Reviews »

Frenzied, manic, vigour. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis can teach the youngsters a few things about cramming massive helpings of angst and lust into a song and about filling a live set with sweat-drenched energy.
From the opening Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man, Cave alternated between leaping around the stage of Dublin’s Vicar Street and prowling it like some predatory lounge lizard. He is the Grinderman—all unbuttoned shirt and thrusting crotch, he looms over the front row, bending down, holding their hands, their heads, pulling them to him. Cave gives …

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, …

Featured, Workshop »

Gah! Broken strings. Who needs ’em?
I remember learning to play guitar as a poor teenager and seeking out music stores who sold single strings as I couldn’t afford to replace a whole set.  I remember winding extra turns unto my tuners and, when a string broke, carefully tying its ball-end onto the slack in the string so I could avoid having to buy even another single string.
While all of that may have been character-forming, it wasn’t much fun.  If only I’d known then about a relatively simple method of reducing the …

Featured, News »

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 …

Featured, News »

Squier have announced the introduction of two new versions of classic Telecaster guitars.
Say hello to the Squier Classic Vibe Telecaster Custom and the Classic Vibe Telecaster Thinline guitars.  Both are based on classic Tele designs from the ’60’s.
The Classic Vibe Thinline has a semi-hollow body, as you’d expect, but it’s made from mahogany .  The tinted lacuqer finish looks great and we’ve always loved the thinline pickguard – looks cool as far as we’re concerned – and this one is a snazzy mint green.
The Thinline has a maple neck with …

Featured, News »

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 …

Featured, News »

If you pop over to Fender’s UK site, you can register to win a Squier Telecaster that has been signed by a whole crapload of musicians.
All you need to do is enter your details at Fender and this could be yours. The winner will be picked on 4th of January.
All of the autographers (yeah, we know it’s not a word) are members of bands who performed at this year’s Reading Festival.
And there’s a lot of them.  The guitar is signed by:

Alexisonfire
Atreyu
Bring Me The Horizon
Deftones
Enter Shikari
Fightstar
Frank Turner
Funeral For A Friend
Glasvegas
Gossip
Hockey
Kids In …

Featured, News »

Fender has posted an interview with guitarist, John 5.
There can’t be many that are unfamiliar with John 5, if only from his work with Marilyn Manson.  He has, of course, worked with a shed-load of other artists and is lucky enough to have both a Fender and a Squier signature model (and both quite nice they are too).
You may not know, however, that he has a Fender Telecaster from every year they’ve been available except for ’57, ’58 and ’60.  Lucky bastard.
His favourite is a 1950 Broadcaster.
It’s a good interview …

Headline, How To, Workshop »

The 3-Saddle Intonation Problem
If you play a Telecaster with a 3-saddle bridge (like the one shown opposite), you may be aware that setting intonation on the instrument is a matter of compromise.  Because a single adjustment screw sets the intonation on two different strings at the same time, Telecaster intonation is really a matter of ‘balancing the differences’ and getting each string as close as possible without putting its partner string out by too much.
Move to a 6-saddle bridge
If this really bothers you, you can move to a 6-saddle bridge. …