Me On Tele

I posted a while back about looking to pick up a Fender Telecaster one of these days. Well sir, that day was Saturday.

I am now the proud owner of my first Fender guitar, a lovely four-year-old, black-and-white, American-made jobbie with a rosewood neck. This is her.

It's real nice. I'm kind of partial to rosewood fretboards, over maple ones, I guess just because I've only ever owned guitars with rosewood. The bridge pickup is a Seymour Duncan that I assume the previous owner had installed. It's pretty hot, in terms of output, almost like a humbucker, though it has that Tele snap to it. Only problem is, it's noticeably louder than the neck pickup. It's just that much hotter. So if I were to switch to the neck pickup, or the middle position, during a song, there would be a significant drop in volume. Not cool. I'll leave it as is for now, wanna see how it performs at our gig on the 26th, then I'll look into either replacing the Seymour Duncan with a normal Fender Tele bridge pickup, or maybe replacing the stock neck pickup with a Seymour Duncan Tele neck pickup, which would likely have a similar output as the bridge pickup.

I had had my eye on an incredible and purty pink paisley Telecaster that was for sale in the same store when I dropped in last Saturday. I picked it up out of curiosity, and man, did it ever feel nice! Some guitars just have a vibe to them, and this was one. It's a 1990's Japanese-made reissue of the discontinued 1969 model James Burton played with Elvis in the late-60s, early-70s. (I believe that picture is actually of Burton's, which features the older-style bridge. The reissues have newer, modern bridges.) Maple neck, but it felt pretty awesome to me. If it had been in the store when I returned yesterday, I may just have walked out of there with it instead of the one I bought. But, these pink paisley Teles are apparently hot commodities and well regarded by those in the know, and someone had snapped it up during the intervening week. It was even about $100 cheaper than mine. Oh well, I don't know if pink is my colour anyway, and I was a bit hesitant about making that my guitar. Seems like the kind of guitar you can justify playing only if you're a real hotshot guitar-slinger. I don't really see myself like that. I ain't no James Burton. Tim Burton, maybe. Still, if I ever see another one of those pink paisley Telecasters, I might just have to snap it up.

But I'm pretty happy to be a Tele owner. I feel bad for my Epiphone though. It's stood by me and served me well during my first forays into the world of live performance, and now it's relegated to back-up status. I'll probably still play it for certain songs that call for that fuller sound and the bite of humbuckers. Maybe for "The Fever" or for straight-up blues numbers like "Fed Up Blues", or maybe for "I Can't Dance" to conjure that Chuck Berry thing. Great to have two such different guitars though, to cover off different types of sounds and types of music. They complement each other well.

Sorry for the guitar-talk for those of you who aren't axe-inclined.