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Fender recently launched 2 US Custom Shop tribute edition Strats based on Dave Gilmours “legendary” Black Strat, the original guitar was a Stock 69 Strat bought from Manny’s in New York in 1970 and used on most of Pink Floyds classic albums. Atom Heart Mother/Dark Side of The Moon/ Wish You Were Here etc etc. Lots of people are excited about this, half of Future publishings editorial staff are wanking over a CD of ‘Atom Heart Mother’ even as I type. Gilmour has a new live album ‘Live in Gdansk’ to promote and sadly Rick Wright has passed away.

RIP rick.

It seems that the whole guitar fraternity are excited by this new arrival to Fenders range. I am a massive DG/Floyd fan, but somehow the hyperbole has vexed me. There are 2 models a New Old Stock guitar and a lovingly bashed up ‘Relic’ addition.

Personally I find the whole relic’ing guitars thing a bit pathetic, if you play live your guitar will get war wounds simply by gigging and being used. The dings and nicks are genuine and tell part of your guitars and therefore ultimately your story. The idea these scars are put on as part of a finishing process is as pathetic as it sounds and when guitarists disagree with me and say “oh but they feel played in” my reply is “BOLLOCKS you fucking girly dentist weekend warrior, get back to stealing my pension with your hedge fund!!!!”

Sorry…;) Rant almost over….

Basically if you strip away the marketing hype. This guitar is a US Custom shop 57 reissue with different pickups, a Callan shortened tremelo arm & block and a clever switch that gives you the neck and bridge positions together. Gilmours original is essentially now a bitsa thats had more surgery than the average Hollyoaks cast member. I had a peruse of (long time roadie) Phil Taylors book ‘The Black Strat’ in Waterstones the other day and the beast has had 3 different necks, several trems and more electronic things inserted into it than Jodie Marsh at an Ann Summers Party. It even had a Charvel neck and a Kahler trem at one point. Here it is hanging on the Hard Rock Cafe’s wall sometime in its history.

Somehow though the “legitimacy” of this model has kinda made people forget that they could easily doctor a black used 57 reissue (US or J-Craft) and simply shorten the trem arm themselves and buy some pickups to mount on their aftermarket black scratchplate. I’ve seen quite a few people already doing this and I for one think its great that with a few spares and imagination its possible to accurately replicate a guitar that a well heeled Floyd fan would pay a couple of grand for.

The irony of this signature model for me is that anyone who has seen DG live with Pink Floyd between 87 and 94 will know that his main guitar was not this (it was on loan rusting away in the hard rock cafe at the time), but a red secondhand early 80’s 57 reissue bought from Chandlers (the guitar was ex of Mick Ralph’s from Bad company I believe) and fitted with EMG pickups and a shortened trem arm. I saw Gilmour on the telly at Live Aid using this guitar with Brian Ferry, then on the telly again when Pink Floyd played Venice in the late 80’s and their ‘Earls Court’ residency in 1994.

Again this guitar has been widely copied by keen DG/Floyd enthusiasts for years. EMG actually make a Dave Gilmour DG20 signature pickup set complete on ready to mount scratchplate. I wonder how all those devotee’s with EMG powered 57 strat’s are feeling at the mo. Is it time for a respray and some pickups to be changed I wonder?

Don’t get me wrong, The Black guitar is of huge historical significance. But if your under 40 years old the guitar you most associate with Mr Gilmour is certainly not the black one. The fact that DG lent it to a Burger chain to hang on a wall for several years kinda makes me wonder if it was all that special anyway?

In typical cynical Jeztone style I wonder if this move towards a DG strat was not instigated by Dave Gilmour but by his Roadie Phil Taylor. Guitar techs to big name artists are increasingly powerful people who can act as a point man between artist and equipment manafacturer or Vintage guitar dealer. One of Metallica’s roadies has an Endorsement deal with Mesa Boogie…so I bet he welds some influence over the equipment choices of the bands he’s teching with for sure.

A DG signature based on the red one would have little in the way of difference to a stock Fender guitar, wheras the black instruments long running history of a test bed instrument for new hardware and pickups, makes it more of a Marketing mans dream. In addition it’s use on the classic Floyd albums of the 70’s also makes it sit nicely with the age group of the Doctors/Lawyers and other Baby Boomers with the money to spend £2k+ on a guitar they could replicate for less than half that amount.

In addition Dave Gilmour is the owner of a 1954 strat, serial number 0001. This guitar was used by Gilmour at the Stratpack 50th Anniversary a few years ago, while there is also claims this guitar is a bitsa, it is still the most iconic guitar in the Gilmour collection. Luckily Fender Japan make a very unofficial reproduction, basically a 57 reissue with Texas Specials and a gold adonized pickguard. A perusal of Ebay should get you one of these babies for around £550 quid, much cooler looking and far less common than a used red strat with EMG’s in ha ha!

While we are on the subject of Strats anyone who read my £500 strat challenge last year will probably be wondering if I ever did buy a guitar? Well the truth is…..after I went out and had a bit of an early 80’s nostalgia trip with my Ibanez Roadstar and Yamaha SG fetish. I’m back on the Strat trail and boy its a hard slog.

The reality is that finding a guitar to tick all my boxes is proving quite a challenge. The problem so far is that any guitar I buy will probably need some modifications in order to meet my needs as a player. Despite Fender making 150+ variations of the same guitar, nothing is quite hitting the mark yet.

Expect an update next month!

A few years ago I was in a band with 2 brothers, they were (and probably are) as dysfunctional as Liam & Noel Gallagher, but only in a thoroughly polite sensible introverted and repressed middle class way….no fights at airports or lines of Gak for these 2. You were more likely to get a discussion on Radio 4 or the literacy of Hong Kong action Cinema than a real punch on the nose.

The music wasn’t very british either instead their tastes were mainly the gothicy end of American Alt Rock. Their hero was Billy Corgan. The elder brother actually bought a Fender Strat because Billy played one. If you said the words “Smashing Pumpkins” they actually twitched almost as if….. aroused even…..scary. When I went to see A Perfect Circle at Nottingham’s Rock City a few years ago, it was with some amusement that I saw them corner James Iha in a pincer movement after the show and gave him some serious intense fan worship. Poor James Iha looked like he’d had the shit scared out of him (the younger brother is 6′ 5″ tall and dresses like Jason Bourne)

The bods at Fender have obviously worked out that theres a huge demand for a Billy Corgan Strat. They’ve also worked out that the average Pumpkins fan has not the high disposable income of Fenders usual poncey Custom Shop Artist guitar customers (ie:over 40, Household income of over £65k, 2 cars, 3 children; 2 privately educated etc etc) so for once this is actually an affordable American made guitar.

Fender have based the Corgan Strat on the entry level Highway one American series guitars. For your money you get a fixed bridge strat with a nitro finish body, modern C profile neck with 9.5″ radius board and 22 Jumbo Frets, which will really make playability excellent. The pickups in the neck and bridge are single coil sized blade humbuckers custom wound to Billy Corgan’s tastes, they seem based on the excellent Chopper series by Di Marzio, and the middle pickup is a stock Chopper humbucker. Having used a Di Marzio Chopper-T in my Fender Kotzen Telecaster for the last 4 years I can vouch for both their grunt and versatility.

The oversized 70’s style headstock completes the retro-modern vibe.

The biggest shock of this is the price, its cheaper than an American Standard strat,but has £210+ worth of high end pickups on it as stock. It comes with a tweed case ala a vintage reissue Strat. The rrp is £839, but on the street you could easily get one of these for £679.00 which is a lot of guitar for the money.

Mad Bad Billy has been using these guitars on tour and from what I can see has tried to make them affordable and also an instrument that would appeal to a broader church than the average Pumpkins fan. He may have succeded which is a testament to an artist actually getting involved in an instruments design. The Clapton Strat is another successful signature guitar, but idiosynchrasies such as the 50’s style 1 ply scratchplate and vintage style bridge have always put me off buying one.

If I’m gonna be critical….I dont like the fixed bridge. I would have liked a tremelo option and maybe the black/white colour scheme is a bit off putting for some but these are shockingly good value for money.

As regular Jeztone readers will know I’ve been looking to buy a Strat for some time and my £500 budget will go quite far for a used Strat on Ebay, but its still a secondhand guitar, so the chance to buy a new US strat with modern rock upgrades at this sort of price is very very tempting.

Downsides…if you want to play Robert Cray or Mark Knopfler tunes then this guitar is probably not for you, it will be a bit fatter sounding than an American Standard but if you play what the record store Fopp would describe as “Modern Alternative Rock”. and require a S-type guitar with more contemporary tones, great feel and classic looks, this guitar looks like a good place to start as any.

When I was a lad the 2 guitars that fascinated me the most were the Yamaha SG1000/2000 and the other was the Ibanez Roadstar. The Roadstar was Ibanez’s second attempt at an original design based loosely on the Fender Stratocaster. The earlier Blazer model was just a plain attempt, but with the Roadstar they really went to town.

By 1984 the design had evolved into a plethora of variations offering unlimited choices to the modern 1980’s player and boy people used them, a mainstay of the early 80’s working musician even some Pro’s like Steve Lukather had a signature model, Gary Moore,Gary Kemp from Spandau Ballet, Allan Holdsworth. No wonder Fender were on there knees. In Back to the Future, Michael J Fox’s character Marty McFly owned an Ibanez RS440. for an all American boy to be playing a Japanese guitar in a Hollywood movie really showed how successful the Roadstar had become.

In the mid 80’s the guitar to beat was not even Fender anymore. Charvel and Kramers S-type designs were being used by both 1980’s metal types and top session guitarists. Ibanez realised that the key was too offer an S-type guitar with a Floyd type trem.
By 1986 they had managed to secure a license to make the floyd and rechristened it the Edge trem.

As 1987 became 1988 Ibanez had secured the endorsement of Steve Vai and a host of other up and coming widdlers such as Paul Gilbert and Vinnie Moore, The Jem 777 and legendary RG series exploded on the scene and became the must have rock guitar of the day.
However 1986’s Ibanez Catalog is perhaps the most interesting. Stuck between the traditional and the widdly era’s one can see some interesting guitars evolve. The Proline
managed to bring together the Roadstar body and RG series headstock design with some really odd mini button pickup switching options.

The final incarnation of the Roadstar actually had RG model prefix’s and the first year of production the RG/Sabre/S series were branded under the Roadstar series in America only.

I’ve spent the last 6 months trying endless Strat type guitars and have been dissapointed, when in January I tried a Roadstar RG440 (like the blue guitar at the top of the page) it was a black one and besides the Floyd type trem it had an oil finished neck that was quite substantial, yet easy to play. However good old Denmark Street had priced it at around £300 yet it had the shit kicked out of it.

However a good guitar is always easy to track down and I’ve just bought a Roadstar RG440 off Ebay and its possibly the cleanest 22 year old guitar I have ever played. The pickups are nothing exceptional however the neck is……probably one of the best necks I’ve played, fast, yet with enough mass to dig in. I’d say it was more like the excellent Ibanez Joe Satriani Guitars in terms of feel and the floyd licensed Edge tremelo system is like new.

A few days after I bought the guitar I was contacted by a chap called Nigel who missed bidding and wanted to buy the guitar off me, I was tempted for a black one, but relented.
Nigel is 41 and plays in a covers band, owns lots of guitars, Fenders/Gibsons/Yamaha etc. However his main axe of choice is a black Roadstar RG440, he’s pretty much sold on the the 1986 incarnation of the Roadstar as the ultimate gigging S-type. Well made, easy to play with a great tremelo and above all….cheap as chips. He compares it to an early 80’s Charvel. I’ve never played one, but I did play a Musicman Luke (Steve Lukather’s current signature guitar) last year. The quality and feel of this Ibanez reminded me of a Musicman.

These guitars are seriously undervalued right now. A good clean 22-25 year old Roadstar can be had for around £180-£300. Thats less than a used Mexican Strat and a much much better made all round instrument that I suspect will increase in value.
As usual beware of guitars with knackered tremelo systems and hacked up bodies, also an unfinished neck is much more susceptable to damage and dirt. The Edge tremelo is still in production,so spares are plentiful however beware the 1983 pro rocker tremelo, it doesnt work well, also the pre floyd locking system popular on RS430/440 models from 1984 is impossible to find parts for, unless one gets lucky on Ebay.

A weekly scan of Ebay reveals a good 6-8 Roadstars on the market at any one time, usually 2 or 3 1986 RG models. If one wants to do the high performance tremelo equipped Superstrat guitar on a budget and own a future collectable to boot, there really is no better place to start.

Its been buzzing on the Guitarist magazine forums of late, due to a post concerning the new distribution arrangements of Gibson guitars. One posting was even taken down in whole by the moderators on there, so its clear that even the bods at Future publishing are scared of offending the US behemoth.

Gibsons mighty name had been in the shit in the 1980’s when basically a decline in quality coupled with them being out of fashion meant that flash bolt on neck widdle machines by the likes of Charvel/Jackson/Ibanez/Kramer ruled the roost. In the early 1980’s a Les Paul was as desirable as Herpes and not quite as freely available. I remember no one really stocking new ones in the 1980’s, especially outside of big cities.

But what goes around comes around & since the arrival of Slash on the guitar scene in 1987 and the arrival of new owner Henry Juszkiewicz at Gibson in 1988. Gibsons decline in fortunes since the 1980’s has been reversed in some style. Like Fender they are a mighty global concern owning and eating up their once nemisis’ of the 80’s Kramer, Steinberger, and Valley Arts

However unlike Fender who had brought in new managers and efficient Japanese style quality control to their American factorys. I’d say Gibson were just lucky that they came back into fashion and had to do nothing Quality Control wise and like all good global companies they have expanded their range of brands at every price point.

However from April longstanding UK distributor Rosetti will no longer be handling Gibson’s brands. Instead this falls unto the hands of Gibson Europe. The biggest change is how they supply guitars to stores and from what I can gather they’ve imposed a few restrictions that may contravene EU competiton laws as well as pretty much write off the chance of any smaller retailers selling Gibson guitars in general. According to a very nice chap on the Guitarist forums the following rules will now apply:

1:In order for a chain store to continue selling Gibsons they have to have £75,000 worth of Gibsons in each shop at all times.

2: This must make up 50% of their wall space.

As an example if Soundcontrol with 25 stores wanted to sell Gibson brand guitars, the total MINIMUM stock of Gibson product they must have at all times is £1,000,000 worth!

3: Gibson products must represent 20% of their turnover!!!

The numbers are scary, but I also imagine this will make Gibsons own highly unrealistic and excessive “Manafacturers Suggested Retail Price” a grim reality once and for all.
For the last 6 years the dealers have managed to give us the sub £1000 Les Paul Classic, wheras the MSRP is £1749 last time I looked, and we’ve got used to a Les Paul Standard being nearer £1500 rather than the £2000 it is on Rosetti’s books.

However I suspect those days are now gone, which will be a big blow to the bulk buyers such as Coda Music and Peter Cook’s guitar world who’ve always managed to price guitars way below some of the loftier chain stores.

However I suspect Gibsons own tactics to generate sales on their terms will backfire on them in the long run. The biggest winners will be people selling used Gibsons, but also the grey import market will thrive and once it does its impossible for the manafacturer to control,however they scare the retailers.

For example, despite a forced ban by Fender on sales of their Japanese made guitars to retail customers outside Japan (they even have a warning label on the Ishibashi website). A quick study of Ebay today found 52 new stock Japanese Fenders available & all at sensible prices. In addition there are numerous grey importers on the web who will furnish you with your J-Craft fender at an excellent price. Some are even keeping larger stocks of the more desirable models such as the Japanese Clapton Strat and Yngwie Malmsteen guitars.

In addition, with the global credit crunch looming, who are Gibson trying to kid? The Dad who wants to buy his kid the £380 Epiphone Les Paul, will probably baulk at it being £500 all of a sudden and simply go for one of the excellent Trev Wilkinson ‘Vintage’ brand guitars or god forbid a Korean Tokai. Which will all doubtless be better made and really all this scary stuff is about that at the end of the day.

Given that they now have a disclaimer on the back pages of their catalogs proclaiming that as Gibson guitars are handmade, their will be production inconsistencies from model to model. Perhaps Henry Juszkiewicz, the investment banker who owns Gibson ought to cease this madness & pull his fucking finger out and just make better guitars!

If the modern Les Paul was as consistent and as well made as the Yamaha SG1000 I recently bought perhaps I wouldnt haver sold my Les Paul in the first place, after all theres no cop out on the back of their catalog about production inconsistancies eh Henry ???

I was reading one of those free “Reverb” magazines that you get from Soundcontrol on a train today. When my eye was cast towards the Myspace/PRS guitars advertising campaign.

For those of you who havent seen this. In the United Kingdom PRS are asking guitarists to send in their pics and their bands myspace urls, the best of which will be put in PRS adverts across music media throughout 2007 and into 2008. From the looks of it lots of guitarists have responded to this.

Now you could argue that this is a good thing, PRS giving exposure to new bands/players etc… however I’m afraid its worked in reverse for me.

When I look at that ad, I see 2 types of guitarist

1: Young Lad in a metal band about 14 with his SE Tremonti or Santana pulling his best lead guitarists face, photo taken by mum/dad/care giver. Awwwww Bless him…..at least he’s not out on street corners kicking working class fathers to death.

2: The other sort of contender is older…wiser and erm…. what I’d call…er…theres no easy way to say this….

Muso Wanker!

Yes thats right, you know, the sort of guy who comes in with his band at your local 3-4 band indie night, tries to intimidate every other guitarist on the bill. Has top notch gear and at least 2 PRS guitars (one for spare right?). One of the band members will work in a music shop and the singer will be barechested onstage, the singer and bassist are usually the ones that have long hair, I dont know why…..it just is. They always take years to soundcheck too.

He will scoff at your guitar and remind you that he’s carrying 4 grands plus woth of guitars with him, he will not share amps or cabs and try and maintain a disctinct sense of superiority to any guitarist on the bill, even if they are better than him. He may walk up to your pedalboard…and sniff at it in a dismissive fashion. If he owns a distortion pedal it will always be a Keeley modified one.

Sounding familiar yet?????

The band will have usually managed a decent following, and can usually play, but musically will always be the kind of derivative sub Reef/Stereophonics type “Classic Rock”. Y’know that sort of crap that almost became fashionable after the Darkness first got famous. For this reason alone, they will never become bigger than local heroes to their mates in the local bars and usually struggle on the wider toilet circuit. They will also be angry at promoters as they usually bring a crowd and feel they are not respected and cast aside by the promoter giving attention to more….esoteric fayre.

These guys….theres one in every town, the PRS ad actually confirms that for us. Theres actually 2 or 3 in my town. I’ve seen their bands and….well…..its not pretty. PRS guitars are very very expensive in the UK, people used to call them “Dentists guitars” as it was only the well heeled middle class hobby player who could afford them. Now this advert doesnt have any of those guys in, instead we get much worse.

In a way this ad campaign has put me off PRS guitars. After my dissapointment at my Gibson Les Pauls performance. I’d been impressed with my nephews CE22 and then missing a set neck guitar with a pretty maple top. I was seriously considering a McCarty as a potential purchase in late 2008. However I feel that if I turned up at a gig with a PRS….people might think I’m y’know……one of them!

Back to the drawing board I’m afraid. Ooooooh the power of advertising!