolex wear or the gaffer tape in the back are hints that this little combo probably has many beautiful stories to tell.
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Noel Gallagher
(1967)
Group : Oasis
Main guitar : Epiphone Sheraton
An absolute “must-hear” track : Supersonic
It is easy to forget when an excellent band Oasis was, since their music was often overshadowed by their frequent indiscretions and the media coverage of them. And yet, the boys from Manchester wrote some of the most beautiful songs of the 1990s, truly building the soundtrack for a decade in need of idols.
From Supersonic in 1994 to Falling Down in 2009, Oasis sold 75 million albums and topped the charts with eight singles. Of course, their music is deeply inspired by the Beatles of 1966, whose visual style and production approach they replicated. But they took that sound and brought it to their decade, updating it with songs that would probably not have been out of place on Revolver, such as Wonderwall or All Around The World.
As everyone knows, the band was led by the Gallagher brothers, Liam on vocals and Noel on guitar, even if on occasion Noel sings with his very endearing sound, such as on Don’t Look Back In Anger. Like the Kinks before them, the Gallagher brothers failed to keep their family quarrels outside the professional sphere and the group eventually exploded under the weight of them.
Since then, Noel has started his band High Flying Birds with an excellent eponymous first album in 2011, proof that the guitarist still has things to say artistically. He is still touring with that band, which is now on its third album, Who Built The Moon (2017). In terms of his guitar playing, Noel has not changed and remains faithful to the instruments he loved when he played in Oasis: he was firmly associated with an Epiphone Sheraton (the Epiphone version of the ES-335), and has played extensively on several semi-hollows in the same style, including a superb Cherry Red ES-355 and Epiphone Casino. He is also a fan of Les Pauls, in sunburst or other colours, and his favourite acoustic is of course the J-200, an instrument that remains associated with him to this day.
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