Buy an electric guitar that I love

Less than an hour after writing my last post I swung by American Music in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood. Derek pulled this mid-80s Japanese made Fender Telecaster from behind the counter. It was the third guitar he showed me and I immediately loved it. It has a standard Fender humbucker up top and a single coil pickup near the bridge which usually translates into less jangle and more rock.

A guy named “JR” (we deduced this from the metal initials nailed to the cutaway) brought this in as part of a trade-in deal. I removed the JR initials and snapped a picture (note the remaining nail marks). According to the Derek, JR “played the shit out of this guitar” which explains the wear marks. Vintage wear marks are now re-created by Fender for their Relics series and yes people pay more for this. Think designer distressed jeans for the guitar world.

How much did I pay? $290 with tax and a new hard case. I feel like I won the lottery! I love this electric guitar.

I get worked up over instruments. I own 4 Fender Rhodes pianos, 3 synthesizers, a couple Leslie speakers, 3 guitars, various stomp boxes and I’m sure a few other instruments that I’m forgetting. And this is after an enormous purge of gear last year where I sold off 2 Hammond B3 organs, a third Leslie speaker, a couple additional Rhodes pianos I had lying around … you know, to get down to the “essentials”.

Now I’m looking for an electric guitar. My other goal partially morphed into this quest for a guitar that rocks.

Today I’m going to go look at guitars for a couple hours. This is actually a lot of fun. The ‘78 Fender Telecaster Custom interested me after playing one recently. I’d take it in any color or year from that general era.

By the way, I’ll be selling one of my beloved suitcase Fender Rhodes to pay for this—let me know if you’re interested.