I laughed out loud. Fuck that's good.

And here I was thinking everybody wanted to be a singer like Lou Reed... Thanks for the mislead information Black Francis.

~Jeremy~

politics go so good with beer...

yea because i think the signature guitars should be super secret and only lou reed fans should pick it up. thats a good idea

any clue which issue of Filter magazine the zine will be included in? the whole thing should be going into the guitar/gear/tuning archive thingy i say!

i'll do my best! there may be some objection as it is a supplemental reward for purchasing a $1000+ guitar, but i'll definitely get as much of it incorporated as possible...

man, those axes look good!

okay, i see where the thread is going, T & L started off with cheap guitars and a heavy DIY ethic.. but they surely deserve the recognition for pioneering their own sound.. and this is exactly what this is: paying tribute..
my first guitar was a gift, and i smashed it because i didn't have patience to learn it.
my second guitar, i found it at my father's yard.. someone had just left it there and it was terribly messed up..
as i started playing i got my first "decent" guitar, which cost me somewhere around 250 dollars..
i don't know anything about modifications, but i do own 2 pairs of drumsticks - and guess where that idea came from?

so - the short story is, cheap guitars are always available.. having a cheap guitar should not ruin your fun.. if you got the money, you can spend it as you wish..
i'm planning to buy them both, once i get rich..
and i'll use the stickers on my other guitars and spray paint the crap out of them and hammer some nails into them or something..

in the meantime, i'll be envious of those guitars as i am of telecasters, and i'll be distorting the sound of my cheap and lovely guitar with random pedals and whatever i can get my hands on.....

My sentiments as well. I don't think it's a bad idea though, for either Fender of SY, but in general, finding your own sound is the idea. Aside from the projected response from SY fans/players, there's just as good a chance that these will get interest just for being great models as well.

I am happy for Thurston and Lee though and mega props for Fender to acknowledge them as iconic players. Of course there's so much more to their sound than guitars, but the last thing I'd want is a wave of bands attempting to sound like SY with new guitars.

J Mascis' sig. Jazzmaster sells for about $1270.00. So maybe the SY one's will sell for about that.

I noticed that Thurston was using his new signature model on the Fallon show performance. I don't remember Lee's, but it sticks out that Thurston was using his. I wonder if they'll play with those on this and all future shows / tours? Wonder if they're obligated too?

All and all though, for sure these are going to be some great sounding and playing guitars!

They started out with unfashionable, cheap guitars, which have now become cool and valuable... So like the Jazzmasters of the future will be, what, Yamaha Pacificas?

No, because the Jazzmasters of the 50s/60s/70s were well-built instruments made in the USA when Fender actually cared about quality, not cheap Asian superstrat knockoffs.

A few smaller builders have "economy" models in the sub-$1000 range, but for the most part, an American built guitar is going to be $1000+...I blame the unions...

ha ha fuck no please.

unsexy.

thanks for the tip esd.

i can't wait until 2014 when you guys are bidding grand$ on my pacifica auctions :)

not even kim could make a pacifica look cool!

http://maine.edu/~murph/SYCover.jpg

Hey GeneticKiss, care to elaborate on that?...

There was once a time where employers could get away with paying employees as little as they could and treat them like shit. So unions were formed to give employees a stronger voice in how things go.

Nowdays, there are laws and numerous organizations that make sure employees are paid well and treated fairly. But unions still exist, and they've gotten greedy. Whenever they don't feel like they're being paid enough (i.e. they just want more money), they go on strike. So to avoid this, employers pay them probably more than what they're worth, and the cost of labor keeps going higher and higher, and thus the price of goods goes higher and higher every year as well.

this pacifica

would make a better guitar than that pacifica. really.

here in europe they are 1890 EUR each. which is like $2700.

Holy shit that much?

unfortunately my messages get lost when i put links here. but, ... woodbrass . com offers those guitars. just search for thurston or ranaldo. ... there are some more online stores you can find via google. prices range between 1850 and 2000 Euros.

thats super expensive

Yeah that's a lot, but one has to admit that in general, guitar-wise, the best place to buy an instrument remains the US - choice, price, availability... Why pay 2000 - 2500 € for a new (ahem, signature) Jazzmaster when for $ US equivalent you can probably buy a decent vintage one. Is still a huge amount of cash to spend on an instrument, but given the choice I know what I'd prefer.

A friend of mine, a much greater SY fanatic than I would probably give his legs to even hold that damn guitar.

Very nice. Makes me wish I knew how to play.

so damn true.

Hey, Richie Rich, I mean GenticKiss, where have you been, say, from 1980 when Reagan started busting unions, to 2009, when Obama is forcing unions to give up benefits they were promised while he's giving Wall Street wheelbarrows full of money?

Do you even know anyone who is in a union? Have you ever had a job? Most people's wages in the US have remained stagnant or decreased, their benefits have been taken away, and their jobs shipped over seas.

Think about that when you are driving around your posh little suburb in the car your parents bought you for graduation from your prep school. Some of us actually have to work for a living.


At first, I though you were being sarcastic. Where do you live where unions are praised? I would like to see this place. Where I live, union are constantly vilified. Oh, like on this forum.


Do the unions design the cars? No.

The union's agreement is to build the cars that management tells them to build. American build quality is excellent. You just can not blame them when the designs are made to maximize profits, and not quality. Back when Detroit designed good cars, the unions built good cars. Now that they design crap cars, they make crap cars.

^Whoa, somebody likes to attack people without ANY knowledge of who they're attacking...are you a Teamster or something?

For the record, I'm currently working 2 jobs, and I've had a number of jobs in the past. And I am NOTHING CLOSE to rich. And I do know people in union jobs. THEY HAVE TO PAY FUCKING DUES TO WORK!!! You should get paid to work, not pay to work.

Around here, unions don't do much except whine about their wages and when contract renegotitation time comes up, talks usually fall through and they go on strike. We lost the Pittsburgh Press due to a strike and almost lost AK Steel too (or maybe it didn't go exactly like that, I don't remember).

As it pertains to what I was talking about earlier, I think it's ridiculous to have to pay half a year's worth of wages just so I can get an American made instrument, even a basic one. Gibson sells Les Paul Jr. reissues for thousands of dollars, whereas they were the equivalent of around $300 originally. That's absurd, considering the guitar's only got one pickup and a bridge that's difficult to palm mute on and is hard to intonate properly. Music Man used to sell an inexpensive version of the Silhoutte called the SUB 1. They saved on money by not contouring the guitar and using flat textured paint finishes. Unfortunately they ended up losing money on each one sold, so it was discontinued.

Welcome to the boards, tdbajus. Don't start off by flaming people, because it'll only make you look like a douche.

did you mean to say the revolution begins with a minimum wage job at the tail end of a giant, useless bureaucracy?


An LP Jr in 1954 sold for $120.

According to this inflation calculator: http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm

that is $846.56 in 2009.

An LP Standard in 1961 sold for $310.

That is $2,186 in 2009 dollars.



So, are you saying that guitar companies should sell you guitars below their cost, and somehow continue to operate? You are not choosing very good examples.

I would not attribute the prices of guitars to high wages, because the actual price of wages has been falling since Reagan gutted the middle class and started selling our country piecemeal to whoever would buy a chunk. Also, modern production methods have brought the manufacturing costs way down as well. Not many skilled laborers turn guitar necks on a lathe now.

Scarcity of good wood due to shortsighted wastage and not replanting?
Fewer people playing guitar, bringing the cost per unit up?
New, sane environmental regulation?
Good old corporate bottom line?

I think any reasonable person would blame these for high prices before labor unions. Is Fender even unionized?


Sorry, knee-jerk, right-wing selfishness gets my goat. It has also destroyed the middle class and set us on a path where soon the only jobs in America are going to be working for minumum wage in Walmart selling things made overseas by children whose wages per week can barely buy a can of Coke, or owning the Walmart.

But keep voting Republican!

Um, wrong again.

When Fender sold the company in 1965 to CBS, the immediately started to make changes to the manufacturing processes to increase revenue. The side effect of this was by the 70s came around, no one wanted to use fenders, because the build quality, in the interest of maximizing profits, had gone into the toilet.

Of course, there aren't that many Jazzmasters made in the 50s, because they weren't even introduced at NAMM until 1958.

So, Fender didn't make very many good Jazzmasters. Until now, of course, which is good news for us.

In the 80s, the only reason you played a guitar from the 70s is because you found the rare guitar that beat the odds and was actually a good neck on a good body with good electronics, or more likely, because you couldn't get your hands on one from the pre-CBS era. I remember the guys who were older than me who wouldn't even considered anything that wasn't manufactured 67 or 68.

Also, kids were trading in their fenders for the latest pointy-headstocked super strats and fridge sized midi-rigs. I have a friend who found his Mustang in a dumpster. Jazzmasters in the late 80s where about $300 because they were out of fashion.

Fortunately, I think the new jazzmasters are so nice, that I sold my old 1963 Jaguar for a pile of cash, because I wanted a newly manufactured jazzmaster.

Now all I have to do is finally find someone who is actually stocking the Thurston model.

^^I AM NOT A REPUBLICAN.

If your definition of liberal = anarchist with tinfoil hat to block the government spying on them, then you need to learn about people called "moderates".

Just like knee-jerk right-wing reactions get your goat, knee jerk left-wing reactions get mine. Marxism works on paper but not in the real world.

Something told me I shouldn't post what I did (whether or not I believe it), because I knew someone (like you) would show up sooner or later and call me a capitalist pig.

But, we're getting way off topic here...the bottom line is I've got my ideals and nothing anyone says here will change them.

I still think their old beaten Jazzmaster is 10 X nicer!

why does Thurston’s Jazzmaster come with a Tune-O-Matic and Lee’s with a Vintage bridge, when the first thing Thurston and Lee did was to replace them? You can see in nicfit’s photo that both are using Mastery Bridges. I think this is funny in a way .. having your own corporate signature guitar, and still keeping up the DIY-thing. .. hehehe

Thats true I see it. Weird, maybe because it was prototypes or something?
If they could decide how the guitars were made, its a bit weird to go for a bridge they don´t like isn´t?

There's no way Fender would use an aftermarket bridge on a signature Fender built guitar.

I wish these came with mastery bridges but those bridges run at $160 and would drive the price of the guitar up. Also MB cannot even keep up with their current orders so I doubt they would be able to fufill an order from Fender... yea it makes too much sense why they wouldn't be mastery bridges but I wish they were.

a friend asked me a question. maybe one of you can answer it?

Is the wide-range humbucker that is used in the Lee Renaldo signature Jazzmaster similar to the old vintage ones (made by Seth Lover), or is it simply a rebranded new humbucker?

I would assume that they are the same kind of humbuckers that Fender use in those '72 Telecaster Deluxe re-issues and other such Teles with humbuckers.

They are Fender RI Wide Range that are revoiced to Lee's specs to more closely match the originals

thanks. got this in the mail:
The Humbucker in the LR signature JazzBlaster is a re-voiced version of
Fender's current wide-range humbucker----so, it's NOT a vintage one
(obviously) but Fender has done their best to emulate the sound of the old
ones that are in use in Lee's current arsenal of 'blasters.