Gibson SG EDS-1275 double-neck guitar

Pete Townshend used a Gibson SG EDS-1275 black custom 6/12 double-neck guitar from approximately September to November 1967. The first known date is 8 September 1967 at the Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, California. The last known date is 4 November 1967 at Walthamstow, UK.

Los Angeles Times 11 September 1967:

Townshend added flexibility to their instrumentation by playing a double-necked 6 and 12 string guitar, but he switched to a more conventional guitar before their destructive finale.

General specification (1962 and later models):

SG-style body.
12-string guitar neck in upper position.
Six-string guitar neck in lower position.
Both have 20 frets, a 24¾″scale, with neck/body joint at the 15th fret. Double parallelogram inlays.
Kluson tulip-style tuners.
Tune-o-matic bridge.
Four — two for each neck — double-black Patent Applied For (PAF) humbucking pickups (with covers removed).
Two three-position toggle switches:
- One for pickup selection for the necks (located on lower horn).
- One as a neck selector (upper, lower, or both), located between bridges.

Broken and repaired – A theory

Click to view larger version. Closeup of Gibson SG EDS-1275 double-neck body repair joint from backstage at the Saville Theatre, London, 22 Oct. 1967. 578kb

Click to view larger version (578kb). Closeup of Gibson SG EDS-1275 double-neck body repair joint from backstage at the Saville Theatre, London, 22 Oct. 1967.

You’ll notice in the photos below that some show a traditional — parallel — setup of the two necks, and some show the two necks at an odd angle. Our theory is that this guitar was broken lengthwise down the middle of the body and repaired with an off-center body joint, causing a slight angle — a slight “V” shape — to the necks.

The following presents a possible theory about the history of this guitar.

The first known use of this guitar is at the Anaheim Convention Center show on 8 Sept., 1967. This was the second-to-last show of the tour that included the Rochester War Memorial show (8/30). They had just come off a four-day break, so it’s possible he picked it up during that time. They were in Los Angeles recording for The Who Sell Out. Typically, Pete and John bought gear when in either Los Angeles (Fred Walecki’s Westwood Music?) or at Manny’s in New York.

The early photo with it unbroken has a Fender Showman amp, which they only used in the U.S.

The backstage photo is 22 Oct. 1967 at the Saville Theatre in London. In this photo, the guitar’s body is clearly repaired (see closeup) between the six- and 12-string sections running the length of the body. (In addition, the pickup-selector toggle switch on the treble horn appears to be missing following the repair.)

He used the guitar as late as 4 Nov. 1967, at Walthamstow. Consider the theory that he used it for opening numbers, which is likely the case since the backstage photos have him with it, he doesn’t have it for the first date of the next U.S. tour (17 Nov., Shawnee Mission, Kansas).

So, a possible theory is that he bought it in Los Angeles in September, used it and broke it in one of the two September U.S. shows (Anaheim or Honolulu), had it repaired during the lengthy break until the 10/22 Saville show, and stopped using it sometime between Nov. 4–10, the last of the UK shows before the U.S. tour.