97 deluxe plus. Original switching was strat-style, and I hated it. So I put in a tele switch and rewired it so the mini toggle (originally an out-of-phase thing) now turns the middle pickup on and off. So it's a normal tele with it off, and then turning it on adds it to whetever combo you had anyway, allowing the elusive All 3 option. That's the nicest guitar I have, I think.

for you Tele fans:


Albert Lee - Country Boy + interview on Nashville Now in 1982

- HOLY playing. Of course.
- HOLY 80's, everywhere. Love those suit jackets.
- Holy stripped-down tone he has, there is Nothing to hide behind, not even any compression or like a hint of gain. That takes incredible balls.
- Holy terrible interviewer. Can't decide if he's more like a boring preacher or a 60-something yr old chief financial officer who's gonna retire any day and no can't muster the enegry to pretend like he gives a fuck anymore.

Agreed on every single point.
And yeah, that tone is just so pure. I don't think that he is even using any reverb, is he?

No, or so little that it doesn't matter. There's no way I could just hang it all out there like that. So crazy.

Finally shooting them, right now.

This can't be right... folder transfer off the memory card says "transferring 221 items."

Ok, guitar porn time.

YES!
I got a double-neck 12-string guitar woodie.

1988 American Standard Strat.

I got this from my dad. He split town and stopped paying child support when I was 13, and showed up one day 5 years later when I was a senior. Phone call was awkward. “So…. What are you into now?” Guitars. A week or two later when I went to go see him (at a hotel room) he handed this over. The strap came from a friend (Sean Kinard, bloor!), and I sewed the patches onto the strap for him, but then when he moved out of town he gave it to me. Ren pin was mine, from when that cartoon was popular, and I’ve just sorta never taken it off.

Pickups are a Duncan Little 59 in the back and Texas Specials mid and neck. They all get along very well, it’s a great setup for showing up at any “rock” gig and not getting out-gunned, while still being able to pull off Strat sounds on the mid and neck. Those Specials can actually stand up to a Marshall JCM800, where most single coils turn to mud. Great, great pickups, if a little hot for truly clean work. I feel like they’d eat-the-mic plugged into a Roland JC120.



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1991 Gibson Les Paul Studio

Bought this from Mike Guthrie’s shop in Athens GA one day in about 1995. Mike played in a band that opened for the Stones and Manfred Mann, etc, back in the 70’s, and was an Athens fixture. If you needed a special guitar, he could find it for you. He had a shop in one location or another for years and years, and most times he was hard-up for a sale. He let me ask dumb questions about guitars and amps, and patiently answered or corrected me. I was in a band, pushing a strat and a tele into a Marshall JCM800 stack, always wishing I had something a bit nastier… one day he had this Paul hanging in his store, and back then it was pristine.

I believe he had it listed for $700, but as he saw me oggling it, I slowly began to suspect he was in danger of not making his rent payment. I think he said something like “look I need you to buy that guitar,” to which I responded something like I Don’t Have Seven Hundred Bucks. He eventually let me walk out of the store with it for $550, having paid him only $300 at the time and a promise to pay the rest “before the end of the month.” And I did. That night I went to practice pulled This out, and Bloor/Busty’s jaws dropped. “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO.”

Eventually a damp basement (Pluma) started peeling up the clear coat, but it doesn’t affect the structure, it still plays very well. Strap patch came from the grocery store in Bitburg Germany, when I worked at the brewery. I liked it because it almost said "1 Fuck," and when you're 22, that's pretty funny.



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Big square flat-topped frets.

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1997 Fender Telecaster Deluxe Plus

After the Radiohead Deluxe Plus model (lace sensor hum plus lace blue neck), they went 3 pickup for awhile, then back to traditional 2x singles in the 2000’s. I got this on Ebay from the original owner in about 2001, for $725 I think. 7 something for sure. Must’ve been a tax refund. I lived in madison at the time but wasn’t married, which explains how I bought a seven hundred dollar guitar just for shits. Ahhh, separate bank accounts.

First owner had already monkeyed with the electronics, because the stock setup was kinda dumb – that mini toggle put something out of phase, and it switched like a strat (5 way). He also put that Fender Broadcaster in the bridge, thank god, because it’s a beautiful pickup and MUCH better than the Lace that would’ve been stock. The mid and neck are still Lace, but they’re quiet, and juuuust authentic enough for me not to pull them. But I kinda want to. I put a 3-way tele switch in it, and made the mini toggle an on/off for the mid pickup, and that setup is killer. This is the nicest playing guitar I have. Palm muting that Broadcaster pickup into a hot clean fender with slapback delay will make a believer out of anyone.

I played this every monday night at the Crystal Corner in Madison for 2.5 years. We are very well acquainted.



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Strap that the guy sent with it, I think? It's YUGE.

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Sculpted back, and a solid ash body... splooge.

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drool.

EDIT:
and we still need to play together.

My first home-made guitar, circa 1999

I had a friend who made furniture, had a full shop, and owed me favors (lots of my free labor, and my credit card bought us a lot of groceries when times were lean, aka all the time for a year there.) So I decided to make one. I bought a neck from Warmoth because 1) necks are fucking HARD to make, 2) a slightly bad neck means a shitball worthless guitar, and 3) Warmoth makes the best necks I’ve ever seen or felt. Picked up a discounted birdseye maple and rosewood neck someone ordered and didn’t want, then I went to Atlanta wood shop Carlton McClendon. That shop was an amazing old hole in the wall near Ga Tech that was sure to have some good wood stashed somewhere. The original owner was still there every day – he must’ve been 90, and was snoozing peacefully behind an enormous desk in a black 3 piece suit, every time I went in. The place was actually run by 2 guys, one who looked and sounded a good bit like Mr T, and another guy who looked and sounded a lot like John Denver. So that’s what Tim and I called them.

I asked Mr T if he had a good piece of wood for a solid body electric guitar, and his eyes lit up. We went out back and into the other building, and in a dusty old window he had this chunk propped up. It was a solid slab of quilted maple, perfectly guitar sized but a tiny bit thin. Someone had already drawn a guitar outline in blue chalk on it. I paid around $100 for it, and made the guitar. Originally the finish was analyne die blue green, very transarent and deep and gorgeous. “But…. The guitar in the pictures is a shitty gun metal grey…?” After a year or so, I decided I wanted to re-sculpt the body with deeper curves for some fucking reason, so I stripped it down and did so. And it worked fine. But then I got on the phone with my future wife RIGHT AS I was about to start refinishing it, and instead of waiting I tried to do both at once. I sprayed the body with the wrong can first, sealing the wood up with blemished and streaks all over it, so that I could NOT clean it up without taking 1/8” off of every surface, including the neck pocket. “……….Fuck it” and I pulled a paint can off of my roomate’s garage shelf (Josh Hultman), and did this.

Still plays like a fucking demon, it’s incredibly light and FAST, the action is incredible. Sigh. Hang up the damned phone and pay attention to what you're doing. Pickups are Duncan '59's. Plays itself, it's like one of those high end Ibanez guitars from the 90's, weighs nothing and the strings are unbelievably low yet have no buzz. If you can't play it on this guitar, it's your fault.


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I wanted minimal controls, and I wanted them out of my way. Probably a little TOO close together here, but I have tiny fingers so it worked for me.

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What is that bridge? Brand? Material?

The black one on the home made guitar?

Todd I probably ordered that black brdge through Warmoth too, but it could've been someone else. I wanna say it's Gotoh or someone who makes tuners too, but I don't remember anymore. Solid steel, though.

Alvarez Artist Series Accoustic, made in USA, 1994?

In college I didn’t have an acoustic yet other then the old classical my dad gave me. Busty owed me money and gave me some mic’s to trade in instead, and we went to Galaxy Music in Stone Mtn GA. Galaxy was a hotbed of illicit activity, and as such was a great place to find used gear and make a deal with our favorite salesman. So one day I popped in and saw this, which would’ve been a year or two old max. It’s stamped “almost perfect” inside on the label, and I think it was a little divet in the bridge that did it. Traded some stuff in, made a great deal, and I think I got it for less than $600.

It plays very very well for guys with tiny hands. The action is very low and the neck is Very narrow. But the body doesn’t jump and sing like a truly good accoustic, so it’s never been an amazing guitar. Just sounds a little bit too scooped in the mids, and has no soul. And I can’t get a really good one, because there are no such thing as bargains for accoustics. If it’s truly good, it costs a fuckload. Notice too how the top and back are cracking now… I read once that accoustics are a box of wood that’s slowly but surely failing. And it’s true, they all fail eventually.


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The chipped bridge wood...

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Good details.

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I've had some money stashed away for a guitar for years and never pulled the trigger on anything.

This is giving me the itch to go internet trolling.

And oh, there's more.

Sho Bud Maverick, 1971

The Maverick is their student model, and as such it’s stripped down feature-wise in a way that I now regret. But even so, this old thing was $750 or so, like ten fucking years ago. Pedal steels are stupid-expensive. The original owner sold it to me via Ebay, and this one was a tax refund deal for sure. I still lived in Athens, and I got a setup lesson from John Neff, as I’ve babbled about previously.

Never touched or changed anything on it, other than some oiled paper in two of the nut rollers to keep them from rattling on certain notes. Birdseye maple is pretty as hell still after all these years. This, too, was played every Monday for 2.5 years. I still have the purple washrag he sent with it (to wipe it down before and after playing). He said he got arthritis and had to stop playing… that always made me really sad.


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One giant, solid slab of birdseye maple. No fucking veneer here, thank you very much.

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Paper shims

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Wax-dipped original pickup, similar to a P-90.

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Fender American Standard Telecaster, 1989

Probably my irrational favorite. You pick this thing up and strum it, and it just sings. This thing is alive in a way that most electrics aren't. Loaded with Texas Specials, painted my favorite Fender color (lake placid blue metal flake), solid maple neck that I like slightly better than rosewood, killer action, stays in tune through bomb blasts, skirts that country and rock line carefully, sounds good no matter what gig you’re at. Doesn’t turn to soup in a marshall, doesn’t bully a Deluxe Reverb so hard it barks, knows what you’re thinking and does it without being told, never ever ever sounds wrong.

I found this one too at Galaxy, around 1995. One day on a routine visit (oh, student loans, how I miss you) I saw this hanging. Played it, and even though it had Duncan Hot Rails in it I knew this thing was special. This wasn’t for someone else, this was MINE, and was somehow mistakenly hanging up in a guitar store. I could not bear the thought of anyone else getting it. All the way home I kept sneaking looks at it in the back seat of the VW Fox.

As much as you can “love” an object, …


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I've moved the strap around over the years. And at one point I got sick of the slick inside surface of the strap making the guitar droop down on me all the time, so I cut up a sweatshirt and sewed a grippy pad onto the shoulder part.

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E9 for 1989.

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Fender brand locking tuners, as were found on 90's deluxe models. Their ripoff of sperzel's design. Bolts in directly, unlike sperzels, though, so a much easier install.

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Fender Squire Stratocaster Thing, made in Japan, 1985

The one that started the thread. Still love that shitty old pickup, still love the action and playability, still love the lack of controls and options. Tone knobs are for posers. And you can’t beat “free.”



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Shiiiiitty tuners, but they work well enough. If I played this out a lot, they would have to go. Adam from Cave In played this one once, and said "man this thing was made for metal."

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Epiphone Scroll, Made in USA, Late 70’s

They didn’t put serial numbers on this model as far as anyone can tell. They’re not very common, so info is scarce. But the range of manufacture was (I believe) 1977 to 1980 or so? No serial = no date. Poor man’s SG is what it is, like Gibson decided to bounce one at the kids who were into T Rex and Sabbath. Two delightfully weak 70’s humbuckers that sound so fragile and … well, frankly dirty, in a way that modern pcikups rarely do. These pickups make mistakes sometimes, they will change their minds. They wear studded leather belts but they also watch Downton Abbey on netflix when no one’s looking. The mini toggle is a coil splitter, which is really cool. Action is LOW thanks to the fret job I got for it in 2003. Plays really really well, super fast.

This too came from Mike Guthrie’s shop, at a later location alongside downtown Athens. Once again it was rent time, and I was glad to help. Notice the body shot where it says “RONA” in the finish… if you get it in the right light you can see that it used to have sticker letters on the face that said MY SHARONA for some fucking reason, and the faint scratches that all guitars get over the years didn’t scratch the finish under the stickers, so you can still make it out. Wtf?

This guitar is an awesome old club skank with a shitload of stories she won’t tell me. But you KNOW she knows some shit.

Original shitball chipboard case.

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Fret job, 2003.

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Hang Tag from Guthrie's store.

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Unfettered access to the highest frets, thanks to a very LONG neck mount layout and 2 cutaways.

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Exaggerated, mile-long mandolin-style headstock. Original Schechter tuners are top-notch and smooth.

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One volume, one tone, a 3 way selector, and a coil split.

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Big gothy top route.

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Now for lunch. More later.