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About, bloody, time.
In my alter-ego persona as a mild-mannered, guitar-repair guy, about half of the times I get a call about a Jaguar, it’s someone with a stock model asking about modding it to make it all Cobainy.
Well now, they don’t need to. Fender have gone and done it already.
The Kurt Cobain signature Jaguar is a replica of the ’65 Jag that Cobain played with Nirvana. It’s been reliced too, to capture some of the original’s vibe.

As you’d expect, it’s got a pair of DiMarzio humbuckers shoved in there, with …

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This is my Fender Blues Deluxe amp.
It’s a beauty. I’ve had it for years and I love it. It’s full of Fender. Really, there’s so much Fender in here that it bursts out in sparkly loveliness whenever I plug in a Strat.
In fact, there’s too much Fender in here.
It’s too damn loud. It might be fine if I were placed it at one end of a football stadium and ran a really long lead to the other end but in my house it rattles the windows as soon as the …

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I don’t know why I think this is really cool. Perhaps it’s the geek in me getting impressed at what the guys in Fender’s R&D department have engineered here.
What they’ve done is to take a solid block of Lucite and hack it into the shape of an Esquire. That’s nothing too unusual. However, they also hollowed out the body to enable it be filled with water.
You see, this guitar is a being auctioned to benefit NASH2O, a charity helping out after the Nashville floods earlier this year. You’ve probably seen …

Bass, Featured »

Well that’s quite snazzy, isn’t it?
That’s the Fender Roger Waters Precision Bass and it’s now shipping. As you can see, it features a none-more-black body, pickguard, bridge and control hardware which I think looks great teamed with the maple neck and fingerboard. Very smart, indeed.
At first glance, the inclusion of chrome tuners is a little odd when all of the other hardware is black. It gives the bass sort of a ‘bitser’ look which may well be the point. Whatever the case, and possibly perversely, I quite like it. …

Featured, Opinion »

Ok, so this may be just me but since I read about it a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been thinking about it and being annoyed about it pretty regularly.
Guitarist, John 5 likes Telcasters, and why wouldn’t he? He has a couple of, really quite nice, signature models with Fender and their lower-budget sibling, Squier. I like the guitars a lot and even quite like John 5 himself.
If you haven’t already seen (and you may well have as this isn’t spanking new news), John 5 is selling his signature guitars …

CDs and DVDs, Featured »

Woah. Thanks to the Fender blog for bringing this baby to our attention.
The video below is a taster for a new, double-disk, DVD, Leo Fender’s Telecaster – The Original Twang. This documentary film looks at the 60 year history of the Tele and its antecedents, the Broadcaster, Esquire and No-Caster. Teles from way back in Leo Fender’s Fullerton up to current custom shop instruments feature.
There are interviews, and performances, from a mass of Tele players and lovers including Steve Cropper, Jeff Beck, Keith Richards, James Burton, Albert Lee, …

Competition, Featured »

With the Experience Hendrix Tour getting ready to hit to roads in March, Fender have snaffled tickets for six of the nineteen shows and are giving them away, the crazy bastards.
If you feel you’d like to watch, Billy Cox, Joe Satriani, Jonny Lang, Eric Johnson, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Brad Whitford, Doyle Bramhall II, Ernie Isley, Living Colour- Double Trouble’s Chris Layton, Los Lobos, Susan Tedeschi, Sacred Steel and Hubert Sumlin all do Hendrixy stuff, you need to get yourself over to Fender and enter the competition.
Fender have two tickets for each …

Featured, News »

That’s a Gibson logo over there but Gibson aren’t the only ones caught up in a series of legal actions that accuse Gibson themselves, Fender, Yamaha, Guitar Centre and the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) of meeting to agree price fixing arrangements. The plaintiffs in these cases claim the alleged cartel is in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
The industry association denies the charges but their attorney has declined to comment pending litigation.
Gibson, however, have commented.  This was published earlier today, 27th January.
Official Statement from Gibson Guitar Corp
01.27.2010
Gibson …

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Look closely.
See that?  That’s a rosewood bridge with an acoustic saddle on there.  But it looks like a Tele bridge.  If you’re going to make a hybrid-type guitar from a Tele, that’s a nice touch.
And that’s what this is.  The Acoustasonic Tele is fitted with a Fishman Aurasystem to allow realistic, acoustic tones from a Tele.  It’s also got a regular, magnetic neck pickup to give more traditional (electric) Tele sounds.
Cool, eh?

The magnetic pickup is a Custom Shop Twisted Tele single-coil.  Its controls are on the front plate as per …

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Fender have announced details of the 2010 American Special series of instruments.  Fender claim these are built ‘by the people, for the people’ and that they are ‘guitars for the times’.
US-built, the series, so far, includes the American Special Telecaster, Stratocaster and Stratocaster HSS.  They are touted as highly-affordable guitars within the reach of an entire spectrum of players that share many features with the Highway One and American Standard instruments.
All American Specials have alder bodies finished in urethane and buffed to a gloss.  All share a 9.5″-radius, maple neck …