The Man With The Blue Shiny Post-Modern Bowling-Ball Curly-Maple-Necked with a Batman Headstock Guitar

... sold it on Ebay.

Body was finished in "bowling ball" process... very durable! Which can be useful in some situations.

Tread lightly on this heart of mine

I got my son a guitar a few years ago. A cheap First Act guitar. 1 pickup like a Superstrat, no top horn like a Tele, otherwise a body like a Strat. LP-like headstock. Not my favorite setup, but the neck work was nice for a guitar that cheap. Mainly, no frets sticking out and read to cut your hand while you play.

My son took a screwdriver to it, losing every pickguard screw, part of a tuner, the nut and disconnecting the pickguard (remember, everything mounts on the pickguard, like any Strat). The vibrato bridge is already kinda messed up, but playable. $30 in parts and strings from the local guitar pusher and I have something I could play. I couldn't amplify it, but I could play.

I have Super Slinkys on this thing. I play Not Even Slinkys normally, and I like 'em. I like the tone and I like the feel, there are things you can't do with 'em. Like 1/3 of what's on the Legendary Guitar of James Burton DVD. Be it known that James doesn't play Super Slinkys. He plays a set lighter than Super Slinkys. Super Duper Slinkys. I've usually avoided using less than .010s, because I didn't want to bend strings out of tune just because of my grip is to strong, but I now want another Tele so I can sling it up light.

(Of course, I also want a baritone, a B-bender, etc. etc.)

Right now, I'm eyeing a $35 pre-wired pickguard from Guitar Fetish so I can get everything back into working order, but I've not decided which one to get. SSS, HSS or HH? Probably a standard Strat deal. And does a black pickguard or white one look better on a black mongrel Tele/Strat?

Charcoal gypsy maidens strutting their stuff

I want it so much! I don't care about the imperfections!

I love an archtop, because archtops have pop. They don't sustain like flattops, but their pop is loud. Anyone wanna give me $500?

Didn't think so.

Fighting for the throne

Ig from IgBlog wrote a while ago about having to fight your guitar. I just hit a practical point for that at my guitar pusher.

I went for strings, a few single strings for the lap steel and a second set for the Tele. I play that and the acoustic most of all, and if I broke a string, I wouldn't have a replacement, so I figured I was due.

But you don't go to the guitar pusher and not pick up a guitar, so I tried a couple. I'm crazy about them Telecasters, so I pulled down a Fender Baja, a Squier Vintage Modified SSH and a Vintage Modified Thinline. All of which, the pusher says, are strung with Slinky lights. I play Not Even Slinkys. .052-.012, not the .042-.009 on all those guitars.

I had to fight not to fight these things! Freakin' rubber bands! And I was sorely tempted to get a set of lighter strings, but I decided to keep the Not Even Slinkys.

And I decided, again, that I need to get myself a second guitar so I can string it with lights. Well, maybe mediums.

The flames in the furnace of desire are pretty well stoked

It starts with Tom Petty. So much of my musical appreciation starts with him.

One of his videos from the Southern Accents. "Make It Better (Forget About Me)". A small Petty crawls in some girl's ear, and the Heartbreakers kick it out in her brain. He wears cool glasses with different-shaped lenses. Petty plays a blond Rickenbacker.

Mike Campbell plays a white Vox Mark III.

It looks like an egg with a neck.

Forget all my previous lists. I would like the exotic superstrat. I wouldn't mind owning a black Les Paul. A Trussart Telecaster would be nice. But I want a Vox Mark III.

And, evidently, they are being reissued.

It's a freakin' egg with a neck! How cool is that?

So proper and fairly elite

I've been hearing lately that Rondo Music and their Agile line were secret weapons, great instruments for a fraction of what you'd expect to pay. Looking at the sight, you see a lot of Strat clones, a lot of Tele clones, a lot of Les Pauls, Jazz bases and P-bases, a few superstrats and some other things.

You don't always see really truly odd things.

It's a fretless Les Paul.

Fretless.

I hear about fretless guitars. I don't think I have heard one.

I have a fiddle and a lap steel. I have enough instruments where intonation is a problem. No. A learning opportunity. Do I need another one?

It would be far more practical for me to get a normal Les Paul.

Why do I want this guitar? Beyond "It's a guitar!"

Can't Buy A Thrill

I got this from my friend Ig at IgBlog, who got it from GuitarFlame. So, limiting myself to five guitars I'd like to own:

1. A 00-style steel-string acoustic 12-fret slothead with sitka top and mahogany back and sides. No kerfing, no inlays, good electro-acoustic setup because why not, but no guilding the lily, just fine guitar made from top-of-the line wood.
   
2. A righty sunburst Stratocaster with a lefty Floyd Rose. And maybe, as Richard Thompson has one of his wired, separate volume knobs for each pickup. No tone control, no selector switch.
   
3. We're dreaming, right? So price is no object? A 1920s Gibson L-9 non-cutaway. Maybe with an electrified bridge. Maybe.
   
4. I know what I want, but I am not sure how I want it. A Gibson Les Paul. Black, looking like the guitar on the cover to Al DiMeola's Elegant Gypsy. Black, white and chrome. I'd either want it with low action and wimpy .009s or I'd want it set up heavy with high action so I can play slide. My other LP heroes (besides Al, and Les himself, of course) are slide players playing sunburst. I still want mine black.
   
5. My dream Frankentele. Baritone neck. B-Bender, except with the baritone, that'd kick it back to F# or something. Sustainer setup. And for giggles, we'll make it a Trussart Steelcaster with perforations through the front big enough that you can see the Bender move when I pull on it.
   

I, of course, reserve the right revise, extend and ignore this list at any point.

It's a guitar. I want it.

This guitar was built by a guy from Hungary from Warmoth parts. Obviously, he's a Tele picker and Van Halen fan. Considering Frankenstein, I'd have put some black in the painting. I also would've given it Esquire wiring with the hottest bridge pickup I could find. And a Bigsby, because even if they suck, you need some sort of whammy bar if you're going to pretend to play Eddie's axe.

But, beyond the Floyd Rose, Frankenstein is such a throwback to the Esquire way of doing things. The third position on the switch is the way Eddie wired it: pickup to volume to endpin, with no playing around with tone. Everything you got, direct to the amp.


This guitar is more to my liking. It's reminiscent of the Ibanez Floral JEM, but it's more itself. And it's within delta of what I want to do to my Tele, should I ever get a #2 axe which would allow me to experiment with my #1.