New York, New York June 26, 1988
Photo by Brian Rademacher
It's often been repeated that Paul chose Steinberger guitars for their low weight. He had apparently suffered some type of shoulder injury in the fall of 1987 and needed a guitar that he could wear for longer periods of time without putting undue pressure on his back. (I've yet to find the original quote from Paul about this.) Suffice to say that after the band’s hit-and-run stint in Japan in April 1988, something had changed. Gone were the superstrat B.C. Rich ST guitars and in their stead came a couple of Steinberger GL.
As always, one has to wonder why Paul ended up with Steinbergers. They were obviously like nothing he had ever played before, but in a 1980 interview in Sounds magazine he mentioned having what might have been a Kramer Duke in his collection, so he wasn't entirely uninterested in new designs. But even though the timeline is a little tight I think he might have been influenced by Ace's black Steinberger M-series that he used when he and Gene guested at the Limelight in June. The M-series was a hybrid—maple body with graphite neck—so it wasn't quite as light as the L-series, but it would still have been lighter than Paul's B.C. Riches, and maybe that was enough to appeal to Paul.
But first, some construction details. The neck and the rear of the body was molded in one piece using a graphite composite that sometimes had added glass fiber (called the Steinberger Blend™ in promotional material). Electronics were all fitted to the front “lid” which was secured to the neck/body with allen screws. The fretboard was made from a synthetic resin called phenolic. Even in 1988 this was space age stuff. The use of composite materials wasn’t only comparatively lighter, they were also unaffected by temperature and humidity so they wouldn’t warp or bend like a wood instrument, and consequently Steinberger kept their tuning extremely well. (One early reviewer of the Steinberger GL said that it was the only guitar that had passed his "transcontinental UPS tuning test". It was in tune right out of the transportation packaging.)
The Steinbergers Paul played were from the L-series which is the shape that most people will imagine when thinking about the brand. (They are often referred to, both affectionally and not, as “paddles”.) The Steinberger model designations were wonderfully logical. The first letter indicated whether it was a guitar (G) or bass (X); the second which series (in our case L); then came a number representing the pickup configuration; and lastly another letter (or two) for the bridge type and possible options. It is, however, slightly difficult to say for sure which models Paul's three—yes, three—Steinbergers were. But we'll make some educated guesses.
Paul first shows up with a Steinberger at the one-off outdoor show in North Swanzey in early July. And that's why I mentioned the timeline issue above. Paul tried Ace's M-series on June 26 and then played his own L-series on July 4. That leaves just a week to find a guitar, which would have been very doable in New York, and then have it slightly modified. This guitar, which I will dub Body Glove, looks to have been a GL4T (the 4 meaning a classic H-S-S configuration) that had been modified for a single humbucker. The Body Glove sticker was used to cover the two single coil holes.
As always this is somewhat of a guessing game but if we look really, really closely at the Ross Halfin photo below I think we can see the faint outline of a single coil rout through the sticker. This makes sense because the GL1T (single humbucker) was a custom option and is about as elusive as a four-leaf clover. You can’t even find a photo of one. The same is true of the GL6T, humbucker in the bridge position and a straight single coil in the neck position. And if we look at the Ross Halfin photo again there appears to be a hole right by the Transtrem bridge. The position of that hole only makes sense if this was originally a GL4T. (The GL5T and GL6T had a single three-way switch in a different position.)
By the time the band stepped on the Ritz stage for their club warmup gigs, Paul had three Steinberger GL in tow. As is my wont I have given them all nifty little names so that we can tell them apart: Body Glove, White New York, and Yellow. As previously noted, Body Glove was probably a black GL4T which had gotten a slight makeover. In addition to the Body Glove sticker, it also had a yellow outline that was just added tape. Both the cutout around the EMG 81 humbucker—clearly visible in the Halfin phoro above—and the tape “binding” look a little haphazard. The guitar had also gotten a number of small bike reflectors in various sizes, most notably on the Body Glove hand.
The second was White New York which was a white GL5T which means that it had a humbucker in the bridge position and an angled single coil in the neck position. It was adorned with various New York stickers, hence the name. As we can see in the photo from the Ritz, it also had a reflective outline. For the better part of the summer this was Paul’s second in command, and he reached for it quite a bit.
Lastly, an odd little thing, and one I know comparatively little about. I have no real high-resolution photos of this guitar, and it appears in my collection so rarely that I think it was way down in the pecking order. It has the same type of Body Glove graphic, but it’s a darker yellow and the outline/binding looks like it was actually part of the finish. (Or someone did a much better job with the taping.) If Body Glove look haphazard, Yellow looks—for lack of a better word—professional. Especially around the pickup.
It was apparently tricky to get the bike reflectors to stick to the stickers. In the Ross Halfin studio photo there are three orange reflectors in the palm of the graphic, and red reflectors on all four fingers. But those bike reflectors started dropping off almost as soon as Paul stepped on stage and we can trace it in the photos. (The ones that were affixed right to the body fared better.) As seen above, at the Ritz two of the red fingers had already disappeared. That look held over the club gig at the Marquee and Monsters of Rock at Donington. But in Schweinfurt another red finger and one of the orange reflectors in the palm had dropped off.
This look remained the same up the show in Lilleström on September 21, but when Paul stood on stage at Wembley Arena the last red finger was gone and there were only two orange reflectors in the palm. Unfortunately it's hard to see any real detail in Adrian Pole's photo from Birmingham, but to my eyes it looks as if maybe another one of the palm reflectors had dropped off by then.
Apart from all this, there was another quirk. At least by the Donington show there appeared a addition of some sort that extended over the Transtrem. The photos from the Ritz and the Marquee are not detailed enough to say whether or not this details was present then, but it was not on the guitar for the Ross Halfin photo shoot. Problem is that I don't know what this is. It looks like something that could possibly restrict the movement of the tremolo, but the Transtrem allowed you to lock it in place so there was really no need for an additional part to perform that task. And this part was only added to Body Glove. It looks as if it could be an official Steinberger accessory but I can't find anything like it in their catalogs.
Moving on... White New York didn't suffer any real damage that I've been able to spot. Judging by Paul's clothing in the various photos we have of it, White New York seems to have been used to open the Monsters of Rock shows.
When the MOR run ended in mid-September, White New York got a new look. When the band continued on a European jaunt starting in Paris just three days after the last Monsters of Rock show, the neck pickup had been removed, and all of the New York stickers had been replaced with pinup stickers, one of which (partially) covered the neck pickup cavity. (They had done some additional work as well. In later auction photos one can see that there was gaffer’s tape added on the inside, presumably to keep sweat from getting in to the electronics.) To be able to distinguish between the two versions I've dubbed this variation White Pinups.
The "ugly duckling" of the bunch seems to have been the third GL, Yellow. Although I can't claim to have a vast collection of photos from this period, it is still fairly substantial, I have only two photos of this guitar from the Monsters of Rock and European Crazy Nights tours. (It got a little use later during Paul's solo tour in 1989.) Yellow really was a true backup.
These guitars were all put into mothballs after Paul's solo tour in 1989 and all three seem to have been auctioned off at various times. White Pinups was lot. 1131 in the Butterfields auction but has changed hands at least twice since.
