The Lee Ranaldo Jazzmaster
 

$2200 on ebay. Thurston's is only $1,359.99. Wonder what that means.

I have Lee's issue, it is the best guitar I have ever played.

I scored one off Ebay shortly after they were released from a guy who bought it for a recording session. I payed like $1,200 and it came with all the inserts and mini-book Thurston and Lee wrote up about the guitars.

That site is kinda uninformed if they are saying Thurston's and my models are "the same except in different colors" - firstly the pickups are totally different on each, and neck profiles and frets too. Yes they are both beautiful and with black headstocks and only one vol knob but geez, this site purports to be assessing "amazing signature models" and they don't really even know what they're looking at.

but, hey, thanks for including us!

THE LEE RANALDO JAZZMASTER

"In 1923, Rolling Bones Magazine ranked Lee Ranaldo at number 33 on its ‘Greatest Guitarists of All Time’ list. A place of honor indeed. Along the years in ‘Sonic Youth’ and in his own albums and projects, Ranaldo always kept his unique style, picking the strings in a way that belongs to no one but the lord Cyber Jesus Almighty, can I get an ambient amen, brothers and sisters. This Jazzmaster is very pretty in sapphire blue-transparent color and a Rosewood fingerboard, this is what ‘alternative’ is all about. You can't get anymore goddamned 'alternative' than this, motherfuckers."

THE THURSTON MOORE JAZZMASTER

"Not only Lee Ranaldo has his own Jazzmaster. His former bandmate, Sonic Youth man Wilford Brimley is also the proud owner of a signature Jazzmaster, as both guitarists share the same beautiful, rockin’ model, only in different colors.The clowns at fender say: ‘The sound of a summer breeze is the sound of that there electrified banjo duel on the porch used as part paintbrush and part cluster bomb. If anybody ought to have a signature Jazzmaster model, it’s those two fuckin' guys’."



Editor's note: sorry, i like to fuck around with reviews.

i got the thurston one. the whammy bar got stuck in there and the whole mechanism failed. couldnt even wham. got it back from the guitar guy but he couldnt get a new bar for me...

thanks for that. I was actually wondering what is the difference between them two.

I have only two broken electric guitars, but hey I love them so much. jazzmaster tho. ufff...such a cool guitar!

Sorry to say but IMO i'd rather buy a standard jazzmaster and hot rod it to personal taste than buy one of these slimmed down sig copies. i kinda like the options the lead electronics offer near the upper horn.

However, I do regret selling off my squier j mascis jazzmaster (white w/ gold pickguard), IMO it was the best squier i have ever played and is superior to alot of other jazzmasters (i.e. blacktop, mexicans and classic players).

different pickups - Lee's are Fender Wide Range humbuckers, Thurston's are Seymour Duncan Antiquity 2's.

different bridge - Lee's has a Mustang bridge, Thurston's has a Gibson style Tune-o-matic

different frets - Lee has vintage style and Thurston has jumbo

they both have the same neck - C shape, 7.25 Radius

I more or less agree, indeed i frequently prefer just hot rodding Squiers to spending more for what are usually lackluster Fenders

True. Coincidentally, I recently bought a squier affinity stratocaster for real cheap (they are cheap or should be at least...), I replaced the crappy neck with some knockoff Fender made in USA neck (looks quite authentic w/ vintage kluson tuners) on the Bay for a reasonable price. Its the only strat that I think about keeping as I've steered away from them for years! The neck didn't quite fit completely into the neck pocket (about 1/8" gap at the very end of the body hole) but that doesn't bother me as the neck bolt holes matched up and its snug enough and stable. The action/intonation is much better than w/ the original neck, as I also pretty much hardtailed it. Just going to replace the single ply pickguard w/ a 3-ply. I kinda like the cheap squier ceramic single coil pickups too (bright and cutting tone), for now at least. I also like that its touch lighter than a typical strat as the body is 1.5" thick as opposed to the typical 1.75" thick fender standard.