The Right One

Only to be viewed with proper eye protection

I think I found the right one. Guitar, that is, and to be more specific,

Used (Look), Cheap (Relatively) and Good (Tone)

Reason # 17 guitars are better than women: They age beautifully (even if it's fake aging)

It was bound to happen. I finally fell prey to Fender’s relic craze. Mind you, I can’t justify spending thousands of Euros on a Custom Shop Heavy Relic model (though this looks good). In my mind, these are more collectors objects than instruments (though it would be cool to play one sometimes). As has been Fender’s stragety in recent years, the relic treatement has received a trickle-down in the model line, only it isn’t named thus. There’s the Road Worn series and the Road Worn Player series, and both show these imitated signs of wear and come in nitro lacquer. There are some other Fender signature models that sport a used look as well (like the Wayne Kramer “American Flag” Stratocaster), but they are painted in thick polyurethane. This is a significant distinction, the nitro laquer models have much more overtones and character. For once, this isn’t just advertisement blurb. Play one at your dealer, it is immediately apparent. You can even feel the body and neck vibrate more.
So, in the last few weeks I’ve been putting up my Baja Telecaster and my American Standard Strat for auction and getting a Road Worn Player Telecaster in black and a Strat from the same line in off-white. Both have had an astonishing amount of detail taken care of in the relicing process. It’s not just the rubbed-off patches on the body and the neck that you see in the photos, it goes down to the smoky smell and fingerprints (indelible, I don’t know how they did that!) on the Tele’s pickguard and grime in the Strat’s knob’s serrations (more in the Volume knob than in the Tone knobs!). Crazy attention to detail!

Dirty Tele, dirty tone (not that there's anything wrong with that!)

Soundwise, the Tele is full of character and combines the ususal bridge pickup with a Seymour Duncan humbucker pickup at the neck. So, in addition to the Tele Twang, you get fat, greasy but still seperate notes to rock out or lay grunge foundations. Oh, and the control panel is topsy-turvy!
In the Strat, the tone knobs control the middle and neck pickups, leaving the bridge pickup to be it’s undiminished jingly self. Play that one through stacked Fuzzes and distortion stompboxes, saturate your amp’s endstage and you’re gonna be heard!