Images and Incorrect Facts

I went to a nearby big town for a job interview. (Got the job, more of a commute but I'll be able to afford more guitar gear. I start two weeks from Monday. I don't want to make a big deal of it here.) Since I was close, I took the opportunity to visit the local Guitar Center and Sam Ash, do some guitar shopping.

Guitar dreaming, actually.

Kinda wish I took out the camera phone.

I'm mostly a Telecaster kind of guy, but I picked up a few non-Fenders. There was a used Ibanez S-series that was set up for drop-D and extreme bar-lifting. There was an old-school non-chambered not-for-wimps heavy mahogany Les Paul. There was an aluminum National that I wanted to follow me home. But I go for Teles first and foremost. That's just me.

They had a Joe Strummer Telecaster. I didn't pick it up. I want to get something for my Tele that says "Ignore Alien Orders", either a sticker on the back or an engraving on the neck plate. But an institutionalized Joe Strummer Tele, a brand-new Tele that looks like a beat-to-crap Tele, with carefully engineered pits on the knobs, really seems non-Strummer.

There was a John 5 Tele. They don't seem to have one like it on the website. It looked kinda like this, except for a painted headstock, rosewood neck and a mirror pickguard. Considering how much ink he's getting in the guitar press, I would've thought it would be a nicer guitar. I was really disappointed by the fretwork. It had bad-Squier, cut-your-fingers fret overhang that you just should never see on an instrument with the word "Fender" on the headstock. I was expecting a hot guitar and it just simply wasn't.

I was impressed by the Nashville Tele. Compared to the Standard Teles, they just had more growl there. I'm growing on the middle-position Strat pickup. I really am.

There should be an ending here. "I have touched the Holy Grail of guitar, and it is ...." I can't say that. The most impressive single instrument I picked up that day was a Joe Pass archtop that was $350. It wasn't an archtop archtop, a classic jazz box that'll blow you away without plugging in, but it was nice and played nice.

Should any of this dreaming turn into actual guitar purchases, I'll be sure to let you know.