The Smith Strat || 1982 Stratocaster || Guitar Series

This is the one that started it all for me.  My first true love of an electrical instrument.  It began one day about 14 years ago when I walked into The Starving Musician in Santa Clara.  I saw wall after wall of these Fender guitars.  Besides the paint job they all looked the same to me.  The only difference that my novice eye could see in them was the price tag.  They seemed to range from $200 to $2000.  Why?  I gauged that it was probably something to do with quality but I really wanted to find out what goes into making a good guitar.  Especially a classic.

Some easy definitions were where they were manufactured.  Overseas seemed to be cheaper.  Vintage american instruments got to an outrageous amount of money for an instrument.  More importantly as I searched deeper and deeper into peoples passion for stratocasters, I realized that there was this romantic love for this instrument.  Be it maybe the musical life cut short of Buddy Holly or seeing Clapton gravitate to them in mid-career, people loved them.  Then I started picking them up and understanding why they loved them.  They are like a fine wine or a fine woman.  They just feel right.  Leo Fender hit it out of the park when he designed his second solid body guitar in 1954.  The stratocaster has become as American as Baseball and Apple Pie.  And I wanted one.

Many trips to Starving Musican came that year back in 2001.  Their inventory always kept changing and they keep the shelves stocked with a good cross-section of instruments.  Then it happened.  The '82 stratocaster caught my eye.  The first thing I noticed about it as I grabbed to take it off the rack was how heavy it was.  It was a solid piece of machinery.  It appeared aged, but not worn.  I placed it on my knee and strummed a chord.  Everything just felt right.  It was the most solid piece of musical equipment I had ever felt.  Still being a novice I knew little about this guitar besides that it just felt right.  So after giving it an initial test run through an amp, I finished up my lunch break and went back to work.  Not before noting the first couple of digits in the serial number on the headstock.  E207....

Back at the desk I searched the internet for how to read Fender Serial Numbers.  The first two digits were the decade and the specific year it was made.  That would translate this one to 1982.  But what caught my eye beyond the serial dating was an article.  Somewhere out there on the internets, a fellow lover of the "smith strat" (as it became to be known) wrote about guitars made during the time that Dan Smith was hired as marketing manager for Fender.  The Fender Musical Company wanted to attract players back to their instruments.  They wanted the draw and allure that they had before Leo sold the Company to CBS in early 1965.  Dan Smith had the idea to not cut corners and to use the same materials and quality control that had gotten away from Fender by the big corporate purchase.  CBS was all about mass production and cutting costs.  They started building quality instruments again in this magical year of 1982.  They also had a revolutionary idea that year and a great marketing ploy to actually be able to charge more...they started the Vintage Series.  They built reissue '57 Strats and reissue '62 Strats.  Two key years in Stratocaster design.  They were able to phase out the high cost of the typical american series strat and get more money for it by saying it was a vintage reissue.  Brilliant.  But for one key year they built all instruments of quality.  Then the divisions began.  They shipped off product to japan for the low-end entry level guitars, continued making the mid-level "american series" along with the new high end "Vintage Reissue" series.

So out of sheer luck and the lack of lore that now bestows the '82 Smith Strats, I was able to pick up my baby for the cost (at the time) of a brand new American Series.  I thought it was quite a bargain back then.  She taught me how to play the electric guitar.  She taught me how to explores tones.  She was my Number 1 for a good 10 years.  I had many a good guitar.  And utilized many a different guitar onstage as well as record.  However, no guitar has been on more recordings or been played live more than my '82 Strat.  Her frets are wearing a little thin and her paint job is a little more chipped than when I got her, but she is still a beauty in my eyes.

They are still out there.  If you can find an '82 Strat in good condition for the price of a new Strat, my recommendation is at least plug her in and see how she sounds.  My bets are that you wont be disappointed.

And this is how it sounds....

Dreaming || 1984 Designer Series Gibson Flying V || Old Guitars

In september of 1984 I was a 12 year old kid taking a huge bite out of the guitar licks bellowing from the Scorpions newly released album, "Love at First Sting".  The dueling solos between Mattias Jabs and Rudolph Schenker filled my young head with dreams of someday being on stage wielding an axe nearly as cool as these guys.  I loved Matthias' explorer, but oh that flying V was the real dream.  Ever since I saw it sketched on Dave Fedorenko's book cover in math class the love affair began.

However years, responsibility, boredom, etc. got in the way and it took me until 2006 to finally think about getting a band together.  The Booty Chesterfield Trio played the circuit for several years.  My main axe at the beginning was a 1982 Smith Stratocaster by Fender.  It is still a sweet guitar, but not much of an attention grabber.  Around the end of 2009 I saw The Gillbillies play for the first time.  The first thing that struck me about these cats was how bad ass Jimbo was for rocking a Flying V.  The flame of my old (and almost forgotten) love was reignited.  I wanted to be like Jimbo.  I wanted to rock a Flying V.  But not just any V would do.  If there is one thing that I learned from The Gillbillies is that you have to have a different, unique approach.  So I wasn't just going to find an "off the shelf" V; I wanted something with style.

Months went by.  Then in February of 2010 I saw this beauty rear its ugly head on good old Craigslist.  A 1984 Designer Series Gibson Flying V.  I had to have it.  Plus, I thought it was a heck of a deal.  My main reason for acquiring it was kind of as a joke, i.e. to live out a childhood fantasy of rocking a Flying V on stage.  Then I got my hands on it....

I got it off some kid in N. San Jose's Japantown.  It was in decent shape.  At one time it had stickers all over it that had been removed still the clear coat has aged at different times.  The pickups had been switched out a long while back to Seymour Duncans.  There were no breaks or major chips and the neck felt good.  There were two missing volume knobs and a cracked tone knob.  After a quick test run I quickly paid the chap his cash and headed home for a true test drive.

The first thing I noticed was how good the pickups sounded.  I had a Classic Les Paul before with 500t & 496r pickups in it and it sounded like golden ringing compared to my LP (which I soon traded away).  The neck also was super fast and played awesome.  I replaced the volume and tone knobs with some old jaguar ones and we were off to the races.  I played this guitar as my main stage axe for all of 2009 and pretty much all of the rest of the Booty Chesterfield Trio shows.  I don't ever plan on selling this bad boy.  Too cool for school, plus it has a little bit of my childhood metal roots embedded within those licks it puts out.  Enjoy the pictures.

And here are a couple of videos of the V in action:

Live shots are courtesy of Ian Healy & Murray Bowles

Giving Birth to The Gillbillies || 1978 Les Paul Custom || Old Guitars

Isn't she a beauty?  I mean who has ever seen a custom colored orange Les Paul?  Not I.  There is some really history behind this babe.  If you have ever seen or heard The Gillbillies you know that they are an instrumental act that focuses on the melodic rhythms often found in the 60s era surf music...but with a twist.  They are heavy.  They have a sound all to their own.  And this guitar played a vital role in shaping the way of The Gillbillies ever so sweet tone.

Seeing The Gillbillies "live & in person" is an experience in itself.  When talking Gillbillies and guitars you would think that I would writing about one of the Flying V's with Bigsby's (a la Lonnie Mack) that many have seen Jimbo playing out and about the Bay Area.  But as Jimbo put it, this is the guitar that gave birth to the Gillbillie sound.  "We decided to try an instrumental surf guitar sound and this was the only guitar I had with a tremolo."  Hence, the Gillbillies were born.

But there is a lot more to this story.  I had seen and admired this guitar being played for quite some time.  One day after a jam with Jimbo and Nick I got the real story behind the Orange Custom Les Paul.  He had spotted this unique instrument while perusing through the online auction house, eBay (as many of us do who are addicted to the instrument known as the guitar).  He checked on the end date and made a mental note to check on it before the auction ended.  Life got busy and the auction slipped his mind.  Luckily it had ended with out a sale.  He sent an email to the seller and asked if he could buy it.  A week later he got a reply, "If they don't sell, I get rid of them write away."  Jimbo inquired if he could have the dealer's contact info that the guitar was sold to because he really wanted it.  "I'll see what I can do." Another week goes by and he finally gets the contact info of the dealer.  He calls the dealer and he is told that he sold it a few weeks ago to a music shop in Hollywood (the town of flashy guitars).  He asks for the shops info....and the wait continues.  On a Sunday night an email comes with the name, address and phone number of the Hollywood shop.  Jimbo sets his alarm to call the shop first thing when it opens on Monday morning.  11:05am monday morning rolls around...

Ring, ring...
Music shop employee: How can I help you?
Jimbo:  I was wondering if you have a certain guitar in your shop.  You will know if right away once I described it to you.  It is a 1978 Orange Gibson Les Paul Custom with Bigsby tailpiece.
Music shop employee: Are you shitting me?  I literally just hung that guitar on the wall right before we opened.
Jimbo: Please take it off the wall and run this credit card number.  I want it.
Music shop employee:  Ah man, one of my co-workers is going to be soooo pissed!  He loves that guitar.  Unfortunately he is over-extended on his store credit and the owner won't let him have any more.  He is going to be pissed.


Soon after it was shipped up to Jimbo.  The only change that the shop made on it was removing the floating wooden bridge and replacing with the current adjustable one.  He did find out that this Les Paul Custom originally came out of the factory polaris white with all nickel hardware (tuners have been updated).  Soon after it's first birthday it was painted the beautiful color orange it now possesses along with the addition of the bigsby.  The the sound is to die for.  But for now just feast your eyes of a few pictures of this rare gem.

And here is a little taste of that tone she puts out....

What Happens to Pickle's First Love? || '82 CAR Fender Stratocaster '62 reissue || Old Guitars

I love old guitars. New guitars have no soul...yet. But old guitars tell stories. They tell tales of old smoke-filled dive bars with remnants of beer splattering encased in between rusty screws and beat up pick ups. They have performed. And that is the reason why we love instruments so much; it is in their performance. So give me the most beat up ugly guitar and that is a guitar that has been truly loved by an owner. It is the 30 year old guitars in pristine condition that scare me. If that guitar sat around and wasn't played, that's telling me something. That is the story of a guitar that never found the right tone for someone.

This brings me to Sweet Pickle's (aka Mr. Laflen to some, key axe wielder in Them Slack Jawed Sons of Bitches as well as life-long member of The Ex-Old Ladies) 1982 Candy Apple Red AVRI '62 Stratocaster. No one sees this guitar much lately, but I am lucky enough to currently have it on loan and in my possession. For that reason I decided to snap some pictures of this beauty and tell it's tale via Sweet P.

This guitar, 1982 Candy apple red Fullerton reissue strat, was my main axe with my old bands in the 90's, The Lowdown(funk-rock) , Big Joe(alt-country), the Money Shot and SpaceFish(hippy Jam band). I have some great pics somewhere.

So I purchased this guitar somewhere in the mid-90's. A time I refer to when I was in Tucson as 'the lost weekend'.

I had a fullerton black maple necked reissue stolen from my house in the Sam Hughes district near the University of AZ. I loved that guitar and I was crushed to come home and find it missing. My band practiced in the house so it was easy for the wolves to figure out there was an electric guitar to be had. I came home to find the input jack of the guitar still attached to the cord meaning they grabbed my guitar and literally ran out the back door with it. The only thing left was the jack of the guitar as a memory of my own blackie. No insurance. So... I looked in our weekly paper and in the newspaper and found a Red reissue strat for sale for 550 bucks. The guy was freshly married and clearly on a new path. He pulled the perfect condition strat literally from under the bed where it was stored. I played it and new it'd be the one. I think I ended up paying 500 but can't recall. We were both happy with the deal. I still do not recall how I got the money for this guitar back then as I was as poor as everyone else with pickup jobs and par-time work while I was going to school.

I primarily used this guitar with a 4-10 bassman, vintage rat pedal, cs-9 chorus and Boss DD-2 delay. It served me well and the neck pickup is amazing.

That is the story on this beauty, now let's look at some pictures of this true relic.  And next time, you see him on stage make sure to ask Pickle where the hell is the red strat!