Jeztone.com

” Is your amp still for sale?”

I got this text on Sunday morning, I was bleary eyed as CJ my girlfriend made me a delicious breakfast, we had croissants, cereals, fruit, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, sausages…..oooooh and wine gums.

Having left Heroes of Switzerland in Dec 2008, I’ve found myself in the position of not gigging and quite frankly not missing gigging. The experiences of the last 4 years had made me think that a 2 x 12 combo might well be a better proposition as despite the TSL60 being the quietist amp Marshall make, all sound engineers just see its gleaming logo and imagine Motorhead and then treat it like a plexi and try to turn you down before you’ve even played a note.

In addition I figured that with modern drumming styles using a lot of ride cymbals, I’d be better off with a crisper midrange to cut through rather than turn up. So on my watch list among others such as Vox and Orange was a used Boogie Lonestar. As they seem to go for around a grand and have the parrallel FX loop like the TSL. But as I’ve been really getting into photography recently. I was in no real hurry to try these theories out. If a band or project appears in the future I’ll make my choices then and not before.

So the Marshall JCM2000 TSL60 and its 1960A 4 x 12 have been sitting in my room for the last 18 months not really doing much. I’ve not fired up the amp for at least 3 months and with the possibility of relocating down to the smoke still a long term goal, as well as CJ’s flat having limited storage (after her Imelda Marcos style shoe collection is in place), I’d put the amp up for sale rather tentitavely on Guitarmarts website. I wasn’t desperate for a buyer, but if one came around I’d be happy to sell, maybe buy a mac laptop or something.

“Err Yes”

“Great” came the reply. “I’ll give you £500″

H’mm

I didn’t advertise my rig at that price

The going rate for a used Marshall TSL60 (and as I write the worlds 107th best guitarblog according to what some website recently said, I ought to fucking know) is around £380-£425 depending on condition, mines had a service from Hotrox and new JJ Tesla tubes, and has a newish footswitch, the 1960A 4 x 12 is clean apart from a small tear in the levant on the back, they go for around £200-250 used depending on cosmetic condition.

Bearing these factors in mind, I’d advertised the whole rig for £625 and figured I’d drop to £600 if I could smell the money. Mine is not immaculate, but y’know its not trashed either and has been on the whole looked after well.

After explaining that wasn’t really an acceptable price and I found the texters manner quite rude another text arrived

“I’m sorry Im only 16 and don’t have any more money”

“Well, start saving then”

“I’ve seen them elsewhere for £500″

“Really so go buy that one then” I replied

“they are too far away, the head is in Belfast and the cab is in Plymouth”

So after explaining the going rate of said items, this whippersnapper informs me of the fact he’s seen a TSL60 head on ebay for £300. He’s right there is one, but its a brochure photo and the seller has a rating of Zero, all the other TSL 60 heads for sale are £400 upwards as they are on Gumtree……….Hmmmm. If its too good to be true, it usually is as my mother used to say. I’d say its a scam, but my young friend is having none of it and chooses to look elsewhere.

I don’t know whether its the decline of educational standards or to blame the parents, but i’ve found that a lot of potential buyers and sellers on the used guitarkit market to not only be abrasive, but profoundly stupid to boot.

Accordsing to GAK and Coda (2 of the biggest dealers in the UK)

A new Marshall TSL60 is £741
A new Marshall 1960A 4 x 12 is £469

Thats £1210! so even though mines a decade old, Im not likely to let it go for nearly a third of its retail am I. Well not unless I need to buy crack rocks urgently…..and I don’t.

Add to this that VAT is rising to 20% in January, that ‘ll bump it up another £30, plus Marshall usually have a January price rise and I reckon you could see the new retail of said kit go to £1300.

So I’m staying put. I don’t need the cash, and to be frank I’d rather it sits there and rots away than be used by some ill mannered imbecile with no concept of politeness or even decency. If your gonna hagggle don’t take the piss. If this lad had gone up a bit, maybe we could have done a deal, but no he wanted to dictate terms and nothing could have fucked me off more.

I’ve been buying a lot of camera kit recently, most of it at a very reduced price, but when dealing with potential sellers, I’m always polite and never try to dictate terms. I’ve gotten some great bargains, but I’ve never taken the piss and considering i’ve paid about £900 less for my complete EOS system (2 lenses, DSLR Body, Speedlight & Transmitter) than the systems current retail prices. Manners do go a long way.

Ive been watching the TV series on BBC 2 “Im in a Rock and Roll band”.
It was entertaining fluff for a saturday night and I suppose if your
12 or an elderly person on the edge of death an insightful look at the
workings of a rock and roll band.

However as per the usual BBC/Guardian reading leftie peace and
vegetable rights left wing bias, the Guitarist episode was the kind of
cultural reworking chairman Mao would have been proud of.

From Hendrix to Blackmore to Lynrd Skynrd, the 70’s were lumped into
one big pot, no mention of fusion or the 70’s Jazz rock boom that
predated punk. No mention of Grunge either.

The entire school of Classic rock guitar post 1978 was referred to as
“American”. Of course guitar solo’s were seen as bad and male and
homoerotic in a wrong sinister kind of way by the BBC. Something male
and primal and… wrong…. but the best selling guitars of the 1980’s
world wide were Superstrat types beloved of guitarists who played
solo’s

Then theres the music, after punk lots of 80’s hit singles had guitar
solo’s on. Punk didn’t kill that as Mark Radcliffes salty voiceover seems to imply.

Michael Jacksons biggest records “Beat It” and “Dirty Diana” had
guitar work by Steve Lukather, Edward Van Halen, Steve Stevens etc. No
mention of the guitar solo’s popularity in 80’s music, long after punk
had died. Lionel Richies two biggest 80’s hits have guitar solo’s too.

The sole champion and arbiter of taste in all this anti guitar soloing
propoganda is yet again Johnny Marr!!!! No mention of other creative
guitarists of the time such as John McGeoch or Lu Edmonds or Jamie
West-Oram (who Johnny Marr rips of big style on the Modest Mouse
album), or even Billy Duffy, who started off as a post punk hero and
then went into the rock & roll cliche and enjoyed every minute of it.
How dare he, I imagine for the controller of the BBC it would be like
watching a gay man turn straight!

Perhaps the most sinister element of this programme is that you can
vote for your favourite musician as selected by the usual suspects. So
in effect, if you think your favourite guitar player is James from the
Manics, or favourite bass player is Bernard Edwards from Chic…..errr
Im sorry your not allowed to have a voice. Your allowed to vote for
Alex James from Blur (even though he stole his bass playing style from
John Taylor of Duran Duran who stole it from Bernard Edwards) and now
makes er cheese.

The biggest problem with British music and its lack of ambition in
recent years is the London centric cultural dominance of a few
journalists and DJ’s who have tightened the reign of what is
“acceptable” to be included in British music to such an extent, they
have strangled it. Thrown out the baby with the bathwater. Thats why
we ended up with the noughties genre of “landfill indie” and thats why
aside from heavy metal, the average british indie band guitarist plays
with the skill of a parapeliegic in a coma. These “industry experts”,
know nothing of passion, nothing of joy and the sooner this country
has a cultural purge of these individuals the better. I don’t need
Stuart Maconie or Mark Radcliffe to tell me about Rock guitar, the
fact that the BBC want them to tell me speaks volumes about its
agenda to close down debate on what is good, what is bad and what is
music. That for me is deeply sinister.

My First introduction to the world of Vintage guitars happened in the mid 1980’s. Guitarist magazine (back in the day when it wasn’t in the pockets of advertisers….actually gave some bad instrument reviews now and then and interviewed guitarists on merit rather than celebrity…..I mean come on…. fucking Lloyd Grossman!!!!!! Ahem) ran an article on Vintage and Rare in London. The article had some very sexy photos of some very desirable instruments, I could have happlily laminated my copy to put it bluntly.

The Vintage Electric guitar market as it was then concentrated on American Guitars build from 1950-68, basically before big corporations like CBS and Norlin got their teeth into Gibson and Fender. The market had originally spawned from a sizeable chunk of Rock musicians loathing 1970’s Fenders and Gibsons, and instead buying up old “secondhand” examples from the “Classic” era. Bernie Marsden of Whitesnake is one of these guys who plied his way across the 1970’s and early 80’s Wheeling and dealing, as is Steve Howe of Yes. Both men have considerable collections as does Dave Gilmour, Neal Schon, Steve Lukather, Warren De Martini….etc etc.

By the time the 1980’s had rolled by, the “Classic” era had truly become established. Gibson and Fender were reacting to the early Tokai copies of these instruments and we had seen the First Heritage Les Pauls and Fender American reissues along with their Japanese Squier counterparts. Vintage was in.

At this point in time a 1962 Strat would have cost you around £3000 from a Vintage dealer, but on the street probably a lot less. People were not quite wise to the value of these things pre Ebay and internet. My own driving instructor in 1987 offered me his 1963 Strat for £175 because it was looking a bit “beaten up”…in this era of relics and hand rolled fingerboards its almost comical to think he thought the guitar scruffy. I almost went to the cashpoint there and then but as Im a decent man.. relented and in a fit of honesty explained it was probably worth 20 times that. it was the right thing to do, but I do kinda wake up screaming every now and then.

Perhaps that sense of comical is now coming out for one delicious bite of the ironic cherry. Vintage guitar prices have outperfomed the Stock market almost consistantly for the last 20 years. Many pieces are now no longer played and live in bank vaults and investment portfolios.

However to a hardened cynic like me, I’ve always thought that prices had become silly once we started seeing badly put together firewood from the 1970’s going in West End dealerships for 4 figures. As the classic era stock became unaffordable, retailers were trying to sell us the shit we’d previously avoided as hidden gems.

When I was a lad a Fender Antigua Strat was a badly finished American Strat, with poor quality finish and fit seeping from its every pore. They were £250 worth of guitar on a good day, not £1800 and they were not as made as well as a Chinese Squier or Catalog guitar like a Westone Thunder 1. But in the UK in the 2000’s, they’d likely be bought by some skinny jeaned performing arts student who to be frank wouldn’t know any better. The careerist minded British indie musicians last priorities are pretty much tone, playability and quality….and Tarquin Rhodes-Deprice and his buddies in their BRIT school performing bands lapped them up. Making them fashionable.

The Truth That Dare Not Speak Its Name

The other strange irony of the Vintage guitar boom is this…there are actually more 1962 Strats in the world, than there were in 1962…..thats right…fakes….re-cut a headstock, wrap a body in bubble wrap and stick it in a freezer…let it crack…dip in cold tea for 2 weeks…gig burns….make some neck stamps. I did meet a guy at a party a few years ago who assures me that he built most of a certain Northern guitar shops vintage stock in the 1980’s out of Tokai reissues…..he might be lying, but to be honest….could you or I tell? He did have the originals to work from after all, so if one of these showed up now, how would you know. Theres always been ghostbuilders like Max and his infamous Les Pauls, but to be honest they probably play better than some of the originals anyway.

So what about originallity?

The most popular 3 guitar modifications of the late 1970’s were…

Brass Nuts: The Idea was that Mass = Sustain….look at John Sykes main les Paul…Brass nut…it went out of fashion, but for a year or 2, everyone had one.

Natural Finish….thats right, many of these ” Classic” instruments were stripped down to bare wood. Im pretty sure Ive seen Lowell George of Little Feat playing a natrual finished 1960’s Strat with a humbucker in it

Hot rodded pickups, Humbuckers: I once read somewhere that the Dimarzio Super Distortion pickup was the most popular modification for Fender Strats in 1978….anyone seen Dave Murray of iron Maidens black Strat for example. Thats right, he wasnt the only guy in England with an old Strat doing that most of them were hotrodding and chopping up fitting new pickups and tremelos….which begs the question.

Given the above information there should be loads of these guitars out there right, the vintage market would be flooded with non original instruments particulaly Fenders…….oh…there isn’t??????

When I walk around Denmark Street now much of what I see is Firewood. Snake Oil and misinformation….Ive seen late 80’s squier Strats labelled as JV era (1982-83) and a host of other guitars no one in their right mind would fucking touch labelled as “Collectable” “Classic” and “Rare”.

Some Firewood

Vintage and Rare have a couple of 1970’s Les Paul Deluxes in at the moment….and ok…people used them. Townsend, Scott Gorham and the like, but lets be honest, why buy a multilaminate fucking sandwich layered LP body thats had a new neck fitted for £1700, when you could buy a used recent reissue for about £1200 in the classified ads. It ll likely be better made and you could take the wife/girlfriend/care giver on a citybreak and maybe throw in a nice dinner too. To put it bluntly no one at Gibson in 1974 gave a shit about build quality until much later when Joel Dantzig at Hamer and Paul Reed Smith actually challenged the big two and perhaps scared them into action as they saw their market share shrink. Townsend trashed enough along the way so clearly even he wasn’t that bothered and his main guitar is a heavily modified 1989 Clapton Strat nowadays.

So given the anathema surrounding the Vintage Guitar market. I did find it interesting when I recieved an email today from Music Ground saying they had some Vintage pieces….Priced To Sell.

The Hightlights include

Please note this is another 59 335 for illustrative purposes only

1959 Sunburst Gibson ES335 for………a nudge under £16 Grand!

The last time I saw one of these it was in Cherry and they wanted close to £40K….even though this burst isnt as desirable thats still a £23K guitar on any good day.

Then there was a 56 Strat, immaculately clean for £16 Grand….didn’t they used to be £20K plus 2 years ago?

Granted the 1964 Strat they had was about £24 grand….but I do wonder, with Simon Cowells talent shows and corporate cover versions dominating the music industry….will future generations care enough about Vintage guitars to sustain such incredible pricing in the future?

Im as guilty as the next guy….my own rather meagre collection of pretty much uncollectable instruments are doing well with one guitar inparticular doubling its money….but hey Im a player….not a guy sticking them in a vault.

Other Collectables such as Wine and Camera’s seem to be doing ok, even in this digital age an old Leica M will cost you a fair bit…..if its the right model that is!

But as a final thought if the kids playing Guitar Hero never make it from plastic box to musical instrument. Will there be an adjustment the market never recovers from, or will it be the easy to fake Metal guitars from the early 1980’s that become the stock options of tomorrow?

Its been an interesting 12 months in guitarland in the UK, although VAT dropped down to 15% last year, if you wanted to buy a new guitar you’d think quite the opposite. The fluctuations in the worlds currency markets coupled with the big manafacturers own price increases has added about 25%+ onto the price of many desirable guitars, as guitars are now a measure of inflation in the Retail Price Index I’d wager that this has kinda contributed to the recent rise of inflation in the UK. Who’d have thought it eh?

When I last looked in 2008 the average dealer price in the UK for an American Deluxe Strat was £949.00…..now some dealers are selling old stock at that price …but for many shops the price is nearer £1100-1200.00 now.

Meanwhile American Standards seem to have gone up to about £849.00….considering they’ve been around £650-700 for the last few years thats quite a kicking your wallet would get if you bought new.

What I find curious is that Fender have now almost made the American Standard redundant. The introduction of the new American Special series has seen to that. Priced at a point between the Highway 1 budget US guitars and the American Standard, this is the Fender Ive been waiting for.

Essentially the American Special is a very canny move. The guitar is basically the upgraded version of the Highway 1 guitar, the SSH model has the modern C neck and Jumbo frets, the SSS model has a beefier 57 style neck with Jumbo fretwire coupled with nice gloss finishes (black/red/sunburts etc), hotter pickups (Fenders sublime Texas Specials as used in the Mark Knopfler sig guitar) and the H1’s 70’s style big headstock and logo.

Now Ive played a few Highway 1’s in my time and the neck is superb….the Super Jumbo frets make it such a fast and fluid guitar to play. I found it actually really enjoyable and Im not usually a fan of Fenders skinny modern ‘C’ shape neck believe me.

So great necks, great pickups: All the strat tones will be there as its got a vintage style bridge….so essentially….why on earth would anyone buy an American Standard?

If you want a modern Strat with a trad tone this is it. If you want more contemporary voicings….splash out another £300 and buy an American Deluxe.

Whats interesting is that there are now 2 ranges of US built budget guitars below an American Standard…but spend another £100-150 on a deluxe and you’d get better pickups, hardware, electronics and in some cases a roller nut and locking tuners.

So who on earth buys an American Standard Strat these days?

Thinking of my player friends who own US Standard Strats its interesting to see that a pattern soon emerges as to why they own them.

They were all birthday presents…..usually for landmark birthdays such as 21sts or 18ths or even 50ths!

Only one of the 5 guitarists I know with the Am Std Strat guitar bought it used, and they turned it into a test bed for some pickups they was trying out. So in effect the American Standard is really a “house” guitar….a guitar thats unlikely to be used in anger beyond the odd jam in someones living room.

But my problem is this….of the recent American Standard Strats Ive played since year 2000 none has really lifted my skirt. Its almost like they’ve taken the soul out and made a generic, flat and characterless version of a classic guitar. Its the “pasteurised Strat” one without any real spite… bite…. or character. The only people who gig these are called “Barry”……they’ll be in the function band at your local Walkabout, Miners Welfare, British Legion or Pontins. Barry wears a nice jacket and a bowtie with his American Standard and probably chats up teenage girls in the interval….y’know those fame hungry, doe eyed, puppy fat pleasure units with pushy avaricious showbiz type parents….the ones that talk about auditioning for some dreadful TV talent show but never make it beyond Karaoke once a year and whose only rock and roll experiences will amount to some foul sexual pecadillo on the nightshift at ASDA with the Grocery Manager during unpaid overtime……My God…..how wretched!

But back to the guitar…

In past times…people would buy an American Strat and upgrade it, change the pickups and often upgrade the frets etc…..now Fender are offering guitars with these upgrades already carried out for less money than the base model….I cannot see the point of anyone owning an American Standard anymore.

But in some ways I can see exactly what Fender are trying to do with the American Special.

Its priced at around £660 on the street that puts it squarely in competition with Fender Japans own domestic market guitars, these popular grey import guitars (which coincidentally often have Texas Specials fitted as standard pickups) have attracted many buyers. Two years ago the Yen used to be about Y200 to the GBP which meant for about £600 you could buy a really nice J-Craft 57 or 62 type Strat with a lovely glossy finish. Despite the likes of Ishibiashi being banned by Fender from selling new J-Craft guitars, thanks to Ebay and the internet there is still a thriving market of third party grey import dealers, who can get you anything from Fender Japans domestic market range.

However the Yen is nearer Y145 to the pound now, which has made the grey import guitars increasingly expensive and just not the bargains that they once were. Fender know the most popular price point for an electric guitar is around the £500-600 mark. But Fender also knows that despite the increasing popularity of its Mexican made guitars. Many players would rather go the extra yard and buy a US guitar or instead opt for the Kudos of increasingly cultish J-Craft Fenders (the likes of Music Ground in London and Leeds still bring the odd guitar in).

So in effect the American Special kills two birds with one stone…it plays the patriot card and keeps the US guitar affordable and also enables Fender to compete with its own competition from Japanese domestic market grey imports and ranges from Tokai and Levinson Blade also.

Above: A used Relic for £1100 on Gumtree

But to me Fenders product line is still a mess, given they make the same basic designs in 6 different countries now at price points between £150-£5000, everything is now about brand values and marketing terms. If one steps away from the hyperbole of a Parchment scratchplate or a “custom shop” design. What we have are simple classic guitar designs that were born for mass production and also modification

The increased gentrification of the Fender Custom Shop ( A Custom Shop that builds more guitars in a month than a real boutique builder like Suhr would do in a year) has only made choosing a Fender guitar a more complex task and in some cases, a financial minefield. If you look carefully (I did find a couple on Gumtree and Loot), its perfectly possible to buy a limited edition Fender US Custom Shop “Relic” Strat on the used market today for the price of a new American Deluxe….Yes not allrelics loose value, if you have a John English masterbuilt relic its probably doubled in value as John English is now sadly deceased, but for the average team built guitar?

Thats a depreciation of 50% on the Relic in just 4 years…and with ever more reissues and marketing strategies of the worlds most popular Electric Guitar. Fender are selling us the same thing over and over again, which begs the question…

Are Fender not now at the point of actually devaluing their own brand?

As Im not in a band at the mo, Ive been thinking about guitars and amps in a more frivilous way, Ive also been thinking about the guitars Ive always liked but never owned (and believe me thats quite a lot)

The PRS CE 24 was one of those guitars that by rights given my playing style & influences I ought to own. I had a quick look on the PRS website tonight….only to find out they have been discontinued for 2010……….Discontinued…..gone…….

But I remember them so well…

They came out in 1988 as the affordable PRS guitar. The first PRS with a bolt on neck, originally they were called the Classic Electric, but Peavey threatened to sue over the name (ironic really as Peavey have never made a classic design in their history). They had alder bodies to give them a more strat esq tone. The market was confused at first, so gradually they offered black faced headstocks so they looked more PRS, then maple tops, bird inlays etc and the guitar became established in the PRS line. The body was changed to Mahogany in 1995, although at one point I believe both wood choices were available. A 22 fret model became available from 1994.

The most famous user of the CE24 is probably Alex Lifeson of Rush who toured with a mixture of PRS models from the early 90’s through til 2004. Brian Forsyth from 90’s rockers Kix was also an endorser

But lots of other working players, gigging guys, people in cover bands alike and pro’s used them, they were the workingman’s PRS. The entry into the US made line….the PRS I could afford.

I guess I always liked the shape of PRS guitars since I saw Gary Moore use an early one on the “Wild Frontier” tour in 1987. When I eventually played a Custom 24 a few years later I thought the body was too thin and insubstantial.

But in 1991 there was a Classic Electric in metalflake red sitting in the window of Chas Foulds and son, it sat there for years. I tried it twice and liked it, but the price at the time was simply too high…..so the guitar sat there for another two years. A guy who lived in the street behind me bought it, I went to see his band…..he was running a top flight guitar into a nasty Yamaha multi FX unit (one of those infamous “Car Stereo” sized ones popular at the time) then into an old Burman Valve combo….it truly sounded awful.

So I forgot about the PRS CE until 1999 when I was offered one by a mate of a mate….of a mate…..in a dodgy pub….it was £400 and had been lent to a local punk band who’d duly beaten the shit out of it. Had it been a good colour I’d have said yes, but it was a green maple top one with an ornate flame…..I didnt know the guy selling it very well, assumed at that price it may have been hot and duly declined.

But then in 2005 PRS released the 20th Anniversary models and the did some mahogany bodied guitars with hot rod dupont style paintjobs. The CE24 in Blazing copper looked gorgeous

But at the time I was in telecaster heaven recording the Heroes’ debut album and had neither the funds or need for such a guitar.

Then a year later my nephew asks me to go with him to buy a Gibson Explorer and we walk out of the shop with a CE22 in Cherry Red. I spent some time with it and liked it.

But even now to players of perhaps my age PRS have that “Bank manager” guitar vibe about them. Something too pristine and not very rock n roll. PRS clearly get this too and have introduced the Mira in recent years, essentially a stripped down mahogany bodied guitar simillar to a Gibson SG. As the hedge fund managers dissapear and the baby boomers start to die off I guess PRS have to make something for the alternative nation. The Mira is nice enough and ironically I was offered one when I bought my SG last year, but again it was the wrong colour.

For now that remains the cheapest entry into owning a American made PRS, especially the new X’ version which substitutes basswood for mahogany (I know ridiculous….Basswood was good for 80’s Floyd type superstrats cos it was cheap light and easy to apply flashy paintjobs too, why oh why PRS are using it is a joke).

The CE appears to be destined for collectability, unless of course PRS start up production again, but to me there a guitar that made PRS a more affordable choice for the everyman player and they also managed to combine Fender like Clarity with a Gibson like fatness. For that they are an important model and if I ever find the right guitar in the right colour…..who knows I might get the wallet out. The Gumtree hunt starts here.