Drive Like Jehu – Yank Crime

"I purchased it in '92. I got it right before going on tour and toured a lot with it and played it in both Rocket and Drive Like Jehu. From when I purchased that guitar, it was pretty much the main guitar I played," Reis says of this late-'70s Les Paul Custom. "I went to Japan with it, and Ono [Ching]—the singer and guitar player for this band called the Jet Boys—did cartoons and drew all over it, did all this really cool artwork all over it."

The lost, then recovered sparkle finish Les Paul Custom. (Photo from Reis' Instagram) Some of this work, though faded from years of touring and sweat, is visible still on the back of the guitar. The front is a different story: "When I got home I decided, 'I've kinda always wanted a sparkle guitar,' so I took it to this guy in town who gave me a quote to refinish the guitar, and I couldn't afford it—I could only afford to do the front of it, hence why it's only [finished] on the front."

At some point the guitar was modified with an EMG pickup in the bridge position. As mentioned above, this was a modification Reis did to many of his '90s Les Pauls, and the reasons were twofold. Firstly, the range of aftermarket and boutique replacement pickups in the '90s was somewhat more limited than we enjoy today. And secondly, the way the magnetic field of this particular pickup interacts with the magnetic field of Speedo's JCM800's transformers produces a bizarre kind of chirping feedback, like the tweeting of cartoon birds.

Rick Froberg is confirmed to use a Fender Telecaster, as evidenced by a photograph showing him with the instrument. He modified this guitar by installing an EMG humbucker in the bridge pickup and utilized it during performances and recordings for "Yank Crime."