Them Crooked Vultures John Paul Jones Custom Lap Steel Bass
During Them Crooked Vultures shows John Paul Jones pulls out this Lap Steel Bass Guitar when they play “No One Loves Me & Neither Do I.” It was custom made by Hugh Manson of Manson Guitars. Manson is one of the UK’s most well-respected electric guitar makers and has also been the Led Zeppelin legend’s personal technician since the mid 1990s.
It’s called a Manson Lapaphone. Its is an 8 string instrument (4 + 4x 1+ octave) the Kaoss screen is a XY midi controller, no internal effects are in the guitar. It also has a Fernades Sustainer single coil pickup and 3 octave range on the fretboard. Check out John Paul Jones using it live…
Manson was quoted as saying “Yes I did make this instrument and in fact all that JPJ uses on the Vultures tour. It is an 8 string Bass lap steel with a midi control screen on it which will control any thing with a “midi in”. This is similar to the guitars I make for Matt Bellamy (Muse). It also has a sustainer pickup on it and a hipshot bridge tuning system that enables 3 different open tunings by moving levers.”
