Ludlow Guitars in NYC: Store and Guitars Review

A store with a door handle like this just has to be cool.

The second part of my recent NYC geetar adventure was a visit to Ludlow Guitars, which amazingly enough I’d never been to (I think – can’t exactly remember).

A super-cool store with lots of USED GUITAR INVENTORY! Yeah! And used and boutique amps! Yeah! That’s the stuff I want to play. A while back that type of inventory used to be commonplace – guitar stores with quality used stuff – but not so much anymore, I guess not with $300 Korean and Chinese guitars (some nice!) in the market.

Here’s how it went down.

A buddy and I plugged a Peter Florance Les Paul Junior copy and a Gibson LPJ Reissue (over $3K!) into a couple of expensive low-watt amps (one was $$$!) – and friggin’ hated it. I still don’t get the whole low-watt thing. They just don’t have the requisite balls, the little speakers – just don’t get it. The Juniors sounded like crap! Thin and wheedly. Juniors! With P90s! We knew it wasn’t the guitars.

So next we plugged into an old-reliable store amp, a used Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, and started to cook. Here are the guitars we played in order, and some comments:

> Gibson RD Artist (used) – I’ve always wanted to play one and dig the funky shape. Played okay, sounded okay – did nothing for us. Wouldn’t call it junk, but wouldn’t call it good.

> Peter Florance LP Junior (used) – Solid light-ish body, thick half-inch maple cap, played and sounded great. Thinner neck than a regular Junior, and sounded brighter because of the maple. Nice guitar, decent price ($1,600). Thought about buying it…and emailed a buddy about it, though kinda hoping he won’t buy it….

Here's the Florance LPJ.

> Gibson Junior Reissue (new?) – Played well, set-up well (all the guitars were set-up well), sounded ballsy. My buddy dug the sound of this one the most. I liked the balls, but thought it was WAY too much for what it was, and the Florance was a nicer geetar.

A Ludlow employee lookin' cool with the Billy-Bo.

> Gretsch Billy-Bo Jupiter Thunderbird (new) – Both of us are big Rev. BFG fans so we’ve both always wanted to play this axe. Light and somehow not neck-heavy, and sounded very good. A kick to play, really easy access to the top frets and just plain looked cool. The TV Jones Power ‘Tron pickups sounded ballsy.

> Reverend Buckshot (new) – Here’s a fact: Reverend guitars ALWAYS sound good. Every time I’m in a music store I try one, and I’m never disappointed. To the contrary, I always end up wondering why I didn’t pick up the Reverend first. They sound great, play great and the bass contour knob I wish was standard on every guitar – so cool, so useful. We both liked the sound of this one. (So I have to ask myself: Why don’t I own a Reverend – particularly the korina V? More on Reverends in a future post.)

Bottom Line

Ludlow Guitars is a cool store. The folks who work there when we were there were cool (not like Manny’s, if you know what I mean), and knew their stuff – and the prices weren’t NYC outta-sight. If you’re ever in New York, check ’em out.

The only bummers for me were an utter lack of used Les Pauls and any Marshalls at all (no LPs and Marshalls?!), but they had Strats and Fender amps out the gazoo – and even a used Hiwatt, which I didn’t get a chance to play, dang it.

I’ll be bahk!

Category: Fender, Gibson, Gretsch, Les Paul Junior, Retailers, Reverend Guitars, TV Jones