Smelly Guitars, Shady Deals & More

It’s time for some short random thoughts and amusing findings from the internet…

What happened here?

My friend sent me an ebay listing for a new, but relic’d guitar. This is the one:

I know a tiny bit about Nash and they make good quality stuff if my memory serves me right, but holy shit man. Imagine this were a real 60’s guitar in this condition. Who the hell owned that thing? I picture Andre the Giant taking his shirt off post-match and playing Fleetwood Mac songs on this thing. It would have to be someone that large and sweaty. Even knowing this is not “real” wear and tear, I would probably soak this thing in alcohol before playing it. It looks like it would smell like a nascar race in August.

Shady deals

A guitar blog I try to read regularly just really let me down. They recently published a guest post from the owner of a small accessory company. The title included “5 things you can learn…” so right away, you know it’s shitty. I don’t want to go too far with inside baseball, but basically these things are an ultra lame marketing trend that’s been going on for a while (technically a loooong while, back deep into print days, but in this format it’s only been a few years) where popular blogs get paid by companies to let them post there. It’s just like running an ad on a popular TV show, you’re buying into that audience. In this case, they do it in a way that’s not supposed to feel like an ad. It’s allegedly helpful or interesting, except it virtually never is. It’s nearly always 300 words of bullshit crapped out by a 22 year old making $11/hr. And it’s rarely disclosed that any sort of payment was made, which is illegal, but whatever. I just wish people would stick with running a few banner ads until we can find a better means of advertising on the web. Don’t hurt your credibility by posting absolute garbage that insults the intelligence of your readers.

If you haven’t seen this guy…

I have no real interest in acoustic blues. But I always watch this dude’s videos when he posts new ones. It’s often heavy on the persona, it’s usually light on the complexity, but he teaches stuff that’s different from 90% of the guitar how-to videos out there. He does it quick and has fun. I strongly recommend you subscribe!

Engineering project anyone?

There’s times I like the extra bass response provided by telecaster bridge pickups and wish I could get that out of my strat. But I wouldn’t want it all the time… I think it’d be better to just get a telecaster if that were the case. There’s a mod that folks have done that involves gluing a piece of metal to the backside of your strat bridge pickup. Some folks even sell plates ready made for this purpose. But, this is a fairly permanent change. It may take more routing than you’d want to do, but I’d be interested in having a tad extra space in the pickup cavity to where a plate like this could sit under the pickup, without coming in contact with it. Then have some sort of mechanical switch/lever to raise and lock it into place where it is contacting the pickup. Essentially an on/off for that telecaster sound. A lot of work for a really silly gimmick, but something that would be fun to do regardless.

I guess another option would be to make this mod permanent and add a high pass filter on a switch or some sort of active EQ. But that adds a lot of extra factors into the mix that probably aren’t desirable. Maybe I just need to have a tele available for when that mood strikes me? ¹

Small batch gear

On Reverb, my favorite filter is to show only “handmade” gear. It’s kind of a misnomer, as Reverb seems to intend it as a way to designate homemade gear instead. Or at least gear made by a person/company that doesn’t distribute to stores. It’s complicated to explain, but logical if you just look at it. A ton of what gets listed in there is just people who build guitars/amp/pedal kits and throw their name on it, but you find some really neat stuff as well. (heads up, click the photos below if you want to visit the auctions)

Like, a two mode stereo octave fuzz with a ton of LED use: