I saw Hendrix a couple of times, but Woodstock made me gas for a strat in the worst way. Dad says, "Can't you get by with this?" pointing to the tele. It would have saved him about $50. The strat was $272 with HSC.
Oh.fuck.no
Taking lessons from Al meant that I played his LP a lot. That guitar was heavy.
I also learned to dislike the strat. Once I figured out position playing, the curved fretboard screwed me up, badly.
So...I had to have a gibby. A pal offers me a 1969 345 for $200 and another $200 gets his super six reverb.
Dad?
I play gibsons for 30? years. But I relied upon Cream like, well...creaminess. All distortion and OD and a wah for articulation. This was during the height of Fusion.
I hear Colin James and decided to try a tele. I fell flat on my face. Not only did a tele have the most beautiful neck known to man, it had something none of my other guitars had. It's own voice.
I can still get all the creamy sustain I want...if I want.
However, more often than not I find myself playing with nothing? Or just OD for some punch - and the ice9 doesn't color it, just boosts it tremendously.
With distortion and OD, if I roll the volume back it sounds as if I turned the effects off.
But it has such a range. That fender timbre - bell tone, some nasty bridge twang, and then the combo of the pickups - which sounds like the blender pot on a strat...real brassy quack without too much treble.
And this is a Squier?
Fine...what will a "real" fender do for me? And by real, I mean MIM.
I found a baja tele for $500.(The finagling this took to pull off was something to behold)
The bonehead that owned it had never changed the original strings. But he had managed to ding the frets where it must have fallen face down against a table or chair.
And the fit and finish is mixed bag.
The pickguard is cut so it pulls against the neck pickup a tiny bit, snug. And then the screws went in at a few nice angles, the guard itself is cracked by the screw on the upper bout And on one by the switch. The control plate is overlapped by the pickguard a couple of mils.
On the plus side, the wiring and electronics are 100% "nicer." Less cheap stuff, although they both use the same esthetically unpleasant but efficient plastic coated wiring..
The frets on the Squier come all the way to the edge, the bit that should be buried is visible. The poly over it makes it smooth to the touch but it does catch your eye. Well, the neck on the baja is perfect, with the exception of the dings mr. bonehead made. I used some .000 wool and smoothed the two frets easily.
The Squier neck is also much thinner - closer to an LP. This thing is chunky, like a bat.
The pickups on the Squier are tonerider alnico IIIs. The ones on the baja are a twisted tele in the neck and a broadcaster in the bridge. Helluva a lot more umph than the toneriders. But you can still hear that bell.
And unlike a strat, the fretboard is flat to the feel.
Four position switch (standard positions with a series setting) with a S1 in the volume - controls phase.
Now the palette is huge.
Karma - I mighta been Bruce Springsteen had I got that tele in 1972.
Right?
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