As mentioned on my Guitar Timeline Page I had been without a 'fun' electric guitar for a while. Having been through a major move I had only kept my Ibanez Jem 10th Anniversary Guitar and let go of the Samick Bass & Squier Strat I had at the time. The Jem is an awesome guitar, but I had already gotten some significant wear on the chrome pickups (quite common apparently) and some on the engraved pickguard as well. So I was trying to take good care of it and not beat it to hell playing on it all the time. Time to shop for something new!
I had been going through the catalogs I had laying around & looking online as well. What to get? How about a Les Paul this time around? ehmm 'maybe'...? but really again I felt no 'click' with one so back to the Fender camp as always :) Humbucker or Single Coil? My Jem has Humbuckers, so let's do traditional Single Coils. Budget? Nothing too crazy - so I was basically figuring on getting a Mexi-Strat - I just had to either order it online or go to the local insane-asylum ehmm I mean Guitar Center. I didn't really want to wait for weeks once I had the funds and I was somewhat curious about a Telecaster since I was listening to a lot of Jonny Lang at the time who was getting some VERY nice tones out of his. I always made the common assumption of it being a 'country' guitar, but obviously they are much more versatile than that.
So, I hate most local places like Guitar Center (from all the idiots playing powerchords as loud as they can to endless noodling, useless sales clerks, to the bag check on the way out...I really AVOID this place nowadays and instead shop at another much nicer store (and if happens to cost more there, so be it), but sometimes you gotta bite the big one, especially if you want to actually try out a guitar before you buy it. So I went there looking for possible a new black Strat or just maaaaaaaaaaaybe a black telecaster, but I was 99% certain I'd get a Black Strat - as long of course a they had one with a maple neck.
Walking into a guitar center is always a cringe-worthy experience in my book for the above mentioned reasons. This time I actually ended up NOT being pestered with 50000 "can I help you"'s from the sales staff and thus was able to try out a few Stratocasters. I didn't even bother plugging them in the crappy floor amps since to me I had to find one that felt right more than anything. Tone can be shaped by Strings, amps, pickups etc etc. Nothing really clicked, not to mention most of the guitars just look beat to hell already (looking around the store you can see why...).
I noticed a Wine-Red Telecaster hanging a little higher up out of the reach of the masses. It was missing the hat on the 3-position switch, but other then that it looks pretty good. After the sales guy was able to tear himself away from telling grandiose stories to his buddies he got it down for me and I tried it out. Feels... nice.... Little 'chunkier' than a Stratocaster obviously, but there's some kind of 'back-to-basics' feel about the telecasters body. The neck was your basic modern C-Shape, and maple naturally.. I noticed a slight scratch or chip on the polyurethane coating between 2 frets, but that didn't really bother me since I could always sand it out a bit with some steel wool or something. The Hard-Tail was actually a nice change from the Strat Tremolos
All in All, I actually LIKED this telecaster more than the strats they had... I looked around and saw a Black Telecaster as well, but this was one was just so different from anything else I had owned up to that point that it really felt like the guitar to get. The 'Too cool for you' sales guy forgot to find me a new switch top so I had to remind him of that yet again after getting all rung up. It didn't come with a gig back or anything (another reason I HATE buying guitars every Tom, Dick & Harry have had their dirty hands on - basically you're buying a floor model... i LIKE getting the original boxes etc) so they stuck it in a generic box from some other guitar just for transport. Ok All set to go.. oh wait of course not.. unpack everything again because at the door they have to make sure you're not stealing anything even though they SAW you get rung up 3 feet over.. Gotta make sure those serial numbers on the guitars match the ones on the receipt. At that point I basically already had made up my mind to NEVER go back here again.. Loved the guitar, but the experience/service , while maybe fine for teenagers who expect to be treated like that, is just not up to par..
This guitar really became my main guitar that is always out & ready to go. I would just play it for hours , even unplugged on the couch while watching TV etc. It sounded very nicely for the relatively cheap pickups that were in it and very clean. Over time I started to get the Mod-Itch though and changed a few things about the guitar as described in later Posts.
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