Decisions, decisions...

If you can't go to the Epiphone Joe Bonamassa (£499.00) from Digital Village then I can thouroughly recommend the "Vintage" range of LP style guitars, excellent tone and build quality for the money.

Have a look at the Vintage Icon 100 MRJBM it's a JB model that looks the biz, I have one and they play great as well!!

Here's a few tracks recorded on the Vintage JB www.myspace.com/stewartw

Heres a link to the guitar itself, only £219.00 from Digital Village

http://www.dv247.com/search/0/0/Product … n+MRJBM/1/

Hope you find something that satisfies!!!  

Stewart

Have Fun and laugh like it's your first time! You never know you might get to like it!

The Icon V100 series are available unaged, and the Ice Tea looks stunning, the only difference between the MRJBM and the standard Icon series are slightly hotter pick ups in the JB, but most tone is equal between the two.

Try the V100 icon, I don't think you can buy better for the money!!  

Have Fun and laugh like it's your first time! You never know you might get to like it!

Look into the real deal.  You can get a used Les Paul Studio for well under a grand.  Side by side they blow the Epi's away.  The new 50's Tribute Studio is amazing and lists at $1400 or so.  I see them new for under 1K.

Vic Dapra, good friend of mine and the authority on Les Pauls will vouch for this advice.  You want a Les Paul...get a Les Paul.   The studios look and feel great and sound pretty damn sweet...especially for this price point.

Why dont you try ebay?

There isnt a great deal of difference between epi's in that range.. My fiance' picked up a really fine trans green limited edition epi for £199. You might also want to check out Epiphone dots they are a hell of a lot more versatile than the les pauls, infact my epi dot has been one of my main gigging guitars for a good few years now.

Infact if I was in your boat (and I have been) I'd buy a dot / a 335 clone (you might pick up a decent yahama SA series for cheap on ebay), you can just get so much more out of them from bb king's twangs and clean to clapton esque lead sounds.

As for the amp kit its expensive for what it is (you will also need a speaker cab with speakers) and 5w might seem quiet from the spec but it wont be (valve watts are a lot louder than ss watts or seem to sound louder anyhow, you also have to have them at a decent volume before they start doing what valve amps are famed for, power amp distortion). If you have issues with volume (indoor playing) stick to solid states. Dont get caught up too much in the valve v solid state argument both have pro's and cons.

For same price (after a cab) you could get a Epi Valve Jnr, Blues custom, Fender Blues jnr, fender super champ xd (probably the best fender amp for under £500, new they sell for about £210) if you go ebay you could get older blues deluxes and some older marshalls for cheap...

All the above are valve amps, the super champ XD is a hybrid of valve and solid state. I use the fender xd for small gigs / practise its a really cool amp with alot of good sounds.

Hope some of that helps

JTB

Deffo a LP guy well you cant go wrong my LP is an Epi trans amber, I have to say though to get what I wanted from it I had to do a bit of work but the end result is a good guitar. I gave it a while stock to see if it would fit in with my band (which it didn't) it had too much thump for rhythm playing and got lost in the mix too easy, for lead it was superb however. I ended up changing the pickups and wiring (I got bored anyhow and like to mess around) I put a 57 classic in the neck which instantly stopped all the thumping low end bass, and a JB in the bridge (only because someone gave me one I actually liked the epi bridge pick up). Overall its a very good guitar and I do play it quite a bit.

Its easy to get caught up in all the hype surrounding valve amps, I have an 18w Handwired Marshall (which is my main amp and its a monster with great tone), a fender Blue deluxe (used to use it exclusively but it has a lot of sentiment and I just cant sell it!! I think that happens with gear). Both these amps sound great when they are loud anything even considered to be practise / bedroom volume and you might as well turn them off...

The super champ though, it sounds good at very low volume and just as good at high volume. I do gig with it at small venues / open mic nights. It has some very convincing Marshall sounds (the reason I bought it) it also have a very nice clean. Overall a great practise amp it has no headphone jack though!

Uno I'm in the same situation now, anymore gear and she will kick my arse lol the thing is you get hooked so easy. I want a few things atm a national steel type guitar for slide and some pedals to mess with. However orders are orders

my son was desperate to get a LP (copy with budget available), - we spent a lot of time looking at different options including Epiphone & PRS SE but settled on a Micheal Kelly Patriot, - the finish is superb. They do not have the name in the electric world, - (primarily know for their acoustic basses via Duff Mackagan) so the pricing is well under valued. He got the Patriot Custom so it has coil tap pickups, - it is heavy though but that is the price you pay for a LP body.

http://www.michaelkellyguitars.com/

The finish on the Patriot is stunning.  My young 'un would love the green camo one on the homepage, but he's only six.  He'll have to wait till he gets a job.
I can't believe there is only one dealer listed in the UK, and that's waaaaay down in Essex.  If I go that far south I'll get a nosebleed 
While I was on the dealer site, I noticed they did Hagstroms too. I had a quick browse, but I think the prices must have gone up recently.